When I was really young, at the start of my parents family … my mother would have a daily flower on the kitchen table. Everyday it seemed.
Than, after my brothers and sisters were born, this ritual became less and less. Eventually becoming once a week sometime around 1966 or 1967.
After that, my mother got a job and my dad moved away. And our life became that of kids in the home of a single mother.
Well…
Today, I want to remember what life was like as a young boy in the early 1960’s. And in the process a praise for the beauty that she added to our life by the simple action of flowers in a kitchen vase.
We need to return to the ways of the past.
Meanwhile reality… Today…
Americans Can’t Pretend The Economy Is Fine Anymore
Have you ever been arrested when you were innocent? What happened?
My girlfriend asked me to go to the mall with her, said she just had to pick up a few things. I went but peeled off to go to a different store than she, told her I’d meet her back at her car.
I’m waiting back at the car and all of a sudden I see her, hauling ass towards me, some big dude chasing her. He catches up when she reaches me. Turns out she had shoplifted. Don’t even remember what it was.
Me, trying to be a good friend, hung around while she got busted, so I could call her boyfriend to come pick up the car. (I had no license.)
While I’m standing there, of course they run my name, too. No problem, right?
Wrong. Turns out there’s a warrant for MY arrest! What?!? Cop, being nasty, said, “I guess you’re a thief, like your friend.” I knew he was wrong.
So I get processed, end up spending the night in the county lockup. Wasn’t too bad, the other women were pretty nice to me. But I still couldn’t figure out WHY I had the warrant on me.
Next morning, I go in front of the magistrate. I asked him why I was there, he said I had a Failure to Appeal warrant!
“For WHAT,” I asked. He said it was for a drinking in public ticket I’d received a few months ago in an adjacent county that required a court appearance to pay that kind of ticket.
”Sir, I watched for that paperwork and it NEVER came!” He says, “I have it right here. It says the address doesn’t exist.”
So I rattle off my address, including zipcode. “That one?” He nods yes.
“Sir, I STILL live there!”
”Oh… Well, the most I could give you for this violation would be a $100 fine or a night in jail….Which you just did, so after they process you, you’re free to go.”
Lovely.
Men Have AWAKENED: “If She Won’t Do Coffee, She Won’t Do You — Go Find Another Sucker”
Since Trump’s first term, in the power struggle between China and the United States: 1. What mistakes have both sides made? 2. What more effective strategies and tactics have each side employed that have not yet been used?
Mistake
At first, China was not prepared for Trump’s tariff war. 1st time. Hence, China bought more US goods. But Trump 1.0 was not satisfied & was more greedy with more demands. – mistake 1.
Then, not only China has stopped to satisfy Trump’s new demands, China even tore the previous agreement to new purchase.
Biden continued with Trump’s tariff – mistake 2
China realised the US greed, blackmail & piracy. USA wants to make China a cash cow. Then China works on a retaliation plan.
When Trump 2.0 imposes high tariff on the entire world. China is so prepared that China can reciprocate in minutes. Not days.
All Trump’s trade-tariff “weapons” on China backfire to USA. Finally Trump TACOs to square one ie before Trump’s reciprocal tariff started in Apr 2. Trump TACOs so much that he praised Xi Jinping the greatest leader leading the greatest country. Blah, blah, blah. All nice words.
As of Oct 30, Trump & Xi agreed on a 1-year truce in the trade-tariff war.
tactics
Not much USA can do. Because China plays the rare earth card that is needed in weapon, AI, semiconductor, car … almost everything in our daily life in the 21st century.
USA hysterically looks for rare earth the minerals-earth. BUT … it will take USA years to develop the refinery skills. Bessent said 2 years. Some experts said 10 years. Japan started 10 years ago but as of 2025 not yet succeeded. It took China some 20 years.
Refinery is not the only factor. You need others too eg lots of electricity.
China has at least 1 more card as powerful as rare earth. Does USA know that? I am sure it does. But since both countries do not say it yet, then I am not going to say it either until it happens.
One word: China is well prepared for the trade war. But not USA. USA lives in the past, thinking bullying can conquer China. That is the biggest US mistake.
When Abusive Parents Get Their Ass Caught In The Act
Wildflowers and Moonlight
Written in response to: “Write a story in which a character navigates using the stars.“
Annie Hewitt
Christina had just enrolled in a photography class at the local community college and her first assignment was to photograph something rare. She came up with the idea of taking a picture of one of the wildflowers that bloom for a short time in Joshua Tree National Park. They lived nearby so it wasn’t a difficult decision to go for a quick hike.
The area had had plenty of rain this winter and the reward this spring was a landscape that was bursting with color. Reds, yellows, purples and blues splashed across the park’s muted landscape, lending a psychedelic hue to an already mystical scene.
Their morning had started with a fight, which was not unusual these days. And while their fights are about different small things every day: the way Danny squeezes the toothpaste from the middle instead of rolling the tube up from the bottom the way Christina likes it or the way Christina replaces the toilet paper roll facing under instead of over the way Danny insists on having it, the fight is really always about the same thing. The one thing that has consumed their marriage for the last three years: infertility. They are stressed, fatigued and overwhelmed with the financial, the physical and the emotional drain it has been.
They both want a baby but Christina has become obsessed and can think of nothing else. They have gone to specialists, taken every test and done everything the doctors have suggested and still nothing. They have done IVF twice unsuccessfully and the shots and the prep for insemination for the third time is causing Christina to be more and more moody and very, very angry. All the time she’s angry. This bubbling hostility is really getting to be too much for both of them.
As they sit in the dark desert, contemplating which way to go they looked at each other and he noticed Christina was near tears. They were lost, hungry, scared, and disoriented. Danny felt particular pressure to get Christina out of this since he had a lot more experience with hiking and nature in general and she just didn’t need this stress. If only the sky would clear up, he could find Polaris and get them home. They couldn’t possibly be too far away from where they needed to be.
“We shouldn’t have gone so far away from the marked trails,” Christina whined with a hint of blame creeping into her tone. “We’re gonna die out here!”
“It’d really be great if you didn’t use that tone. I’m not the one who just HAD to get the picture of the Mojave Aster flower,” he said angrily.
“I know. I’m sorry. You’re right,” Christina said as she breathed deeply using her yoga breaths to center herself. Christina was a yoga instructor and had always been so healthy that she took her failure to get pregnant as a particular insult to her healthy lifestyle.
“Okay Mr. Boy Scout, show me how to survive!” she said through her breaths.
He knew that talking would keep her focus away from her fear so he talked.
“Well, when the clouds clear, all we need to is find Polaris — the North Star. It’s directly over the North Pole, always.”
“How do you find that?” she asked between deep breaths that were not doing a great job of keeping her centered.
“Well, to find it, we need to locate the Big Dipper. And if the Big Dipper is partially obscured, which, thanks to the cloud formation, it is you can look for Casseopeia. Casseopeia is always opposite the North Star from the Big Dipper. So that’s how you can center yourself and figure out which way to go. We parked and came in through the West Entrance so as soon as the clouds lift a little more we’ll know which direction will get us out of here.”
As she listened to his answer that was meant to soothe her, she actually got more worked up.
“But what if the sky doesn’t clear up? What if a mountain lion comes around? What if the temperature drops? We are going to die!” With each question, her voice got louder and she was getting more and more hysterical.
“Christina, stop! This isn’t helping,” Danny grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward him and looked straight in her eyes. “We are not gonna die. Just calm down.”
Well, that did it. He should’ve known. You don’t tell a woman to calm down. Ever. But especially one jacked up on hormones.
And with that Christina burst into tears, the floodgates opened and everything came out. All the pent up frustration, anxiety and stress was released into the desert air and she wept. She wept for the children they didn’t have and never would have, for the years of trying, for the money spent and for the misplaced guilt that drove her desire to do all of this in the first place. She cried and cried and cried, and all Danny could do was hold her. As her tears subsided a little, she pulled away from him and looked at him with the most shattered expression he’d ever seen. She was completely broken and seemed to deflate before his eyes.
“Danny, I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I’m, just so tired,” she said through tears. “I don’t want to disappoint you. I really don’t, but I think, for me–I’m done. I’m just done,” she sobbed but continued talking. She had to get it out now.
“I’m so sorry, but I’ve gone as far as I can go with this. I feel like I’ve failed you, I failed myself, and I’ve failed at the one thing a woman is supposed to be able to do, but I can’t live like this anymore, and I can’t take the heartbreak anymore,” the last few words were a whisper drowned out by tears.
Danny listened to her in the eerie silence of the dark desert and couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had been sure she was never going to stop until they had a baby. But when she said it, he could feel the pit that had been in his stomach gnawing away at him for what seemed like an eternity break apart into nothingness, and he broke down and cried with her. He cried for all the pain and stress they had gone through and because he couldn’t believe that they had gone so long without really communicating. This whole baby-making train had taken off and put them both on autopilot. After they decided to do it they never really discussed what that would look like and how far was too far in this quest.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he brushed her tears away. “I’m sorry for making you think that you could disappoint me. You could never disappoint me. I’m sorry for not taking the time to talk about this sooner. I can’t stand what this is doing to you; what it’s doing to us. It’s just all too much. I wanted a baby. I really did, but I’m done too. I just didn’t want to say anything because I thought you were still determined, and I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
They held each other in the quiet of the night and felt peace come over them. After a while Danny looked up at the sky and noticed that he could see stars. The clouds had parted.
“Hey, look! The Big Dipper! Do you see it?” he pointed into the sky and she nodded without really even looking.
“C’mon. Let’s go,” he pulled her up off the rock she had been sitting on and they started walking west. “See? If that is north, we need to walk west over here. It shouldn’t take too long.”
As they walked out of the desert, they kept talking about how sorry they were for all the fighting they’d been doing. They talked about what they’d like to do now that they’d have time to focus on other things and they held hands and realized that while having a child would’ve been great, they were fine just being together. And there were other ways to have children. They could always adopt, but that’s a discussion for another day. Today they feel light and unfettered for the first time in years.
It took about an hour to follow the stars back to their car and on that walk they felt closer and happier than they’d felt in a long time.
“You know, walking in the dark, following the stars reminds me of something I read in college that Leonardo da Vinci said. Are you ready? It’s gonna be cute.”
She smiled in the dark at how sweet and dorky her husband was. “I’m ready. Lay it on me,” she said with a little laugh.
“I think it goes something like: ‘fix your course on a star and you’ll navigate any storm’. Leo was right,” Danny said as he squeezed her hand. “We fixed our course on a star and it not only got us out of the desert, it got us back to each other.”
“Aw, you’re right, that was cute,” she smiled at him knowing how lucky they were to have each other as they got in their car and drove home.
What screams “I’m upper class”?
Moscow, Russia
Rich people in Russia have a very specific set of must-have things and experiences to show to everyone – and especially to each other – that they are, indeed, rich.
Let’s start with the vehicles:
- Brand-new Range Rover
- Chauffeur to go with it
- Porsche Cayenne for your wife
- Don’t pay parking tickets
- House in the Golden Mile, a string of suburbs along Rublevsko-Uspenskoe Highway, south-west of Moscow
- The interior is fake Baroque: lots of good, stuffed animals, Greek columns, grand piano
- State of the art kitchen
- A villa in Forte De Marmi, a resort town in the Italian Riviera popular with the Russian rich
- A pool
- Frequent Michelin-star “Bistro” to meet all VIP personas from Moscow
Let’s not forget about your son/daughter, shall we?
- He or she gotta have a real British governess
- English native-speaking tutor
- Russian nanny
- He or she attends the International School of Moscow that follows British Curriculum
- He or she will be shipped to one of the best boarding schools in the U.K., but he is too young for that now
- He or she is allowed to wear clothes only with emblazoned words big enough for the plebs to read: Dolce Gabana, Armani, Prada
- In winter you head for some alpine skiing in Switzerland. Meet fellow Moscovites there
- Your very own ski instructor
- Oh, and don’t forget to chart a private plane
- Your wife will wear a fur coat (shuba) and high heels (not shown here)
- You and your wife are members of elite Golden Gym
- You dine at Michelin restaurants
- Your wife does plastic surgeries and Botox
- She owns a hundred pairs of European-made shoes and a closet full of clothes
- She has an equestrian teacher although she doesn’t like horses, but would give it a try
- Cats and dogs of rare breed and vets on a speed dial
- Two dachas (country house) outside of Moscow: her parents’ and yours. Can ship their son/daughter there and fly to Paris for a weekend: Ritz Carlton, best restaurants, most expensive wine
There is more, but this should give you a general idea.
Cops Discover Bodies in Woman’s Trunk During Traffic Stop
Damn! Holy Shit!
https://youtu.be/7xboEsXt_a0
What’s deep about Breaking Bad? People say it’s deep and philosophical. I think it’s excellent action show, but where’s the philosophy?
OK, So I recently re-watched the show and I had a very different opinion on Walt the second time around than I did the first.
The first time around, I thought Walt verged on a Folk Hero. He was an ordinary man driven to extremes by circumstances beyond his control. He fought like hell for his family for their future and he had a deep loyalty to Jessie and protected him at every opportunity.
The second time I watched it, my opinion shifted almost 180 Degrees.
Now, keep in mind that nearly everyone in the show is a bad person. I honestly think that Hank Schrader is probably the most stand up person in the whole thing. And he is still kind of a Dick.
But let me just tell you this: The show is about a psychopath who uses the excuse of his cancer to let his ego run absolutely wild and to crush everyone around him.
So before the show even happens, Walt bails out of Grey Matter because his Ego won’t let him compromise with his two partners. When those same partners that HE bailed on offer to pay for his cancer treatment, he doesn’t take it as the heartfelt gesture by a pair of old friends who were willing to overlook his prior behavior in the face of his problems. Instead, Walt takes it as an insult. He could have literally taken them up on their offer, let them pay for his treatment and even give him a job. But his Ego wouldn’t let him do so. Preferring instead to cook industrial quantities of methamphetamines. A crime which, even ignoring everything else, could have put him in jail for decades.
He pushes in with Gus Fring who, rightly, is dubious of him as he thinks Walt makes too much trouble and noise and doesn’t want to let him topple the well oiled machine he has painstakingly built over decades of hard work.
But, Fring gives Walt a chance and Walt almost immediately starts to see the deal as he and Jessie getting shorted and starts making trouble. But, Fring is providing protection, materials, facilities and anything else Walt needed. But walk thinks he should get a bigger cut, so he starts making trouble.
This continues throughout the series. The thing that finally brings him down is he doesn’t want to keep paying Mike’s “Guys” so he contracts with a biker gang to kill all of them and kills Mike in the process. And guess what happens? Oh yeah, the Biker gang basically takes over the operation.
Honestly, Walt could likely have cooked for Gus for 10–20 years without issue had he just shut up and gotten with the program. He was making more money than he could even spend. He was safe as houses and snug as a bug in a rug. But his ego took over and wouldn’t let him just work his job, make millions of dollars and not gotten involved past the cook.
Even his “loyalty” to Jessie is only as deep as what he can get out of Him. He basically uses Jessie every chance he gets, but he doesn’t actually respect or value him more than what he can get for him. He literally lets Jessie’s girlfriend die because he thinks she is distracting him from what Walt wants to do.
He does have a change of heart towards the end and rescues him from the Bikers, but it is too little too late.
Walt is a psychopath who got let off the really small leash he was on by his Cancer diagnosis.
Spicy Moroccan Cigars
This is very famous. We have it in Israel, too, but it’s a Morrocan original!
Ingredients
Version 1
- 1/2 pound butter, cut into bits and clarified
- 14 sheets phyllo pastry, each about 14 inches long and 12 inches wide, thoroughly defrosted if frozen
Version 2 – Cigar + Filling
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 15 ounces ground beef/lamb
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 cup chopped parsley
- 5 eggs
- 1 pound filo pastry
- 6 ounces melted butter
Instructions
Version 1
- Heat the oven to Mark 6; 400 degrees F. Grease 2 baking sheets with 1 ounce of the butter, using a pastry brush.
- Assemble each “cigar” in the following way: Brush one sheet of phyllo evenly with 3/4 teaspoon of the butter. Fold the sheet in half crosswise to make a two-layered rectangle about 12 inches long and 7 inches wide. Brush the top with about 1/2 teaspoon of the butter. Make a 1-inch-wide fold on the closed side of the pastry and brush the fold lightly with butter. Sprinkle a teaspoon or so of the mixture in an even row along its length, and roll the phyllo into a tight cylinder, about 1 inch in diameter.
- Assemble the remaining sheets of phyllo in the same way. Gently transfer the rolls to the baking sheet, and brush the tops lightly with the remaining butter. Bake in the top part of the oven for about 20 minutes, until the rolls are crisp and a delicate golden brown. Then slide them carefully onto a large serving dish.
- To serve, cut the rolls into 2 inch lengths and arrange them attractively on a serving plate.
Version 2
- Heat oven to 300 degrees F.
- To make filling: Cook onion in the olive oil until soft. Add beef or lamb, crushing it with a fork. Add seasonings and spices. Cook 10 to 15 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, until meat is well cooked and lump free. Add parsley.
- Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl and pour over the meat. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring, until egg mixture sets to creamy consistency. Add more spices and seasonings, if desired. Allow the filling to cool. Cut each sheet of filo pastry into three equal-size rectangles. Place one on top of the other and cover with a damp dish towel.
- Brush one of the rectangles lightly with melted butter. Place a teaspoon of filling along one of the short edges. Tuck the edge and ends of pastry around the filling, and roll into a cigar shape.
- Repeat with other rectangles. Place cigars side by side on a greased baking sheet. Brush with melted butter and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the cigars are golden.
Attribution
Lior (Israel)
15 US Restaurants That Got Too Greedy Paying A Hard Price in 2026
Why is it so hard to make lasers powerful enough for missile defense, and how do they compare to traditional weapons like machine guns?
I have answered a lot of questions about lasers and missile defense but this one is phrased a little differently.
We did build monstrous lasers for missile defense in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the largest was the alpha laser which was a demonstrator for the space based laser program.
Here is the alpha laser and its support equipment. Yes, I have been inside it, worn the bunny suit, and I have worked test stands for half a dozen or more chemical and gas dynamic lasers.
If you watch science-fiction, you see megawatt or gigawatt or terawatt lasers mentioned as if by some magic that much power comes out of a device. They don’t talk too much about where megawatts come from.
In the case of the alpha laser, it came from reacting deuterium with fluorine, usually in the form of tri-fluoronitrile. Lots of it. Like 18 wheelers full of gas bottles. And burning these propellants in a vacuum was very similar to running a rocket engine. Think about roughly a Jupiter C rocket engine. When you think megawatts, think about a medium sized rocket.
Back in the 1980s, lasers were very inefficient, so the total amount of power generated may easily have been twenty times as much power as went into the laser beam itself. That was just the state of the art.
In about 2001–2002, the DoD said that high power lasers are just crazy. Imagine taking that monster to Desert Storm. It is too big and it takes 40 PhD scientists to run it. And how are you going to take that to space?
So they threw out chemical and gas dynamic lasers and concentrated on solid state lasers. After 25 years, they have just built a 300kW laser. I said we would set back laser power by 50 years by going to diode pumped solid state lasers (DPSSLs). And in fact, the first high power laser I worked on in 1977 (XLD) was more powerful than the 300kW laser today, the IFPC-HEL Valkyrie laser. So, we seem to be about 50 years behind.
However, of course, we gain a lot. DPSSLs are reliable, more efficient, smaller and transportable. But at the present time, not powerful enough for strategic missile defense, but probably powerful enough for cruise missiles and medium range missiles in the boost phase. Powerful enough for Katyusha rockets.
But probably not for an ICBM at long range.
It’s hard because, well, megawatts are hard.
Compared to a machine gun, a laser is an incredibly stupid weapon. Bullets are cheap, easy to reload, guns are cheap. You don’t have to worry about being blinded. If your gun overheats, use a different one.
Lasers, well, do you want to carry a one ton battery around? How you going to re-charge it? You have to wear laser goggles. It doesn’t like being rattled around in an HMMWV. It’s finicky. Expensive.
No, I’d say a laser is no match for a machine gun.
The laser fires a pulse of energy. It doesn’t go through the body. It burns the skin. You want to make the person fall over, you need enough energy to vaporize a big hole in the body. It take many seconds. You have to hold the laser on the person for ten, twenty seconds. The adversary doesn’t like the pain and ducks for cover. He gets behind a vehicle, a wall, a rock. He hurts, but is still alive with cauterized wounds. He’ll be fighting tomorrow.
Plumber Came To Fix A Blocked Pipe But Instead Solves Two Cold Cases
How does the Chinese public’s opinion on Taiwan differ from the Chinese government’s official stance on Taiwan?
The Chinese government’s official stance is that Taiwan is a province of China. It tends to take a more conservative approach to reunification, but reunification is seen as inevitable, of that make no mistake. It will mend what civil war once broke, one way or another. I think China has hoped to do so peacefully up to the present. But…the Chinese military did drop this…(what is it the kids call it these days? This banger?) recently:
I often tell people that subtlety is lost on me (And it truly is. If you aren’t glaringly blunt with me forget me catching on!) but even I couldn’t miss this! Trust that this didn’t make it to the official Eastern Command YouTube channel without official approval.
However, while the government and even military might be a bit more circumspect, politically correct, and nuanced, talk to most any Chinese male under the age of 40—no the age of 60, and you will probably hear hopes of a military reunification. Or put plainly, they’re getting tired of Taiwan’s shameless “we’re a self governing country” bullcrap. Especially when the Republic of China’s constitution is clear that Taiwan is part of China, the 1992 Consensus reiterated that, and the status quo was tenuously maintained until the DPP’s re-writing of history in education took full effect and people effectively lost their damn minds.
But as egregious as some of their actions have been in recent years (Lookin’ at you, Nancy!), I look on with deep concern. Maybe it’s the woman in me that hates to see pain and suffering, or maybe it’s that I have people I deeply love that are in the line of conflict if war breaks out. Maybe it’s that I am so deeply anti-war in general (I have an aversion to poor young men dying in the wars started by rich old men with nothing better to do). Or maybe some would say since I’m not Chinese that I don’t understand that deep desire to reunite the Motherland at any cost, even the shedding of blood. But when my heart longs for China, aches to be there, feels restless that I am not, and when I am committed to having my very ashes scattered there when I am gone, and I know that I, too, hope for a unified Motherland one day, I’m not sure that’s quite it. What I know, despite what anyone may believe of me or say of me, is that I care for the people of China deeply, and I refer to both sides of the strait when I say it. I don’t want to see them suffer, bleed, die, lose loved ones or see destruction of their beautiful cities and lands.
Young people, who have not lived long enough to see personally the cost of war or know for themselves the haunting after effects it leaves behind, tend to be the ones most vocally in favor of armed conflict. They haven’t buried their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends, and comrades. They haven’t suffered unimaginable horrors that live on in their minds long after the events have ended; wars that never really die, as anyone with PTSD can testify. They haven’t stared at their own humanity, the fragility of their own life, knowing someone could snuff it out in mere seconds.
War is hell. Hell is war. There is a cost to it that is so high, so steep that there’s a reason entire generations tend to die off before another major one is fought. All the survivors of the last one need to be gone before anyone is hotheaded enough to do it again. Never forget their sacrifices. But also never have need to make them again if at all possible.
When Evil Parents Realize They’ve Been Caught
OMG
https://youtu.be/31AZ3x17Aq0
Pictures
How did M*A*S*H get so many Korean extras in California?
They didn’t.
In fact, early MASH episodes did almost nothing to try and be authentically Korean.
‘Mamma san. mamma san’ said no Korean child ever, as -san is a Japanese honourific. She would have said ‘Mamma-nim’ or more accurately ‘Umma-nim.’
In early seasons Hawkeye and Trapper both get the -san honourific while in Korea.
Farmers came in wearing large, Vietnamese style hats. The Koreans are speaking a generic Asian language that is not always Korean (but often is). The Koreans are seen drinking sake.
This extended to the casting.
There simply weren’t enough Asian actors in California in the early 1970s. So they took who they could get.
Pat Morita, best known as Mr. Miyagi, using a fork while Colonel Blake and the Padre suffer with chopsticks. Chinese chopsticks I’ll add.
Morita was a second generation Japanese-American who had a recurring role in the earlier seasons.
Another common actor in the first season was Patrick Adiarte
He played Ho-Jon, and was Filipino. He didn’t look remotely Korean, but he was Asian so in he went.
In later seasons the writers did try to make it a bit more accurate.
Alan Alda and Jamie Farr had actually both served in Korea (after the war) and their input helped make it a bit more accurate. They also consulted a few Korean war veterans on things as the show went on. After season 2 they are at least speaking Korean, even if it is clear that the actor is not a native Korean speaker.
But at no point in the show are the Koreans portrayed accurately. This includes the actors playing them.
EDIT – Boomers are booming on this one. Comments from people I follow only moving forward. Sorry, but if this answer makes you mad enough to rage, there is something wrong with you.
25 Missing Kids Discovered Behind Secret Door
https://youtu.be/joJwqdCGVYs
Which eSports player basically ruined their lives?
Oh, I’ll do you one better, how about someone who ruined the eSports for an entire country and the “lives” of his teammates and the thousands that applied for his spot?
I present to you this monumental cock-womble:
This putrid stain on the eSports scene is Mr. Kumawat, better known by his handle, Forsaken, who was playing for OpTic India in CSGO at the time of his little stunt.
See India, despite its size and population, has a relatively fledgling eSports scene, especially at high levels. It’s a massive country with lots of players, many of whom are great, hard-working people who really want a chance to do what other players around the world do: play professionally as an occupation. So, when OpTic announced a new team from India, the scene exploded. Tens of thousands, I believe, applied. Hundreds of hours of footage, sifting down through the masses to get to the core that the organisation could use as a team.
Eventually, they settled on a team and Forsaken got himself onto it. It was a good start, though we don’t know how many games he cheated in, and when it came time to finally get on stage, to show what India was capable of at intermediate to high levels of eSports, this little shit decided to turn on the hacks.
On stage. In front of God knows how many, during arguably the biggest opportunity for eSports the country had ever had. It was caught, of course and he tried to interrupt the tech who was looking at his computer to see if the allegations were warranted. He tried to delete the code files right in front of the guy, much to, as you can imagine, his team’s dismay.
And that was that, OpTic were disqualified, the show was considered a farce (who knew how much he’d done throughout) and the international regard of India as an eSports country was pretty much down the toilet. At this point, it’s not even known if they’ll recover to any major degree or if they’ll ever be working alongside Europe, the US and the Pacific; honestly, the scene really doesn’t like cheaters.
EDIT: This is the first answer I’ve ever had translated and I’m genuinely touched, thank you so much.
Feeling That Way – Journey | The Midnight Special
Where was Spartacus killed, and does he have a grave?
No he has no grave – Men like Spartacus don’t get graves. They get erased.
He was killed in southern Italy-71 BC.
The final battle against Crassus, near the Siler River.
This was not a clean death-He died in the frontline.
The history people say he was wounded by a spear in the thigh, fought on one knee, and was finally cut down – Overwhelmed.
When the battle was over, there was just a field of 60,000 dead rebels.
The Romans looked for his body.
A prize, but they never found it.
He was just one more corpse in mud – vanished into the slaughter he made — His only memorial was the 6,000 slaves, Crassus crucified them – along the Appian Way.
That was the grave Rome gave his rebellion. It was a warning.
Sir Whiskerton and the Mended Heart
A Story of Thread, Trust, and a Tiny New Pocket
It was a Tuesday, and the farm was suffering from a case of the Blahs. The sky was the color of a dirty bucket. The scarecrow, Steve, was slumping more than usual. Even the Holy Shoe, sitting in its bamboo grove, seemed less like a divine relic and more like a simple, lonely boot.
The source of this pervasive gloom was the Farmer.
He emerged from the barn not with his usual grumpy energy, but in a daze. He shuffled past the chicken coop, barely noticing Doris the Hen’s dramatic announcement about a “Gloom of Cataclysmic Proportions.” In his hand, he clutched a bundle of blue-and-red checked fabric.
It was his favorite shirt. Or rather, it had been.
Sir Whiskerton observed from his rooftop perch, one eyebrow elegantly raised. “The Farmer’s aura is dissonant today,” he mused. “It lacks its usual aggressive frequency.”
Porkchop the Pig, rolling in a particularly delightful mud patch, snorted. “He’s been like that all morning. He tore his shirt on that grumpy old Throttle the Tractor.”
Ah. The Tractor. This was serious. A torn shirt was more than a wardrobe malfunction; for a man of few possessions, it was a tear in the fabric of his world.
The Farmer wandered to the fence, holding up the shirt. A long, cruel rip ran from the shoulder down towards the chest. He sighed a sigh so heavy it seemed to weigh down the very air.
“My shirt,” he mumbled to no one in particular. “My good one.”
He was lost. Adrift in a sea of sartorial despair.
Sir Whiskerton’s tail gave a decisive flick. This would not do. A despondent Farmer meant misplaced tools, forgotten snacks, and a general air of tragedy that was terribly inconvenient for napping. This required diplomacy. Not the grand, shoe-saving kind, but the quiet, subtle kind.
He found Catnip, the orange tabby, diligently practicing his synchronized napping with the Shell-Shocked Steppers.
“Catnip,” Whiskerton began, his voice low and serious. “A crisis of spirit afflicts the Farmer. His heart is… frayed.”
Catnip blinked slowly. “The shirt?”
“Precisely. The shirt is the symptom. We must treat the cause. We require an expert in textile-based emotional repair.”
A gleam of understanding appeared in Catnip’s eyes. “You mean… Martha?”
“Precisely. But we cannot simply summon her. The Farmer’s pride is as fragile as the shirt’s fabric. We need a pretext. A flimsy, yet believable, excuse for her visit.”
Catnip stretched, a plan already forming. “Leave it to me. I’ll tell her I have a… a deeply personal question about the structural integrity of yarn balls. She’ll come.”
And so, a message was sent via sparrow. Within the hour, Martha’s bicycle was heard crunching up the gravel path. She was a woman with kind eyes and a sewing kit that was rumored to contain threads of every color, including “Forgotten Sunset” and “First Laugh of a Kitten.”
Catnip immediately ambushed her, launching into an elaborate and completely fabricated dilemma involving a tangled skein of wool and his existential dread. Martha listened with a patient smile, but her eyes were already scanning the farm. They quickly found the Farmer, still standing by the fence, holding his torn shirt like a lost flag.
Her conversation with Catnip ended abruptly. She walked over, her steps soft on the grass.
“That looks like a nasty tear,” she said, her voice as warm as fresh bread.
The Farmer jumped, quickly trying to hide the shirt behind his back. “Oh! Martha! Didn’t see you there. It’s nothing. Just… an old shirt.”
“Let me see,” she said, not as a question, but as a gentle command.
Reluctantly, he handed it over. Martha held the shirt up to the light, her fingers tracing the rip with a professional’s touch. She clucked her tongue sympathetically.
“Throttle’s work, was it? Nasty piece of metal. But this…” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. “This is a clean rip. This is an easy fix for hands that know what they’re doing.”
The Farmer’s shoulders, which had been up around his ears, dropped slightly. “You… you think so?”
“I don’t think. I know.” Martha had already pulled a small, worn thimble from her pocket. “Now, you just sit right here on this stump and keep me company.”
And so, right there in the dappled sunlight, Martha went to work. Her needle became a silver fish, darting in and out of the checked fabric. She didn’t just sew; she wove the tear closed with such tiny, perfect stitches that it began to look less like a repair and more like a deliberate, decorative seam. The animals gathered at a respectful distance, watching the silent magic.
Sir Whiskerton sat regally beside the Farmer, purring a low, steady rumble of moral support.
As Martha neared the end of the repair, she paused. She looked at the Farmer, then at the small, prized pocket knife he was nervously turning over in his hands.
“You know,” she said casually, “a shirt like this could use a little something extra. A bit of character.”
Before he could ask what she meant, she had cut a small, perfect square from a remnant of soft, tan leather she produced from her seemingly bottomless kit. With a few more flicks of her wrist, she had crafted a neat little button-down pocket, sturdily attached right over the Farmer’s heart. She finished it with a handsome brown button.
“There,” she said, her final stitch a masterpiece of closure. She handed the shirt back.
The Farmer took it as if it were made of glass. The rip was gone. In its place was a testament to care. And there, on the left side, was the perfect new pocket. He looked at his knife, then back at the shirt. Slowly, a wide, grateful smile spread across his face. He slipped the knife into the new pocket. It fit perfectly. He buttoned the flap down. It was secure. It was his.
“Martha, I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything,” she replied, packing her kit. “Just wear it in good health.”
That evening, the farm’s atmosphere had completely transformed. The Blahs had been banished. The Farmer, wearing his mended—and now, improved—shirt, whistled as he did his chores, his hand occasionally drifting up to touch the new leather pocket.
Sir Whiskerton, curled up in his now-content sunbeam, observed it all. He hadn’t needed a grand performance or a complex philosophical debate. He had simply connected a problem with its solution, and a lonely heart with a kind one.
It was, he decided, one of his most successful diplomatic missions to date. Some days, the greatest chaos you could prevent was the quiet kind that brewed in a man’s heart over a torn piece of cloth. And the warmest victory was a neatly sewn pocket, holding a small, sharp token of happiness.
On October 14, the China Semiconductor Industry Association issued a letter stating that Nexperia, the Dutch subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology, faced selective and discriminatory treatment from the local government. Nexperia was originally a business unit under Dutch company NXP, spun off in 2016 and put up for sale due to poor operations. Between 2018 and 2019, Wingtech Technology completed three acquisitions, ultimately obtaining 100% ownership of Nexperia. Due to Dutch regulatory requirements, it later relinquished 1% of shares, with Hong Kong subsidiary Yuccheng Holdings holding 99%. After the acquisition, backed by the Chinese market, Nexperia rose from 11th place globally in power discrete devices in 2019 to 3rd in 2024, achieving zero debt operations in October 2024 after paying off all acquisition loans.
In December 2024, the US added Wingtech Technology to the Entity List, but Nexperia continued normal operations in the Netherlands. On September 29, 2025, the US Commerce Department introduced new rules stipulating that entities directly or indirectly owned 50% or more by foreign entities on the Entity List would also be subject to controls. Through three layers of equity penetration, Nexperia was automatically covered. On September 30, the Dutch government immediately responded by freezing Nexperia’s assets and intellectual property that same day. That day, Nexperia’s Dutch executives demanded Wingtech transfer shares below 50% and applied to Dutch courts for emergency measures, claiming the Chinese company was “suspected” of transferring technology, but submitted no evidence.
On October 1, without evidence, hearings, or notifying Wingtech, the Dutch court ruled to remove Chinese CEO Zhang Xuezheng from all positions and place all shares held by Yuccheng Holdings under “trusteeship” to a Dutch company, leaving China with only one share. The court appointed personnel to Nexperia with decisive voting rights and daily operational decision-making power, with measures lasting until final judgment. Western media then fabricated rumors claiming China was “stealing” Dutch technology. The Dutch government later changed its reasoning to “economic security” and “governance deficiencies,” citing the EU’s Goods Availability Act, worrying that Chinese decision-making would prevent chip capacity from prioritizing Europe. Though the reasoning completely changed, the conclusion remained: effectively confiscating 99.99999% of Chinese enterprise shareholding decision rights.
In response to US-Dutch actions, China announced “long-arm jurisdiction” over rare earths. All products using Chinese rare earths exceeding 0.1% content require Chinese approval for sale. Buyers must explain usage and submit evidence; downstream customers must also submit product destinations or be blacklisted. China’s rare earth production accounts for 90% globally, far exceeding US dominance in chips. Rare earths are indispensable for semiconductor production; cutting supply halts production lines. This effectively gives China veto power over the semiconductor industry with broader coverage than US chips, involving nearly all high-tech industries.
China’s countermeasures aren’t limited to reciprocal measures but employ more sophisticated approaches. Regarding US “special port fees” on Chinese ships, China announced that ships from shipping companies with over 25% US capital entering China would also be charged. This percentage is adjustable, potentially dropping to 15% or even 0% in the future. In 2024, China’s port container throughput was 340 million TEUs, accounting for 40% globally, while the US had only 41 million TEUs at 5.5%. This overwhelming striking power will force global shipping companies to reject US capital. China left an opening: using Chinese-made ships exempts fees, benefiting China’s shipbuilding industry while giving shipping companies buffer space.
China didn’t want to use such hegemonic methods but was forced to do so only against “hegemonic” countries, making it more acceptable globally. Once these policy tools are used for the first time, setting precedent, they can be applied to other troublemaking smaller countries. The US not only gave China this policy tool but also made China the “perfect victim.”
Data shows that in August 2025, China’s exports grew 4.4% year-on-year, and 8.3% in September, achieved despite a 27% drop in US exports. Exports to the EU, Southeast Asia, and Africa grew 14%, 15.6%, and 56.4% respectively. China’s September imports rose 7.4% year-on-year, despite a 16.1% decline in US imports. This indicates that despite US efforts and declining US trade, China’s overall imports and exports surged, with US actions failing to slow China’s growth. Exports to the US now account for less than 10% of China’s total exports; China has completed export diversification. These figures were all achieved before China’s major counteroffensive. The Netherlands’ decision to lead the charge for the US was extremely unwise, directly triggering China’s consecutive major counteroffensives. To make an example of someone, you need materials—targeting those who lack foresight.
Spicy Grilled Steak (Shawayuh)
This is a Yemenite specialty.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds beef boneless sirloin steak,1 1/2 inches thick
- 1 1/2 teaspoons coarsely ground pepper
- 3 tablespoons caraway seed
- 3/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1/4 teaspoon cardamom seed, crushed
Instructions
- Slash outer edge of fat on beef steak diagonally at 1-inch intervals to prevent curling (do not cut into lean).
- Mix remaining ingredients. Sprinkle on both sides of beef; lightly press into beef.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Grill beef 4 to 5 inches from medium coals, turning 2 or 3 times, until of desired doneness, 25 to 35 minutes for medium.
- Cut into serving pieces.
Yield: 6 servings
What challenges do people face when trying to access social safety nets like disability benefits, and why do these processes take so long?
Well, the simplest reason for why the process takes so long, is that there is no profit motive.
Look, I went to the US Post Office here a while back, and I remember standing in a line with 25 people, the line went around the room, down the hall, and out the front door of the building.
And you get to the front, and there are 5 customer service stations, but only 3 people, and two oft the people are talking to each other about where they are going for vacation.
Now compare that to when you walk into a FedEx store, and the moment the door opens they are quick to help you out, and they do it efficiently and accurately.
When I went the US Post Office, there was a guy there who was explaining that people in another state had mailed him some important legal documents, and he was asking “can you trace them?” Nope. “Well can you find out where they were last?” Somewhere at the USPS depot in X state. “well can you call them?” Nope. “Why can’t you call them?” They won’t know where your documents are. “But it was at their location?” Yes. “But you can’t call them?” Nope.
That’s government. That’s what is without a profit motive. They get paid the same whether you leave happy or not.
And you might vote out whoever is in office. But the government worker, and the government agency, they get paid the same no matter who is in office. There is profit motive.
FedEx, they want to take care of you, because angry customers tend to not come back. Because repeat customers is what keeps the doors to the store open.
When I worked at an auto parts store, we were taught that if there is more than two people in line, you drop what you are doing, and start ringing up customers. This included lunch. If you saw a line more than 2 people deep at a register, you were expected to stop eating, ring out the customers, and then finish your lunch.
And this was practiced by everyone. We had a visiting district manager stop by one day, and he and the store manager were talking over lunch. They were both sitting there eating, when a weird rush of customers came in, and I had 10 people in line. The other 2 employees opened up their registers, then the store manager AND the district manager each opened up the last two stations (the store had five total), and all of us rang out the customers in minutes, and they went back to lunch.
Why? Because you are a customer. So you are important. You make this business possible. You make our jobs possible.
When you apply for benefits, or when you go to the USPS, or when you go to the BMV, or when you go to a government run health care clinic or hospital, you are not a customer. You don’t pay their wages.
You…. are a problem. That’s what you are. You are irritation to their day, and you treated like what you are. And that *IS* what you are. You are not customer. You are a problem.
So, you don’t get to expect good customer service, or snappy help. You get what get.
And by the way…. don’t yell at me. I’m just the messenger. I’m just telling you how it is. I have no ability to change anything. And if I didn’t say how it is, that wouldn’t change how it is.
Serial Killer Thinks He Got Away–Until 16YO Comes Back From Dead | The Case of Madison Nygard
What makes Moscow’s lifestyle and urban challenges relatable to Americans living in major cities?
My name Brutalsky. I like drink. I show you liquor store in Moscow, Russia. I take photos my phone. Woman cashier ask why you take photos. I say: I show inostrantzi. This is wine stand wine from Spain and Italy.
This is wine from New World. Many wine from South America.
Fox and Dogs is Russian whiskey. It is not good so they offer free glass.
Champagne from France and Italy.
Cognac, vodka and cigarettes behind counter. Is because more valuable than wine. Wine drink women. Men drink what is behind counter.
Many chocolate. Ferrero, Milka, Choco Boy, Bucheron.
Next to counter is discounted Lindt chocolate balls. Expire date is in four days. Good discount. I buy.
I take selfie from liquor store to prove it is real. 8pm, October 26, 2025. Yakimanka, Moscow. Cheers.
This is my daughter she show advertise face mask. It says: show you face put on face mask.
In metro we listen to redskin chief from lake Titikaka play reed flute.
The Incident
Written in response to: “People have gathered to witness a once-in-a-lifetime natural phenomenon, but what happens next is not what they expected.“
Laura Nicole
And it was all I had known for the first eighteen years of my life. Up until after the incident.
It started as a cold spring morning: the air hung crisp, and soft tendrils of mist wove through slumbering trees. The glass of the passenger seat window cooled the flush of my cheek. My fever was finally waning—for the past few days I’d been suffering from the worst case of the flu of my life—but I was still a bit shaky and pallid. Dad pressed down on the accelerator, working his old pick-up truck to the limit. We sped by a sign standing amidst dead grass and melting snow that told us HELL IS REAL.
It was all over the internet—the solar eclipse. According to my Aunt Cheryl, our own pearl of the Midwest was in the perfect location for a total obscuring of the sun. We had gone out to purchase those special glasses from the convenience store in order to not blind ourselves and whatnot. Per usual, we were running late, so Dad was flooring it for the mile stretch out of town before we reached The Clearing.
The Clearing was the unofficial town meeting spot—a patch of wild grass bordered by thick forests on one side and cornfields on the other. At least a dozen cars were already parked when we arrived
The Thompsons, a large family with seven children, greeted us with a level of enthusiasm unnatural for the early hour. It wasn’t just the Thompsons, though, it seemed as if everybody in that clearing was afflicted with a fervent anticipation.
“Five more minutes!” my science teacher, a tall, stringy man, called out.
I accepted the thermos of black coffee offered by my dad, who was largely responsible for forcing me to get up at an unholy hour despite my illness.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Sadie,” he’d told me before casting a disapproving glance at my mountain of blankets and pillows. “It won’t hurt for you to get some fresh air.”
Now, as the morning chill bit my ears, I had the distinct feeling that he was wrong.
I slipped on my eclipse glasses in unison with the rest of the crowd. The moon slowly passed across the sun until it fully blocked it.
I swear to God, the temperature must have dropped at least five degrees as the darkness consumed us. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other as I waited for the moon to continue its path and clear out of the way of the sun.
But it didn’t.
Minutes passed, and the unrest in the crowd grew. “This is highly unusual.” I heard my science teacher announce, which didn’t help calm anyone. More time slipped by. We stood, clad in hats, and scarves, and coats, and boots, and waited for the moon to move. It still didn’t.
When it became clear that it was, in fact, not going to become light again, the crowd woke from its reverie with a chorus of whispers and grumbles.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to my friend, Anna-Lee. She only shrugged in response and followed her family in the procession towards the parked cars.
Before anyone had the chance to start their engines, a loud screech broke the tranquility of the morning air.
“Where’s my Susie?” Mrs. Thompson sobbed. Collectively, we checked around us for the pig-tailed girl, but she was nowhere to be found. An off-duty Officer Stephens rushed over to the distraught woman and began peppering her with questions. When did you last see her? Who was she with? Would she have run away for any reason?
It was dark, not pitch-black certainly, but dark. And it was cold. Freezing cold. I wanted nothing more than to be back at home and curled up in my bed. But as a search party began to be arranged, I realized that prospect was increasingly distant.
I pulled out my phone from deep inside my jacket pocket, and with trembling hands began to search if the eclipse-stalling situation was a global phenomenon. That was, until I realized there was no cellular. It wasn’t unusual for reception to be spotty where we lived but something about it unsettled me anyway.
My dad grabbed a flashlight from the trunk of our car and I turned on my phone’s. The trees at the edge of the clearing had gnarled branches that reached out like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky. As we began to meander through the woods, each of my heavy exhales left behind tiny puffs of vapor that danced around briefly before dissolving into the chill. Dad and I took turns calling out Susie’s name. As the other groups joined us, our overlapping yells developed into a sort of dissonant concerto.
We continued on in this fashion until the energetic pricks in my feet subsided into an uncomfortable numbness. The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth and decay. Dad’s bad leg combined with my lingering ailment led us to lag behind the rest of the search party. Only when we rested our voices from the repeated strain did I notice how our calls were utterly alone in the forest.
“The others must be too far ahead of us to hear,” I said, more to reassure myself than anything.
Dad hummed his agreement and we lapsed back into silence. Moments passed before he abruptly asked, “Why did the tree go to the dentist?”
I rolled my eyes before responding. “Why?”
“Because it had a root canal!”
I climbed over a fallen tree, covered in moss and fungi. “That’s so dumb.”
“You’re too cool for my jokes now huh?” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Well here’s another one. Why don’t skeletons fight each other?”
“Why?” No response. I tried again. “Why Dad?” Still nothing.
I whipped my head around. His flashlight lay, abandoned, on the forest floor.
“Dad!” I shouted, turning around in a circle. I grabbed his flashlight and pointed it through the dense foliage. My breathing became rapid and shallow. “Dad!”
The thud of my feet against the ground matched the pounding in my chest as I set off in a sprint back towards The Clearing. In my haste, I tripped over an unruly root and sprawled across the floor. I pushed off the ground and wiped the dirt off my face. There was a rustle in the bushes behind me. I directed the beam of my flashlight onto the source. A deer with a misshapen head stared back at me. It didn’t startle when it saw me, like a deer typically would, instead it started walking towards me. It moved in an unnatural, disjointed way, and that’s when I realized that all of its knees were bent backward. I clamped my hand across my mouth to muffle a scream as I turned on my heel and ran.
It felt like hours that I ran through the forest, but I didn’t dare look back and see if that creature was following me. When I reached The Clearing, I stopped cold. All of the cars were still parked. Nobody had returned.
With a sinking feeling in my chest, I realized that I’d dropped my phone back near the log and I didn’t have the keys to the car. I gasped for air, but each breath felt shallow and insufficient. Surely, the others would come back soon. Leaning back onto our truck, I sank to the floor. I buried my face into my knees and began to sob.
After a while, through bleary eyes, I looked back up at the sky. The sun was still eclipsed by the moon, but it was directly above me instead of hanging low in the sky like before. I shook my head, as if it would help me comprehend the bizarreness of the situation.
By that point, it became clear that the only sensible course of action was to walk back to town and alert the authorities. With a shaky exhale, I stood and made my way onto the road.
As I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling of unseen eyes boring into the back of my skull. Every rustle of leaves or snap of twigs sent a jolt of paranoia through my veins. Half a mile in, my flashlight began to flicker. Another hundred feet and it sputtered out. I glanced over my shoulder constantly. Every time I turned, there was nothing but the oppressive darkness staring back at me.
Finally, I reached the city limit sign.
Oakvale: Population 241.
Main Street looked deserted. I peered into Eleanor’s Diner. Nobody. The hardware store. Nobody. The convenience store was empty. Lord, forgive me—I broke the eighth commandment and stuffed a pocket knife into my jacket. The door swung shut with a clang and a jingle as I exited.
Suddenly, headlights cut through the fog. A red Chevy Camaro sped toward me. I flagged it down and it screeched to a halt. The driver was a handsome man with perfectly coiffed hair and aviator sunglasses.
“Need a ride?” he asked me, his pearly-white teeth gleaming.
Out of desperation, I agreed and slid into the passenger seat. “Can you call the police? Something strange has happened in our town.”
He didn’t respond, only floored it on the accelerator.
“Sir?!” I cried. The man still wore his grin, and as I looked closer there was something off about his face. His skin was stretched taut in places where it shouldn’t be and had a sort of waxy sheen. His sunglasses too. Why was he wearing sunglasses in the dark?
I tried to open the car door. It was locked.
Out of nowhere, the headlights illuminated the deer from before. It was as disjointed as ever, stumbling towards us. The man made no move to slow down or swerve. I reached over to the steering wheel and yanked it hard to the right. We turned down an embankment and crashed into the tree line. I’m going to die, I thought. But I didn’t.
The first thing I noticed when I woke was the sky. Blue, brilliantly clear, and light.
It was light.
My head throbbed but I managed to stand on shaky legs. Blood trickled down from an open wound on my forehead. Distantly, I heard people calling my name.
The search dogs found me first, then the police. I was questioned, and then brought to the hospital to treat my concussion.
Apparently, I had disappeared during the eclipse. Everything I remembered about that day was wrong. The sun was only obscured for four minutes. They theorized that some lingering effects of my flu made me delirious and wander off into the woods. That I had stumbled onto the road and got run over.
They theorized, but I knew they were wrong.
At the hospital, they handed me my personal effects—my clothing, phone (they found it in the woods,) and at the bottom of the pile: The pocket knife.
“Everything is NOT Fine in America – The Denial Era Just Ended”
Which submarine has the most firepower?
The Soviet/Russian Typhoon class submarines are the largest and most powerful ever built. When our recon flights took pictures of them under construction, they initially believed they were looking at a new type of pocket battleship or possibly some type of battlecruiser, given the gargantuan size and amount of steel being brought in. In the end they made submarines that equalled the displacement of America’s Iowa class battleships. They’re almost Nazi-ish in their absurd, almost comical size, very much like the super weapons Germany obsessed over during the second world war. They were also very comfortable, at least in terms of the reality of life aboard a submarine. They carried the same size crew as our Ohio class subs, but are nearly three times the size. They even had a small swimming pool…inside a submarine.