I’ve been having fun with AI as of late. I use it to code, and help me with other complex tasks. Though, it tends to make a lot of mistakes, you CANNOT rely on it all the time. That’s dangerous. But today, here’s a nice fun story…

“The Almost-There Cookies”

Every December, Aunt Liora baked the Almost-There Cookies—not because she remembered the recipe (she claimed it came to her in a dream), but because the world, she said, needed a little “almost magic.”

They looked ordinary: golden-edged, crackled on top, flecked with vanilla and a whisper of lavender. But the moment you bit in—oh.

The kitchen dissolved.

One man tasted his cookie and found himself on a hillside at dawn, where trees hummed in harmony and rivers ran upward in shimmering silver ribbons. He reached for a flower that bloomed in seven colors at once—just as its petals began to unfold, the scent like laughter and starlight—he felt the crunch of the cookie finish… and blinked.

He was back. Standing by the stove. Crumb on his lip.

A girl, eight years old, bit hers and stepped into a city of glass towers that sang when the wind passed through them. She was about to climb a staircase of light that spiraled into a sky full of floating gardens—when the last crumb vanished. She opened her eyes. Her mittens were still drying on the radiator.

Even old Mr. Fenwick, who hadn’t smiled since his wife passed, closed his eyes as flavor bloomed on his tongue—and for a breath, he was walking a shoreline where the waves whispered her name in his voice, and the sand glittered with tiny, warm memories. He reached for her hand—just there, just within reach—when the sweetness faded.

He opened his eyes. Tears on his cheeks. Cookie plate empty.

Aunt Liora never explained how the cookies worked. She only smiled and said, “Magic doesn’t have to last to be true. Sometimes the almost is what wakes us up.”

And so, each year, people came—not for the miracle, but for the moment just before it slips away: that breath of wonder, that heart-stretch of longing, that quiet certainty that beauty exists, even if only for the length of a chew.

Because sometimes, standing alone in a warm kitchen with crumbs on your fingers and a sigh in your chest…
you remember how to hope again.

And really—that’s the sweetest magic of all.

Today…

Millions of Americans Are Leaving and Realizing the USA Isn’t Normal

What was the weirdest question you’ve been asked at a job interview?

I call this “The interview from hell.”

I was interviewing for a position as a software engineering manager at a local company. The last step of the process was to interview with CEO & CTO (together).

During the interview the CEO kept asking me electronics & electrical questions similar to circuit analysis and hardware design. I kept thinking, “Does he know I am a software engineer and not an EE?”

After about an hour of me stumbling to answer and trying to explain that my background wasn’t EE, he switched subjects and decided to ask about project & product development. I thought “Wow, glad that is over, but I don’t think I am getting this job. Just keep pushing on until this is over.”

He asked me to design an automated trashcan lid opener. I asked him for the requirements.

He said, “You don’t need requirements, just design it.”

I said, “Do you want it mechanical, foot activated; a light sensor and motor; hydraulics; how fast does it need to open or close; safety interlocks,..”

He said, “Just design it.”

I said, “I need to know what you want.”

We went around like this a few times.

Then he switched tacks. He started telling me a story about his service in the Navy in WWII. He was a medical corpsman in a shore hospital and he began to describe his service in the VD ward. Then he asked me to design “an automated pecker checker.”

At this, I got up, put on my coat and said, “Thank you for taking the time to interview me, but I don’t think I am the candidate you are looking for.”

I started to walk out. He tried to stop me, at which time I repeated my previous statement. He apologized and he and the CTO asked me to stay a little longer. He chatted about salary, bonus, benefits,… The entire time I am thinking, “I just want to leave.” Finally, after about 15 minutes it was over and I was out.

I got home and latter that evening and I got a call from HR at this company saying they wanted to offer me the job. I had two job offers, one from “The interview from hell” company and one from Company B. “Interview from hell” was about $10k more than company B. I accepted company B.

SADDEST Police Moments Captured On Bodycam

How does the Chinese public’s opinion on Taiwan differ from the Chinese government’s official stance on Taiwan?

The opinions of ordinary citizens can be disregarded because they are not involved in the formulation of military strategy.

Let me tell you, the main hawks in mainland China are the colonels and senior colonels in the PLA—the young and ambitious officers.

For these officers, promotion to general is just one step away, requiring only an opportunity. But most never get that chance and retire as colonels or senior colonels.

Napoleon once said，”He is a bad soldier who doesn’t dream of becoming a general.”

Would you rather be a leader or a common member in a certain group?

Becoming a general is the lifelong dream of a career soldier. Who wouldn’t want to be a general?

If the mainland were to use force to unify Taiwan, it would provide them with an excellent opportunity. Only by participating in combat will they have the opportunity for rapid promotion.

Before Japan’s invasion of China, the military was controlled by Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, an old-school dove on China policy. But he blocked the path of the young officers, so they assassinated him. Subsequently, the Japanese military came under the complete control of young officers, which ultimately led to Japan’s invasion of China.

As time goes by, the older generation on the mainland gradually passes away, and fewer and fewer mainlanders regard Taiwanese people as family!

Therefore, while the older generation on the mainland is still alive and there remains an opportunity for peaceful reunification across the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan can still secure favorable negotiating terms. Once these elders have all passed away, Taiwan will face the most unfavorable circumstances, and the Taiwanese will lose their opportunity to choose.

Taiwanese people should seriously consider what is truly in Taiwan’s best interests.

Evil Mom Realizes She Cooked Her 2 Babies Alive

These gals are way too much! Trailer Park trash.

What began as a frantic 911 call turned into one of the most disturbing interrogations ever recorded. Two parents, two versions of the truth, and one unbearable temperature reading that changed everything. Detectives listen. The cameras roll. The room gets hotter. Watch how calm stories collapse under pressure — and how tragedy reveals itself, piece by piece.

Pictures

Which is more powerful: a train or an airplane engine?

Lol this is not even close.

Before we get into actual numbers, think.. a train’s motors just help the train propel on rails. A plane.’s turbofan engine has enough power to lift a plane off the ground and travel at 800–900 kmph . I will let you figure out which one is more powerful.

Having said that, here are some real world numbers.

This is the Rolls Royce Trent XWB-97. Two of these are preferred engine choices on a A350–1000.

With 68 high pressure turbine blades per engine, it can produce over 50000 hp at takeoff with 97000 lbs of thrust.

This is the Tokkaido Shinkansen which operates at 320 kmph max speed and this is the N700s series Shinkansen.

56 AC Induction motors power this train each capable of producing 305 KW or approximately 400 hp per motor and a total of a little over 17.1 MW or 22900 hp from all the 56 motors, spaced out on each axle.

So as you can see, a single Trent XWB-97 produces more than twice the power of the entire power output of a Tokkaido Shinkansen N700s series train at takeoff. Two of those are on each A350–1000.

Killer Thinks He Got Away, Doesn’t Know One Victim is Still Alive

What did the job interviewer say that made you NOT accept the job offer?

This is slightly different in that I DID accept the job, but quit on my first day.

I was unemployed and a new father and was desperate for a job. Even though I have a postgraduate degree, I couldn’t seem to get even an interview anywhere. I was willing to do anything that paid a wage, but wasn’t getting interviews, let alone a job.

I eventually got an interview for a crappy sales job. I didn’t want to work there but I needed the money and at least they would interview me.

I turned up in my nicest suit and tried really hard to make a good impression. There were quite a few of us, and it was a group interview. Before the interview started, we were all sitting making polite small talk, apart from one really arrogant guy who was talking way too loudly, and kept saying offensive and racist things.

When the interview started, this same guy dominated the interview and came across really badly. Then his mobile phone rang, and he left the interview for about twenty minutes to talk on it. I remember thinking: “at least he won’t get the job.” I knew my chances had slightly increased. We were told we could make good money in the job very quickly.

When the interview finished, I went home, and a few hours later I got a call to say I had got the job. I was really delighted. I had an alcoholic drink to celebrate as I hadn’t been in work for a while and couldn’t afford alcohol.

When I went in for my first day, I saw every single person that had been in the interview that day also starting. This, incredibly, included the racist guy who had answered his phone. My heart sunk. I knew then that the interview had been a sham. The good money we had been promised was all commission – based. The job was cold-calling, and if you didn’t make sales you didn’t get paid. That’s why they hired literally everyone that applied. They had no reason not to.

When I saw that guy who I knew no self-respecting company would employ, I knew I would not work there, even before finding out the truth about the pay. I left after an hour and went home. I then kept applying, and started a real job a few weeks later.

Stuffed Meat Loaf
(Kibby Bil Sanieh)

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

Meat Loaf

• 1 1/2 cups bulgur (cracked wheat)
• 1 pound ground lamb or beef
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• Stuffing
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

Stuffing

• 1/4 pound ground lamb or beef
• 1 small onion, minced
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Dash of ground nutmeg

Instructions

1. Cover bulgur with cold water; let stand for 10 minutes. Drain; press bulgur to remove excess water.
2. Mix lamb, onion, salt and pepper; add bulgur. Knead until well mixed.
3. Prepare Stuffing: Cook and stir all ingredients until lamb is light brown, about 5 minutes.
4. Press half the lamb-bulgur mixture evenly in an ungreased 8 inch square pan. Cover with Stuffing; spread remaining lamb-bulgur mixture evenly over stuffing. Cut diagonal lines across top to make diamond pattern. Pour butter over meat loaf.
5. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees F until brown, about 40 minutes.
6. Cut into diamond shapes; serve hot or cold.

Who know world history or Chinese history? Why some people say, if look at whole history, Chinese were actually better warriors than the Mongols?

China, often referred to as the “Rome of the East,” enjoyed a significantly longer period of peak strength than Mongolia.

Even today, the CCP-controlled China possesses the only military capable of rivaling the US.

Mongolia, while perhaps having the best period of peak strength, experienced a much shorter duration of its peak compared to the Chinese military.

It depends on your perspective. If only consider peak performance, the Mongol Empire’s military achievements clearly surpassed any great dynasty in Chinese history (including the Han and Tang dynasties).

if extend the timeframe to 2000 years, the Chinese were indeed better warriors than the so-called Mongols.

From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Ming dynasty and CCP china now, the Chinese did indeed build many powerful armies. They were among the most powerful armies in the world at the time.

The Han dynasty defeated the Xiongnu nomadic empire, the Tang dynasty conquered the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganates, and the early Ming dynasty was extremely powerful, not only driving out the Mongols but also repeatedly invading the Mongolian steppes and even burning down the Mongol capital, Karakorum.

Unlike settled civilizations, nomadic tribes were not settled and lack detailed written records. Currently, the earliest historical record of the Mongols appears in China during the Tang dynasty.

By the Song dynasty, the ancestors of the Mongols had been mistreated by the Jurchens, after which Genghis Khan was born and established a superpower. His descendants destroyed the Jin dynasty established by the Jurchens, including the Song dynasty which later conquered the Chinese.

As I said before, considering only peak performance, the Mongol Empire was stronger than any Chinese dynasty.

However, China, often referred to as the “Rome of the East,” also boasts a long and powerful history of warfare.

During the Han Dynasty, before the formal emergence of the Mongols, the Chinese had already established a world-class empire, covering approximately 6.1 million square kilometers, even larger than the Roman Empire of the same period. The Chinese expanded and invaded in four directions simultaneously, reaching present-day southern China, the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, Central Asia (Xinjiang), and Mongolia. Their most powerful adversary was the Xiongnu Empire, which was ultimately defeated and forced to flee by the Han Dynasty.

The Tang followed, marking China’s second golden age. At its peak, the empire expanded to 12-14 million square kilometers, even reaching the Aral Sea… The Tang Dynasty was extremely powerful at its zenith, defeating all rivals it could, at least before the famous An Lushan Rebellion. The powerful Turkic Khaganate was completely conquered by the Chinese; both the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganates were defeated by Tang armies, and their khans were captured alive. The two kingdoms of Goguryeo and Baekje on the Korean Peninsula were also destroyed, and Silla submitted to the Tang.

During the Song , China was conquered by the Mongols. However, the Song actually performed better than many people imagine, resisting the Mongols for 50 years. In fact, by the middle of the war, the Mongol army outnumbered the Chinese dynasty.

After that came the Ming, which drove out the Mongols. The early Ming Dynasty was very powerful, not only destroying the Yuan Dynasty (Mongol) rule but also repeatedly invading the grasslands and burning down the Mongol capital.

Over approximately 270 years, the Mongols and the Ming fought about 600 wars. The Ming Dynasty’s victory rate was about 63%, initially overwhelming the Mongols, but weakening significantly in the later period, with its victory rate gradually declining. After the Ming Dynasty’s demise due to internal strife, the Qing Dynasty, ruled by the Manchus, came into being.

The armies of the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are significantly stronger than the Mongol armies. Is the current CCP army the most powerful army in the world? (Only the US can single-handedly defeat them.)

Reefer Madness

Written in response to: “Center your story around a character who can’t tell the difference between their dreams and reality.“

William Reinert

Liam bowed his head into the damp gusts raking him as he strode with Maria and Sadie down the length of the rain-slickened pier. Their destination, the tiny, cinder-block aquarium that housed Reefer the octopus, seemed to recede as they advanced.

Dark, sinuous forms plied the slate gray waters on either side of the pier that reflected the close, bruised sky.

He shouted, trying to make himself heard above the wind and the sea’s roaring churn as he related to his companions his octopus reverie of a day earlier.

Whitecaps lashed and clawed at the aged wooden structure.

Pausing to watch monster waves crash over the pier behind him, seemingly cutting off their return, he realized he was hallucinating. Apparently the microdoses he’d scored before leaving Portland were unusually potent.

Or maybe the microdosing was rewiring his neural network.

Or perhaps he was dreaming?

After what seemed like hours, they reached the aquarium; to their dismay, if not utter surprise, it appeared to be closed.

Fusillades of horizontal rain tore at their wraps. Her hooded head drooping wearily, Sadie banged on the battleship gray metal door after trying the handle, which failed to budge.

Liam’s eyes widened as a towering, heavyset Polynesian woman, cloaked head to foot in rain gear, carefully opened the door enough for them to squeeze inside.

“Talofa!” she shouted over the howling wind. “I was beginning to think you’d bailed on me.”

She was expecting us?

“Quickly now,” she urged them. Her meaty mocha hand maintained an iron grip on the door’s lever handle, lest the gale tear it away, as she stepped aside to let them in before muscling the portal closed.

“Welcome, intrepid friends,” she greeted them, beaming, as she tugged her hood back off her salt and pepper braids. In her free hand she grasped a stack of large index cards. “I’m Moana.”

“Moana …?”

“I promise you, I was Moana long before Disney cashed in on her.”

Liam laughed.

“Aloha, Moana,” Liam said. “I’m, uh, … Axel.”

“Of course you are,” she replied drily.

“Talofa!” she repeated to the three. “You’re my first visitors today. ‘Fe‘e and I are so honored and excited that you defied the tempest to meet us.’” She indicated with her hand the large cylindrical tank situated a few feet behind her.

“I thought his name was ‘Reefer,” Sadie said. “It says it right there on his tank.”

“‘Fe‘e is his Samoan name,” she replied with a smile. “Which I think of as his real one.”

“What does ‘Fe‘e’ mean?”

“Oddly enough, it means octopus,” she said with an infectious laugh.

Her three visitors laughed along.

“Reefer is the unfortunate result of a naming contest aimed at stoking the imaginations of local school kids,” she confided in a near whisper. “But it goes down a lot easier with tourists.”

The visitors introduced themselves by their aliases as they shook off their dripping rain gear, spreading it on a bench that sat against one wall.

Eager as they were to meet Fe‘e, they also wished to ingratiate themselves with his minder.

“With all due respect,” Sadie remarked, “I wouldn’t expect many more visitors. Pretty stormy out there.”

“Oh, you never know,” Moana replied cheerfully. “In any event, Fe’e is excited to have some visitors.

“We can get on each other’s nerves.”

Even Maria smiled.

“We were just working on a lesson.” She brandished the stack of index cards.

Lesson?

Affixed to the curving glass wall by its suckers, Reefer stared at them through his huge, narrowed eyes while employing three tentacles to work a large Rubik’s Cube.

Hallucinating. I’m hallucinating …

Liam tried to avert his eyes as the margins of a small octopus tattoo on Moana’s fleshy cheek slowly expanded across her moon face, which lit up when she eyed the hemp octopus dangling from a string about Maria’s neck.

“May I touch it?” she inquired meekly.

“Of course, tia,” Maria replied with a smile.

“Mamā,” Moana uttered in apparent awe as she fingered the hemp figure with apparent reverence.

Mama …?

“Pardon a lo‘omatua,” Moana said somberly. “Mamā in Samoan means something like ‘perfect’ in English.

“Like an American mama,” she explained with a smile, “might tell her precious daughter.”

Maria’s eyes moistened.

“You made this yourself?”

Maria nodded shyly.

“It is exquisite, teine.”

Tay-neh?

Liam tried not to gape as Moana’s tattoo continued its steady conquest of her physiognomy.

On the plane, Maria had shared with the group a video shot by a local news crew that she’d come across about Moana, an octogenarian volunteer who had almost single handedly rescued the aquarium from its planned closure.

A self-educated marine biologist, the old woman had managed the Tauese P.F. Sunia Ocean Center, a regional National Marine Sanctuary. She was one of thousands of Samoans forced to relocate from her home island of Tutuila as brine from rising seas contaminated the region’s dwindling groundwater.

That situation, in addition to other challenging factors, led to the American Samoa Rising Seas Relocation Act, better known to supporters as AmSamoRSReLoA and to its detractors as AmSamScamA.

Widowed and childless, with few kin to speak of, she’d latched on to the rare octopus, acquired when it was the size of a thumbnail, as a smart, lively companion. She spent most nights at the aquarium, sweeping up, cleaning the exhibits, whether they warranted it or not, and sleeping on a cot in a closet-size excuse for an office. The door to the office was nowhere in sight.

Flouting safety codes, she’d ridden out some big storms in scuba gear trying to protect the exhibit’s marine residents.

“Wouldn’t it be easier on everybody just to let all the fish go?” Tate had inquired on the plane.

“Please take the self-guided grand tour,” the increasingly cephalopodic Moana said with a chuckle as her arms morphed into orange tentacles and the octopus tattoo on her cheek expanded until it replaced her head with a bulbous morphology.

I’m hallucinating …

The space’s rear walls receded as they proceeded to the tanks bolted to the floor that harbored a collection of native Gulf Coast marine life, including neon seahorses performing an exquisite ballet and schools of vibrantly colored fish shimmying rhythmically to a color-shifting strobe pulsing through the brine.

Stealing a glance at Reefer’s tank, Liam found the creature following them with his eyes. Extending a tentacle in Liam’s direction, its tip curled and uncurled toward its amorphous mass, as though beckoning him closer.

Unintelligible rune-like figures streamed across its now scarlet mantle.

I’m hallucinating …

Unsure of what he was actually seeing, Liam shrugged helplessly at Reefer, who comically appeared to ape the gesture.

It’s like he wants to meet us …

Falling quiet, Moana’s evanescent cheeks billowed as she reviewed the cards in her tentacles, now glowing eerily, as her guests scrutinized the aquatic life; each specimen, according to their accompanying interpretive, hand-typed index cards, represented a threatened species.

“It’s time you met the star of the show,” she said after a few minutes, apparently satisfied with the adequacy of their tour. “And don’t think for a moment that he doesn’t know it …”

An ancient metal office chair with a tattered seat cushion stood before Reefer’s tank, to which were taped still more cards offering insights into the creature’s biology, behavior, and conservation challenges. Within his enclosure were rocky crevices, coral, and an artificial cave. The LED lighting simulated ocean conditions, from dawn to the mesmerizing, bioluminescent glow of deep waters.

Reefer held court, as it were, in chameleonic fashion, holding the inquisitive stares of his visitors.

To Liam’s astonishment, a series of what appeared to be numbers and mathematical symbols flashed on and streamed like a chyron across Reefer’s protean, elastic mantle. He exchanged wide-eyed glances with his companions, who were equally rapt.

“He says hello,” Moana informed them happily.

“I believe it,” Sadie muttered in an awed voice.

“Are you being metaphorical,” Liam asked, “or do you actually understand those symbols?”

Moana proffered in a tentacle the index cards she still carried. “I’ve been teaching him, or he me, perhaps, to communicate using alphanumeric octal code.”

Octal code?

“What’s an octal?” Sadie inquired.

“It’s counting in base eight,” Moana replied matter-of-factly.

“Like in the video,” Maria noted.

“That’s right,” Moana affirmed. “Using the numbers zero through eight. In the octal system, each digit represents a power of 8, similar to how in decimal each digit represents a power of 10.”

Sadie’s gaze, Liam noticed, evoked that of a deer in the headlights.

“When Fe’e arrived here, I just fell in love with him,” Moana confided. “He’s the first giant Pacific I’d encountered here. I saw them all the time back on the Islands.

“The warming, shifting ocean currents pushed them up here.”

The digits resolved to be intelligible, unintelligible, and then intelligible anew, as if the octopus was recognizing and correcting errors.

“He’s experimenting with forming the figures on his mantle.”

“Cephalopodic penmanship,” Liam ventured.

His companions looked at him blankly.

“Never mind.”

“When I worked at the Ocean Center in Samoa,” Moana said, “I learned that researchers were studying whether fe’es, having eight limbs, each with its own brain, and possessing an almost alien intelligence, might have the cognitive capability to grasp octals.”

“They tried all kinds of really elaborate codes, like they thought he was some kind of supercomputer or something.”

Moana had hired on as a technical consultant for “My Octopus School,” which required her to sign a nondisclosure agreement, only to quit after she was told to skew some data for dramatic purposes. She asked to speak with Mauritius to express her concerns, but his staff put her off, accepting and shelving, if not tossing, her recommendations.

She heaved a heavy sigh as the building’s spare illumination flickered.

“Been runnin’ on a generator since the power died,” she said. “Overhead on this little slice of marine heaven is breaking me.”

“You shell out of your own pocket to keep this place open!?” Liam exclaimed.

“Donations are voluntary,” she replied. “And I get a grant here and there as well.”

Noting Maria was staring raptly at the tank, Liam and his cephalopodic companion returned their attention to its occupant.

A sequence of numbers, 11014515416040155145, marched slowly across Reefer’s mantle.

I’m hallucinating …

Maria pressed her palms against the tank, while the octopus pressed the tips of two tentacles opposite her digits. Bowing her head, she rested her sloping, indigenous forehead against the tank.

Moana’s hallucinatory avatar stared at the repeating sequence in evident astonishment.

“How does that translate?” Liam asked.

“Oh my god,” Moana said. “It says …”

“ …Release me!” she and Maria cried in concert.

“I never taught him that!” Moana wailed as she fainted, her floppy octopus head splatting against a display tank behind her before she buckled to the floor, morphing back into Moana as she lay prostrate.

A sudden crash jolted Liam from his reverie; sitting bolt upright in his seat, he slid off his sleep mask, blinking rapidly and looking around him. Alarms blared. The craft yawed to the left, pressing Liam forcefully into his seat.

“Are you with me, Avi?” Fatima inquired calmly.

“I wanna play Candy Crush,” Avi replied in a girlish timbre.

“Oh, merde!” Fatima exclaimed.

“What’d she say?” Liam asked.

“She said, oh, shit,” M replied grimly. “W’at up, Fatima?”

“We just got hit by lightning,” the pilot said. “Avi’s hallucinating.”

“Oh, shit,” Liam muttered, unrelieved to realize he was neither dreaming nor hallucinating.

“Left engine’s out, but we have enough juice to bring her in on the other,” Fatima reported. “Gonna be bumpy, though. Ground crews are preparing for an emergency landing.

“Hold on tight and keep your heads down. Que Dieu nous aide.”

The craft listed acutely to port before its nose plunged earthward. Liam grabbed a sickness bag as his stomach vehemently protested. The passengers all eyed each other nervously.

“If she said she’ll land this bird,” M shared with them, “I have absolute confidence in her. She’s a great pilot.”

“There’s a gremlin on the wing!” Ellie shouted, unexpectedly drawing laughs.

Maria appeared to remain in her trance.

The plane continued in what felt like freefall for a few more seconds that crept by like millenia before it gradually leveled off.

Liam and company took a collective deep breath and heartily applauded.

“Ladies and germs,” Avy suddenly announced, “please prepare for landing at Mara LaGaux Regional Airport. I trust you’ve had a pleasant flight.”

Fatima and her passengers guffawed.

Woman Kills 2-Year-Old, Thinks She’s Going Home

Sir Whiskerton and the Verdict of the Wattle

Ah, dear reader. The farm is many things: a haven, a home, and occasionally, a hotbed of utterly beautiful absurdity. Today’s tale involves neither cursed wheelbarrows nor snotty surprises, but something far more profound—a clash of cosmic bureaucracy and barnyard justice. It was a day when the fate of our grooviest resident hung in the balance, decided not by ancient genie law, but by a turkey with a corn cob and a pig with a persuasive snout.

So, settle in for a story of family, freedom, and the power of a community vote. This is Sir Whiskerton and the Verdict of the Wattle.

A Sister’s Concern

It began with a shimmer in the air, like heat haze on a summer road, but scented of moonlight and starlight. From this shimmer stepped Karina, Zephyr’s older sister. She was elegance personified, her robes woven from twilight and her expression one of gentle, exasperated affection.

Zephyr, floating above his lava lamp and trying to teach a dandelion the concept of “good vibes,” beamed. “Sis! Far out! You caught the wavelength!”

• “I have come on a more serious frequency, little brother,” Karina said, her voice a soft chime. “The Clan is… talking. They see your duties here as… unstructured. The City of Brass whispers of a genie who grants wishes for extra snacks and better napping spots. Ifrit is apoplectic. The tradition! The heritage! It is time to come home and resume your formal obligations.”

A ripple of anxiety passed through the barnyard. Doris the Hen, who had been listening intently, let out a gasp.

• “Leave?” she clucked. “But… but who will teach us about mindful breathing during seed shortages?”

Zephyr’s spectral shoulders slumped. “Karina, man, this is my duty. This is where my magic matters.”

Seeing the distress on her brother’s face—and on the faces of every animal now gathering—Karina proposed a compromise. “Very well. Let it not be said our Clan is without mercy. We shall hold a tribunal. I will state the Clan’s case for his return. You may state your case for staying. And we shall have an impartial judge.”

All eyes turned to me.

The Court is in Session

“I am a detective, not a magistrate,” I stated, cleaning a paw with deliberate calm. But the hopeful, pleading looks from Zephyr and the others were a force more powerful than any genie magic.

And so, the Great Farm Tribunal commenced. The main yard was our courtroom. An overturned bucket served as the witness stand. Ethel the Turkey, sensing the gravitas of the moment, appointed herself Judge by clutching a large corn cob she deemed the “Gavel of Justice.”

• “Order! Order in the farmyard!” she squawked, tapping the corn cob with immense solemnity.

I was tasked with documenting the event for posterity, using a hollowed-out turnip as a makeshift camera. “I feel this lacks resolution,” I muttered, peering through the hole.

Porkchop the Pig was elected Jury Foreman by popular acclaim (mostly his own). “I’ll take this heavy responsibility,” he said, settling into a comfortable patch of mud. “And possibly a snack during recess.”

Karina presented her case with poetic grace. She spoke of glittering palaces in the City of Brass, of the honor of serving sultans and shaping deserts, of the weight of a thousand-year legacy. It was, I had to admit, a compelling argument for structure and purpose.

Then it was Zephyr’s turn. He didn’t speak of glory or power. He spoke of helping Bessie find her “inner rainbow” during a grey day. He spoke of composing a bongo solo with Jazzpurr that made the sunflowers sway. He spoke of the quiet magic of a shared sunset.

The Tie-Breaker of Truth

Then came the vote. Porkchop, as Foreman, took a straw poll.

• “All in favor of Zephyr staying for, and I quote, ‘the good vibes and the shared snacks’?”

A chorus of clucks, moos, quacks, and a resonant “Awoo!” from Rufus filled the air.

• “All in favor of him returning to the City of Brass for ‘tradition and heritage’?”

Silence, broken only by the wind and Karina’s soft, disappointed sigh.

Porkchop pounded his mud-hole with a trotter. “The jury finds the defendant… not guilty of being un-groovy! Case closed!”

• “But the tradition! The heritage!” Karina pleaded, a flicker of starlight in her eyes.

• “The jury has spoken, Karina,” I said, my turnip-camera trained on the scene. “And frankly, the pig is quite compelling.”

But Karina, ever the fair-minded diplomat, pointed out a flaw. “This is not a true tribunal! It is biased in his favor! There is no impartiality!”

A stalemate ensued. The farm was for Zephyr, Karina was for the Clan. We needed a tie-breaker. A truly neutral party. Our eyes fell upon Ditto, who was busy trying to echo his own echo.

• “Ditto,” I said, with as much gravity as one can muster in such a situation. “The fate of Zephyr rests on your word. Echo your true, unfiltered desire for the farm.”

Ditto puffed out his tiny chest, looked at the expectant faces, and declared with absolute certainty:

• “Snack Time!”

For a moment, there was silence. Then, Porkchop nodded sagely. “He’s got a point. Zephyr helps manifest the best snack-time vibes. It’s a vital farm resource.”

And Karina… smiled. It was a slow, dawning, beautiful smile. She looked at Ditto’s earnest face, at Porkchop’s mock-serious defense, at Ethel proudly holding her corn cob gavel, and at me with my ridiculous turnip. She saw the truth. This wasn’t a shirking of duty; it was the finding of a new one.

• “The ‘Clan of the Farm’…” she murmured. “It is just as powerful as the City of Brass, isn’t it?”

A Groovy Divorce Party

The warmth of that realization settled over everyone. The verdict was accepted. To celebrate Zephyr’s official “divorce” from his old obligations (a concept he found hilarious, as he was never formally married), the animals threw a “Groovy Divorce Party.”

Jah-Mew set up a deep, calming rhythm on his bongos. Bessie the Tie-Dye Cow, radiating peace and love, started a spontaneous circle dance. Even Karina joined in, her starlight robes swirling among the chickens and pigs.

Zephyr floated at the center of it all, his smile brighter than any wish he’d ever granted. He was home.

The Moral of the Story

Belonging and community support are the best defenses against external pressure. Breaking free from repetition doesn’t mean being alone; it means finding your own unique, and wonderfully weird, support structure.

The End.

---

Moral:
Belonging and community support are the best defenses against external pressure. Breaking free from repetition means finding your own unique support structure.

Best Lines:

• “The tradition! The heritage!” – Karina

• “I find the defendant… not guilty of being un-groovy!” – Porkchop, Jury Foreman

• “The jury has spoken, Karina. And frankly, the pig is quite compelling.” – Sir Whiskerton

• “Order! Order in the farmyard!” – Ethel the Turkey, wielding the Corn Cob Gavel

• “Snack Time!” – Ditto, the Tie-Breaker

Post-Credit Scene:
A week later, a small, shimmering package arrives for Sir Whiskerton. Inside is a tiny, perfectly functional camera carved from a single piece of obsidian. The note, written on a sliver of moonlight, reads: “For a more dignified resolution. – K.” Sir Whiskerton sniffs it, then uses it to take a picture of Ditto stuck in a teacup.

Key Jokes:

• The entire farm acting as a formal court, with Ethel’s Corn Cob Gavel and Sir Whiskerton’s turnip-camera.

• Porkchop’s self-important role as Jury Foreman and his mud-hole-pounding verdict.

• The dramatic tie-breaker resting on Ditto, who delivers the profoundly simple, universal truth of “Snack Time.”

• Porkchop’s immediate and utterly serious justification of Ditto’s statement as a vital pro-Zephyr argument.

• The concept of a “Groovy Divorce Party” for someone who was never married.

Starring:

• Sir Whiskerton (Detective, Cameraman, and Reluctant Legal Coordinator)

• Zephyr the Genie (The Defendant in Need of a Groovy Defense)

• Karina (The Elegant Prosecutor with a Heart of Moonlight)

• Porkchop the Pig (The Jury Foreman with a Knack for Snack-Based Law)

• Ethel the Turkey (Judge of the Wattle)

• All Farm Animals (The Passionate, Unbiased Jury)

P.S.
Remember: The most powerful family is the one you choose, and the most binding contract is written not on paper, but in shared laughter and the unanimous desire for a well-timed snack.

Killer Thinks He Got Away, Doesn’t Know One Victim is Still Alive

Why did China become so powerful?

By being humble and by sacrificing and by being respectful when it needs to be and working very very hard day and night for years on end. They have a century plan, and a decade plan and a totally realistic and aggressive 5 year plans. Since 1949. When the despicable British forced fed Chinese on opium in 1840, little did they know that what happened in the 100 years motivated China and every Chinese to catch up and eclipse the west in everything they do. The thriving and plundering British gave the very impetus the Chinese race needed by being so barbaric and so obnoxious to the Chinese people and China!

China never undestimated anyone and certainly don’t overestimated itself. So that means it studied all it’s potential competitors and adversaries completely and thoroughly and it brought the best and strongest brands to China, so that Chinese can learn the best practices and know their weaknesses too so that they overcome these weaknesses and failings too. It turned out that the west or even the Japanese and Koreans. Don’t amount to much! It merely took them less than 50 years. To catch up and overtook them.

Of course I know if you are a white Caucasian Anglo Saxons racist you want to think China did it by copying your designs or stealing your intellectual property but that won’t do if you want to do better. ASPI a neocon funded think tank concluded that China leads 57 out if 64 most strategic and key technologies by 2020. By now it probably lead in all of them! If you lead it means you could do it better faster and cheaper in everything. Copying cannot get that done.

The Tidekeepers

Written in response to: “Write a story from the POV of someone waiting to be rescued.“

Larry Kofton

The diving bell shuddered as it settled into the trench, and Dr. Sarah Hawthorne knew immediately that something had gone catastrophically wrong. The seal had fractured along a hairline crack that the inspection had somehow missed, and now the communications array crackled with static before going silent. Through the single porthole, she watched her tether cable snake downward, severed and drifting in the current. The backup oxygen system hummed to life. Eighteen hours, maybe twenty-four if she remained calm. She keyed the emergency beacon and forced herself to breathe slowly.

Silently telling herself that rescue would come and that the support vessel knew her location. Her team would mobilize the moment they realized she’d gone dark. But the storm brewing all morning would complicate everything. She could feel the bell rocking gently in the surge, nearly sixty feet below the surface of Roanoke Sound.

She’d been searching for a wreck site her research discovered that claimed to contain colonial-era artifacts from the 16th century, perhaps connected to the Lost Colony itself, when the seal failed. Her camera rig was still functioning, and she decided to have a look around the ocean floor to keep her mind from racing. As soon as she turned on the external lights it came into view. The wreck itself lay just beyond her window. A scatter of timbers and artifacts that shouldn’t exist in these waters.

Sarah had spent five years working toward this discovery. Now she might die beside it, a footnote to a 400-year-old mystery. She activated the bell’s mechanical arm and began retrieving artifacts through the external collection port. A corroded pewter plate. A navigational compass with unusual markings. And then, wedged between two timbers, a leather-bound journal sealed in wax.

****

Sarah broke the wax seal with trembling fingers. The leather was remarkably preserved, and the pages inside remained legible. The handwriting on the first page was cramped but clear, dated August 1587. Her breath caught when she read the name: Eleanor White Dare, Roanoke Island.

Eleanor Dare. Mother of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas. Sarah had written her dissertation on the Lost Colony. This journal wasn’t known to exist.

Eleanor wrote of hunger, of dwindling supplies and Spanish ships prowling the coast. She wrote of John Borden, a fisherman who’d ventured out during a storm and returned changed, speaking of something he’d encountered in the deep water. Something as old as the tides themselves.

It spoke to him through the current, Eleanor had written. Not in words, but in knowing. It showed him the fish, the safe passages, the storms yet to come. It offered us salvation, but salvation always has a price.

The price was the Tide Keeper.

Every seven years, one descendant of the colony would be called to the depths. They would serve the entity, joining their consciousness with its vast awareness, helping maintain the balance of these waters. In exchange, the entity would protect the colonists and their descendants forever. It would hide them from Spanish ships, provide bountiful catches, warn them of hurricanes.

The colonists had accepted. They’d moved to Croatoan Island, integrated with the native tribes, and began their new lives. The word carved into the tree wasn’t a distress signal. It was a signpost telling other colonists where to find sanctuary.

The journal contained entries from multiple people spanning decades. Each Tide Keeper had added their testimony before descending, and none had returned.

****

Sarah read with growing recognition.

I am Thomas Dare, grandson of Eleanor. The call came to me in my twenty-eighth year. I go willingly for my children and their children after.

I am Rebecca Dare Cooper. The ocean has sung to me since childhood. Tonight I answer.

The entries continued through the centuries. Dare, Cooper, Lawrence, Hayes, Hawthorne. Sarah’s breath stopped. Hawthorne. Her grandmother’s maiden name had been Dare. She pulled up her phone and accessed the photos of her grandmother’s old family Bible. She zoomed in on the family tree, following the maternal line backward. Every name from the journal.

Her grandmother had died when Sarah was twelve, drowning during a solo swim at dawn. They’d found her clothes on the beach, her body never recovered. Sarah’s mother had been devastated, but her grandfather had been strangely calm. “She went back to the water,” he’d said.

Sarah had thought it was poetic grief. Now she understood.

Through the porthole, the water began to move in impossible patterns. Bioluminescent organisms gathered, pulsing in rhythmic circles. The current swirled clockwise, then counter-clockwise, then settled into a figure-eight. It was deliberate. The entity was here.

Sarah pressed her hand against the cold glass. The bioluminescence intensified, forming shapes that almost resembled words. She felt something at the edge of her consciousness. Not words, but impressions. Welcome. Recognition. Question.

The entity knew her. Had always known her. Had been waiting.

****

Sarah grabbed her research tablet and began writing notes. The diving bell accident. The seal that had been inspected just yesterday. The support vessel’s mechanical issues. The storm that had come up so suddenly. Each event, in isolation, was plausible. Together, they formed a pattern.

The entity had called her, and the universe had conspired to answer. Now what?

Trying to gather her thoughts, she pulled up her recent messages on her phone. Her sister’s text from three days ago included a photo of her niece, Maya, on the beach. Fifteen years old, with the same dark hair and gray eyes that marked their maternal line. She’s become obsessed with marine biology. Wants to spend every moment at the ocean.

Sarah’s own obsession had started the same way. The dreams had come first. Dreams of drowning that weren’t nightmares but something different. Dreams of breathing underwater, of becoming something vast and ancient. The dreams had intensified every year until she’d finally chosen marine archaeology, trying to understand the pull she’d always felt.

If Sarah refused the call, Maya would be next. Maya would start having the same dreams. She would feel the pull growing stronger until it became unbearable, and she wouldn’t understand why. She was brilliant and young and had her whole life ahead of her.

Sarah looked back at the journal, at the final entry written in her grandmother’s hand: I am Margaret Dare Hawthorne. The ocean calls me home. I will go willingly.

Her grandmother was chosen and had accepted. She had left this journal here for Sarah to find.

****

The lights outside the bell pulsed, and Sarah felt the communication more clearly. Images flooded her mind: the coast as it had been 400 years ago. The colonists, desperate and starving. The entity, vast and ancient, maintaining the balance of these waters for millennia. It needed the Tide Keepers to anchor it, to help it remember what it meant to care about individual lives.

The entity showed her what awaited: permanent transformation. Her body would adapt to the depths. Her consciousness would expand, touching every current and creature in the sound. She would feel the sharks hunting, the crabs scuttling, the ancient sturgeon migrating. She would sense approaching storms and guide fish into nets. She would prevent disasters and protect the ecosystem.

She would not be alone. The entity would be there, vast and patient. And the echoes of every Tide Keeper who had come before. Her grandmother was there, waiting.

But she would never return to human form. This was not seven years of service. This was forever. The entity needed her permanently, and in exchange, it would spare Maya from the dreams, from the calling, from the inevitable pull.

Snapping from the visions, Sarah heard the rescue vessel’s engines through the water. They were coming. In less than an hour, they would haul her to the surface. She would return to her life, continue her research.

And Maya would start having the dreams.

****

Sarah opened her emergency kit and pulled out the waterproof marker. On the journal’s last blank page, she wrote: I am Sarah Margaret Hawthorne. I am thirty-two years old. I have studied the ocean my entire life, and now I will know it truly. I go willingly, in gratitude, to honor the pact my ancestors made. I do this for Maya, for all who come after. I will keep the tides.

She dated it October 16, 2025, and closed the journal, sealing it back in its wax covering. She placed it in the collection chamber, then used the mechanical arm to return it to the wreck site, wedging it back between the timbers where she’d found it. The next Keeper would find it when their time came. In seven years or seventy.

Then she began to open the diving bell’s flood valves.

The water rushed in, shockingly cold. Sarah’s training screamed at her to stop. Instead, she opened them wider. Water reached her ankles, her knees, her waist. She took deep, measured breaths, oxygenating her blood one last time.

Through the porthole, the bioluminescence blazed like stars.

Sarah filled her lungs, let the water close over her head, and opened her mouth to the sea. There was a moment of pure animal panic. Then the water entered her lungs, and instead of drowning, she began to breathe.

The transformation took her gently. Her consciousness expanded outward, joining with something vast and ancient and welcoming. She felt her grandmother’s presence like a warm embrace. She felt every Tide Keeper who had come before.

And she felt the ocean, truly felt it, in all its terrible beauty and power.

****

The rescue team attached the lift cables ninety minutes later. The storm had passed, leaving the waters eerily calm. They hauled the diving bell to the surface with careful precision, expecting to find Dr. Hawthorne cold and frightened but alive.

When they opened the hatch, they found the bell flooded and empty.

Her equipment remained carefully secured. Her research tablet sat in its waterproof case. The collection chamber contained artifacts from the wreck, but nothing that would explain her disappearance. They found no body. No signs of struggle. The flood valves had been opened from the inside, deliberately.

Coast Guard divers searched the area for three days, but Sarah Hawthorne had vanished as completely as the colonists of Roanoke, 438 years before.

Her sister, Miranda, scattered flowers on the water where the diving bell had been recovered. Her niece, Maya, stood at the boat’s railing and felt something shift inside her. The terrible pull she’d been feeling for months suddenly eased, as if a burden she hadn’t known she was carrying had been lifted.

The ocean was calm. The tides ran true. And in the deep water off Roanoke Island, something ancient and vast kept its patient watch, no longer quite so alone.

Seven years would pass. And somewhere along the Carolina coast, another descendant would begin to dream of drowning. Another would feel the ocean’s call. The pact would endure, as it had for centuries.

But Sarah Hawthorne would not walk out of the surf. She had become something else entirely. She was the current and the tide. She was the guardian of these waters. She was the keeper, eternal and unchanging, woven into the fabric of the sea itself.

And in the depths, she was finally home.