(repost) Structuring a well-rounded prayer affirmation campaign using world-line transitions (duplicate)

This is a very simple post that will layout a fundamental template for your prayer affirmations. These affirmations are things that you read aloud (to yourself) everyday during a campaign. Prayer campaigns happen over a period of time, and are interrupted by periods of inaction. In other words, you conduct a campaign and then stop completely. Then after a period of rest, you start a new campaign. The affirmations are a list of your desires laid out in a prayer format.

Structuring is a term that I use to describe the organization of your prayer list. You do not need to have it organized, but it will really help you out when the time comes to run a campaign.

The Structuring of a prayer campaign

Most people put together perhaps ten lines of prayers and call it their verbal affirmations. They repeat them once a day in their private moments. Some put them on a laminated sheet in the shower and read them aloud while taking a shower. Some put them in a notebook and read them when they are alone in their home office. While others have them on a list in their wallet and they read it in their car in the company parking lot.

When I conduct a prayer affirmation campaign, my list is long. It is very long and very detailed. I do this because I know that if I am not that detailed, what will manifest might not be what I want. So I tend to be very descriptive and very exacting in my campaign.

I learned the importance of this the hard way.

It's almost like that "contract that you sign with the devil", you will indeed get exactly what you wish for. But you must be very careful in defining your wishes.

So there are really only two recommended techniques (for the newbe and novice) that you can employ. Either have [1] very simple and broad affirmations, or [2] a very complex detailed affirmation campaign.

You do not need to be like me.

In fact, I strongly recommend that people new to intention campaigns start out slowly and simply, and then modify the affirmations over time to find our what works for them. For certainly, what works for one person might not work for others.

I will repeat.

We are all different. So what works for one person might not work for others. Which is why, pretty much, I tell everyone to stick to plain and simple affirmation campaigns and keep things basic. And then, after you have seen how things manifest for you, you can alter and grow your affirmation campaigns into great complexity with more intense results.

My suggested campaign template

Here, I am going to lay out the elements of a very detailed affirmation campaign. One that I use personally (with my personal prayers omitted, of course) and leaving the general affirmations for you all to use and alter as you see fit.

Now, I have mentioned how to conduct these kinds of prayer campaigns in other posts. So none of this should be a real surprise. What might be different here is that the campaign that I am listing here is an “advanced” campaign. It is one that is intentionally modified for “expert” use.

Yes.

This is what I use, and it is what any one who has been doing affirmation campaigns for a couple of years can use. It is not for newbe use.

What is different here, and why I warn NOT to use if you are new to affirmation campaigns, is that it contains certain elements that you must agree to that will completely and totally alter your campaign implementation.

The advanced techniques

This affirmation campaign is full of affirmations that will fundamentally alter and change how your campaign actually runs. This campaign includes “code” that will rewrite the “source code” behind the normal working procedure of an affirmation campaign. And thus it is dangerous for newbe use.

The advanced coding…

  • [1] Permits the application of world-line slides in your life.
  • [2] Discards your “initial world-line template” or base-line world-line map for others that will achieve your goals.
  • [3] Dramatically decreases the time for implementation of your affirmations by permitting and allowance for periods of “phased out discomfort”.
  • [4] Places guarantees that discomfort will be kept to a minimum.

To use these advanced techniques would result in some rather impressive changes in your life, but it will come at a cost.

[1] Using slides

The cost is that once you have allowed a campaign to slide you out of your birth-world-line map, you will never be able to return back to it. Which means that [1] you will forever be forced to conduct prayer affirmation campaigns until you die, and [2] that you must still obtain experiences and lessons as part of your soul charter. This will result in [3] some level of potential discomfort.

What does this mean?

Well, it might be like the character “Earl” from the show “My name is Earl”, who wins a lottery ticket for millions of dollars, but gets hit by a car and loses the ticket. Because he owes a karmic debt that exceeds the value of the lottery ticket.

My name is Earl television show.
My name is Earl television show.

Well…

… it might appear to be like that.

[2] Changing the template world-line map

In reality, it’s not really so much about karma as it is that your consciousness NEEDS to obtain experiences during this life.

The at-birth-world-line template was provided to you to use as a map to make those experiences occur. Good or bad, right or wrong, you were corralled or lead to make decisions that would cause events that would manifest due to your thoughts.

So yes, in a way, our world-line template that was allocated to us at pre-birth pretty much set up a corralled, and fated life.

Now, you are purposely leaving that template map, and permitting yourself to slide out on to other world-line maps.

World-lines can be grouped into clusters of similarly, and by other means.

When I refer to a world-line "map", I am referring to cluster of world-lines that evolve (over "time" as viewed by the consciousness) in such a way that the HIGHEST PROBABILITY of events are presented in a three dimensional format. The most probable world-lines are shown in a two dimensional plane, and the relative "difficulty" or "discomfort" to the person is presented in the third dimensional axis.

If you do not use this kind of "map", then you have no structure. Just a big furry and fuzzy ball of all probabilities all superimposed over each other. So use of this map greatly simulates how a person can make decisions, be corralled into certain actions, and learn from experiences and events.

If you want to get off this "fated" or "corralled" map that you were assigned with at birth, then you need to slide off of it. You would slide onto another map.

These other maps might be radically different, or might not. They might be violently disturbing, or quietly comforting. They might be anything. And that is the point. You elect to leave the experience-kindergarten and step into the elementary school hallway. It’s a big step.

Normal thoughts, and a normal simple affirmation campaign works within a pre-birth template map. There is a fixed number of world-lines that you must pass through (on the x-y axis) to obtain your goal.

To speed things up, or achieve other advantages, you need to slide off that map in a z-prime axis onto another map. This other map would have other issues and an entire set of highest probability pathways.

[3] Quick(er) response to your campaign

In this “heavyweight” affirmation campaign template, you would agree to sacrifice comfort and convenience for achieving your goals.

So, for example, if your normal campaign would normally take six years to manifest some long-term goal, this technique would reduce it to a third of the time. Say two years.

Also, as a side effect of this methodology, you will discover that the “pause” between campaigns will be abbreviated as well. Rather than taking a three month long pause between campaigns you might have the strong feeling that you could start a new subsequent campaign shortly afterwards, say in two months instead of three.

[4] Fail safes

Of course, this campaign would include fail-safes or else it would be very, very dangerous.

The idea behind this is that the world-line map that your experiences would lie upon in this incarnation would be within a set of boundary limits. You would have a high probability of experiencing “A”, and “B”, and while you could us your free will to avoid experiencing those things, the probability of you doing so would be very small.

People ask what is fate? 

A child drops an ice cream cone on a hot pavement in the Summer and runs away crying.

You watch that event.

The highest probability would be that you watch, and then continue on your way as if nothing happened. This would be your fated pre-birth template, and you would be proceeding on the x-y axis. This is the most common and highest probability of behavior.

But there are actually a near infinite things that you can do. Such as...

[1] Buy the strange kid a new ice cream cone.
[2] Go after the kid and taunt her / him making fun of them.
[3] Pick up the cone and throw it in the trash.
[4] Pick up the cone and eat it.
[5] Pick up the cone and throw it at a passing car.

The most common and highest probability reactions and events are on the world-line map.

For instance, you would accept a job at “ACME Widgets”, not knowing that in three years they would lay you off. This would be a scenario that you would pretty much be fated to experience.

Now, it is true that you do not have to accept the job at “ACME Widgets”, but the situation on this world-line template would be such that not taking it might mean going without food for a while, or other uncomfortable things.

So in other words, the world-line template map is a fated life that you as soul selects for your consciousness to experience.

But, by accepting and allowing to slide off this birth-assigned template map, you can use your thoughts to navigate to new and different world-lines off that template.

On this new world-line template, you have a set of new opportunities and new events that were NOT present on the old pre-birth world-line template.

So, while the option for “ACME Widgets” might still be open to you, so will an opportunity at “Headbook Software”.

Now taking that opportunity would give you much better salary, and a host of other benefits. More so than “ACME Widgets”, but also would provide a different mapped “terrain” that you would need to navigate.

Instead of just worrying about a pay check at “ACME Widgets”, you now have to contend with a host of other issues that was not in your pre-birth charter. You would experience far more, and do far more, and live a much more active life… but it would be at a level of compression. In other words, more experiences, and thus a greater risk of discomfort.

To mitigate and control this additional and new discomfort, you would need to add text to your affirmations to control and mange it. Thus this technique…

Advanced Technique

I call this an advanced technique because you are “taking the training wheels off”.

The idea of training wheels is to teach balance with a “safety” system to catch the child when their balance is off. 

In reality, most kids simply rely on the training wheels and never practice balance at all. 

Some children even find that it is easier to fall with training wheels – particularly while maneuvering around a corner.

-Time to Take Off the Training Wheels? Parents Families.com

So once you implement advanced intention campaigns…

… you are awarded “full spectrum” control…

… with all the benefits and the inherent dangers that come with it.

THIS IS NOT FOR THOSE NEW TO AFFIRMATION CAMPAIGNS.

You need to have been conducting an affirmation campaign for at least a year before you try these techniques. I don’t want to advocate people to dive into the deep end of a pool until they learned how to “doggie paddle” first.

The affirmation campaign template

Here I am going to give you, the reader, elements of my very own personal affirmation campaign. I have omitted my personal information so as not to confuse this template. (And besides, it’s personal, don’t you know.)

General             

  • I am calm, cool, collected and confident.
  • I , and my family, are all happy, healthy, and relaxed.
  • I live a calm, stress-free, comfortable life.
  • I feel calm and halcyon most of the time.
  • I have no worries, concerns, or stress. [1]
  • I am the water that flows under the earth in strength and power. [2]
  • I am navigating my reality towards my goals. [3]
  • In general, my reality is one that is a controlled improvement over what I already have. [4]
  • I am happy, healthy, and successful.
  • I fill my body with good delicious and healthy food and drink.
  • I have money, savings, and investments. [5]
  • Negative people are always repelled away from me in such a way that they do not affect my reality.
  • These affirmations manifest in the near future, and maintain existence for the remainder of my life.
  • All of these events as specified manifest as quickly as possible. [6]
Notes;

This is the "general" category at the top of my affirmation list. It contains phrases and general assumptions that will occur not matter what else manifests.

[1] The first five items refer to my level of stress and comfort. Now, if you do not want a relaxed and comfortable life, you can omit these items. I, myself, have lived in stressful situations. I do not want any part of them to manifest. So I make sure that no matter what, my life is calm, and good.

[2] My personality is one of adaptation. Some people have fixed personalities. You can alter this to read something like "I am a rock and stable in all things", or perhaps if you are of a flighty and wispy countenance "I move like the air and master my environment". It's all up to you. This phrase defines your general placement within the mapped terrain.

[3] You must vocalize what you are doing.

[4] You want to improve in what you have. You want to keep the good things going on in your life and add more good things to them. You do not want to throw away everything and start from scratch, do you? If you do, you can omit this phrase.

[5] If you do not include money in your affirmations, no matter how well intentioned, you could easily end up being poor and destitute; happy, but poor and destitute.

[6] These last two statement phrases are critical. By specifying a time limit, you allow the navigation to take you off the pre-birth intention canvas. You drop off the map and are permitted to slide to what ever new map will provide you quicker and more immediate results.

Now the world around us is seemingly going crazy. Pockets of discomfort, strife and alarm are all around us. We don’t want any of that to impact our life. We do not want any part of that in our life and we most certainly do not want to obtain experiences that are associated with strife.

However, if you slide off the pre-birth template you can end up (easily) within a world-line that is full of stress and discomfort. You do not want that. Not in the least. So in order to prevent that, you will need to place some affirmations in regards to safety and security.

Like this…

Safety

  • My family is safe and secure and protected from all efforts to attack it. [1]
  • I am safe and protected where I live, and my life is stable and isolated from any attacks of any type.
  • No matter what the news says, none of the disturbing things actually happens to me or my family. [2]
  • I and my family are safe and secure. Any battles, wars, conflicts or social upheavals occur far away from us.
  • My family and I are safe and isolated away from conflict, strife, and danger. We are always safe.
  • The people around me love me, protects me, nurtures me, and supports me. [3]
Notes;

If the world was stable this section in your affirmation campaign might not be necessary. But the world is not stable. Right now there are three carrier battle assault groups off the coast of China 15 miles from where I live. Maybe Donald Trump thinks that it makes great news headlines. For me, well it is very stressful and ugly.

[1] This might be the only phrase you might need.

[2] If the "news" is promoting something dangerous, this phrase will act like a shield and cause the event (or something similar) to "bounce off" and hit some other target. You know, like the fire on the USS Bonhomme Richard, or the massive explosion known as the Beirut explosion. This phrase will deflect events away from your area.

This is a complicated matter and I could devote an entire post on it alone. When huge groups of people start thinking things, they create a buildup of quanta. That buildup must be released. If it is being directed at something, and you use an affirmation to conduct a world-line switch, the build-up still needs to be released. And thus you will see other examples of where the "bullets ricocheted to".

[3] You need to tie yourself to a friendly and supportive community.

Now, let’s get into the content…

Content

Here is where you would put your “regular” intentions. This is where the vast bulk of your intentions would go. And it might look something like this…

The affirmations are for example only. 

They are not my personal affirmations. My very own intentions are a little shy on objects and things, and rather dense when it comes to personal relationships, adventure, and lifestyle. But here are some illustrative examples.
  • I have a lawn with “Centipede grass”.
  • My front door is painted a high gloss PANTONE Bright Red C, with a nice real shiny brass door knocker.
  • I own a John Deer Cub Cadet Ultima ZT1 50-in. 23-hp Kawasaki Zero Turn lawn mower.
  • I own a beautiful white Nissan Titan XD Pro 4X.

You can add anything here that you want. In this example, I have placed things. But you can describe relationships, or situations, or events.

Events like…

  • I am able to travel the world in a sailboat.
  • I am part of a local group of businessmen and attending gatherings.
  • I have box seats at the local stadium.

Relationships like…

  • I am dating a girl that has the personality of Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead actress).
  • I am dating a girl that has the body of Kelly Brook (English model, actress and television presenter best known for her roles in the 2010 horror comedy remake Piranha 3D).
  • My father and I have resolved our differences and spend time together on the weekends.

Situations like…

  • I have part ownership in a golf club.
  • My house is filled with happy dogs and relaxed cats.
  • I live next to the mountains and have a fresh water spring in the back.

In short, you can put anything here that is is desire. You can be vague or specific. Just note that the more specific you are, the longer it will take to manifest. So only add specificity when actually necessary. Otherwise, it’s wisest to keep things flexible.

Non Physical Entities & Forces

Our world, for the most part, is populated with the things that we see and experience around us. Therefore, since that is all that we know, that is all that we wish to alter. But the truth is that there are a host of other things, and other elements of our reality that exists around us. This includes things and entities.

By placement of specific affirmations you can protect yourself from malevolent entities (if they exist) or enlist the help of other non-physical entities, were it your prerogative.

  • I ask for help to achieve my intention targets; and I do get help from all the non-physical beings that can assist me.
  • I also get help from any physical beings that can assist making my dreams and wishes come true and manifest.
  • Other entities, not limited to but including, XXX, YYY, ZZZ, guardian angels, friendly sprites, and other entities are permitted to assist me obtaining my goals as defined here. [1]
  • In no way can these other entities hurt, harm, or mess up my life and intentions. They may only help, and are welcome to help gladly.
  • I know how to embrace opportunities as they manifest around me, and implement those necessary changes and actions promptly. [2]
Notes;

[1] You might not believe that non-physical intelligence's and animals exist. That's fine. But it wouldn't hurt to have this line in your affirmations, now would it?

[2] This affirmation can go anywhere, but the placement herein associates it with a knowledge associated with specific actions associated with non-physical, or physical entities.

Control of emotions and thoughts

We are constantly under  manipulation. Where it is the embedded code within the websites and the APPs that we use, to the movies we watch and the news that we subscribe to. Everything is trying to twist and control our emotions. Yet, in order for our affirmations to actually work, these influences must be zeroed out.

Now there are two ways to zero out these influences. Firstly [1], you can get rid of those influences directly. You can stop using the media, using the computer and using the cell-phones. Or [2] you can add affirmations that control your reactions to those influences.

This section follows route #2. You have affirmations that control the way that the external influences influence your behaviors and action.

  • I am able to control my emotions and thoughts.
  • I prevent any angry, dangerous, or terrible thoughts from occurring. [1]
  • I prevent the manifestation of any reality that might result from bad, negative or dangerous thoughts. [2]
  • I avoid getting into arguments on the internet.
  • Everything surrounding me is positive and good.
Notes;

[1] The first two affirmations are seemingly redundant. But, they are not.  One specifies that I am in control of what I think, not outside influences. The other prevents the manifestation and generation of bad or negative thoughts.

[2] Prevents the generation of "bad" reality generation resulting from my thoughts.

MWI Routing

This section adds a strong degree of control on how you add, alter, modify or implement your intention campaign. I am a strong believer that each one of us runs our very own unique campaign, and thus what works for one person, might not work for a different person. So in order to control that aspect of variance, you need to specify how the affirmation campaign works within your MWI reality.

These affirmations serve that purpose…

  • I understand how this universe works, and how to alter, improve and change my reality. [1]
  • I use this knowledge to generate a perfect life for myself and for my family.
  • As such, I am the Captain of my Consciousness. [2]
  • I move in and out of the world-line realities as necessary to achieve my thought-destination(s).
  • I do achieve my ultimate goals and I do so efficiently, and quickly while avoiding bad or undesirable world-lines. [3]
  • I am alert on what to say and do in order to achieve my desires.
  • I know what affirmations to make to manifest the life that I wish to participate within.
  • I know, positively, when to stop, change, alter or revise my affirmations in accordance with my needs and desires. [4]
  • I am aware of opportunities as they arise, and I know exactly what actions to take to maximize my desired intentions.
  • I am aware of the world-line routing as it occurs and do not panic or worry about how things will manifest.  [5]            
  • I recognize that world-line realities that I inhabit might be calm and relaxed, but that substantial positive and proactive events are unfolding for my benefit that might be hidden from me.
Notes;

[1] This phrase helps you rapidly learn what affirmations to use, and which ones not to use. You also better understand why and how they work. I think that this sentence along helps tie the affirmation campaign into a mechanism for soul experience growth.

[2] These two commands place your verbal affirmation campaign firmly into the realm of "navigation console". By using these phrases you convert an intention campaign from a "lifestyle enhancement method", to a "world-line navigation console".

[3]  These two lines explicitly state what the purpose of the affirmation campaign is, and how it works.

[4]  These four affirmations enable you to have insight on how to improve your affirmations, and add or subtract from them. While this is seemingly a more or less natural consequence of performing a campaign, this little statement guarantees that whatever alterations you make will be in accordance with your direct wishes, and not what was laid out in the pre-birth reality template map.

[5] These two affirmations cover cognizant awareness of the physical reality and what to do to alter, reroute or modify your intention campaign.

Intention Canvas

I urge everyone to have “dream board” or “intention canvas”. This contains images and pictures used to complement your affirmation campaign.

As opposed to "sharpening" your intention focus, it make it more "fuzzy". (Which is counter intuitive. Not what you would think, eh?)

In other words, instead of a small, hard, absolute point on the world-line terrain map, it becomes a bigger, fuzzier, and softer ball. What this does is provide a larger group of avenues or paths for you to reach to your goal.

The key words or text herein is to “complement”, and not to “replace” your affirmation campaign.  

As I have discussed previously, the canvas can be a “dream board”, a rotating image display on your computer, or a folder containing a stack of pictures. It can also include a computer folder in your PC that contains images that you can use (and one that you don’t visit often either.)

In all cases you MUST tie this “intention canvas” to your affirmation campaign. These affirmation commands do just that. In my case, I have a folder that contains picture collages that represent my intended desires. And that is what I will suggest in these examples…

  • I utilize the images in my “XXXXX” folder (and all subfolders) to help make the manifestation of my lifestyle manifest.
  • I also utilize the photos in my PC (found in the YYYYYY directory) and used as my rotating background display to help cultivate the reality that my world line is.
  • The following commands specify exactly how the images will manifest and what they represent within my life…

In which case, then you go into great detail what general terms that each image represents. Such as these examples…

Males shown in photos

  • In all cases, the dominant male figure portrayed in the image(s) represent myself. [1]
  • Images that portray mafia figures, or “bad people” portray myself in similar roles of power. They do NOT, however, manifest these kinds of people against me. [2]
  • Images that portray powerful people represent my role as it manifests.
  • In images showing actors, it is the character, personality and role that they play that manifests in my life, not that of the actual actor. [3]
Notes;

[1] Do not assume that just because a male figure is in a photo residing inside your intention canvas, that it automatically represents you. If you want that to happen, then you will need to either use this affirmation, or photoshop your image into that photo.

[2] So, you've got a picture of Tony Soprano enjoying some wine, with his underlings nearby and a girl on each arm. Do not assume that you would intend this role to materialize. Instead, the local mafia don in your neighborhood might end up getting the intention instead of yourself. 

[3]  Likewise, you want the role that the actor plays. Not the life of the actor him or herself. If you want the actors person life, then you need to specify it. You need to specify exactly what elements the images represent or else you might have the wrong things manifest. You might (for example) want the life of Captain Jack Sparrow, and have a photo of a carefree run-infused pirate. While in reality you might end up with Johnny Depp's life and an embroiled divorce. Yikes!

Objects shown in photos

  • In images related to gold, money, currency and wealth, the intention is broadly associated with large sums of money, wealth and success that I possess.
  • In images relating to objects, they represent the things that I own or possess as property.

Women shown in photos

  • In images that have females, they represent the situation that I am participating in.
  • In images that only contain females, the appearance and body shapes, and the situation of the female, their body and actions are what manifests per my intention direction.
  • In images showing females, with a dominant physical attribute (as determined by myself), that attribute manifests within my reality.
Notes;

Since I am a male, I do not want to confuse any images with women and children. I want to specify that they are different and perform roles that are situational. 

Blocking and Protections  

We live inside a reality that has both physical and non-physical components. Thoughts alter and change our reality. Both our thoughts, and the thoughts of those around us. Good people can give us good wishes and pleasant thoughts. However, most of the world today is not good, and thus bad people can thrust bad wishes upon us.

We don’t want to suffer through hexes, malevolent intentions or bad events sent in motion by individuals who have a grudge against us. So we must utilize protections.   Here are the protection affirmations that I use…      

  • I have awareness on how to avoid the manifestation of problems. I follow that advise immediately without question automatically.
  • I purposely avoid negative, dangerous, bad, or problematic reality world-lines to achieve my goals
  • I have broken apart any barriers to controlling my reality. These are barriers that are either self-created, or those created by others.
  • I define my reality, and undo any spells, magick or alterations imposed upon me, or the reality around me by anyone or anything.
  • I block and shut out all negative, de-constructive, and dangerous thoughts from manifesting and altering my intentions listed herein.
Notes;

Do not assume that everyone thinks like you. There are many "closet" occultists, and "home-grown" priests that will throw some unwanted thoughts and beliefs your way. You must put up protections.

You would be surprised at how many there are. Seriously.

Personal Health           

We can  have an affirmation campaign that is all great and full of details, but if you ignore you health, it will all be for naught. If there is one thing that we should learn from this coronavirus situation, it is that if you don’t have your healthy, all the riches and “stuff” in the universe become meaningless. You absolutely need to protect your health and general well-being in your affirmation campaign.

Do not neglect this most important aspect of a prayer / affirmation campaign.

  • I am in top physical shape. I am healthy and happy.
  • My body operates, functions and behaves like when I was in my late 20’s and into my early 30’s. [1]
  • My wardrobe is professionally matched, and my body is clean, pleasant and attractive.
  • My heart is strong and healthy. My internal organs are all in top shape. [2]
  • Nothing is permitted to cause me harm, damage or physical discomfort.
  • I know what minerals, vitamins and foods that I must eat to achieve my intention targets. [3]
Notes:

[1] Obviously this applies to folk older than this age. LOL.

[2] Old men can have all kinds of problems and issues, and to prevent and control that, we tend to watch our diets and take vitamins. Exercise is important, and I don't need any affirmations to support what I already do naturally.

[3] Shortly after adding this affirmation line, the number of business luncheons and dinners that I would normally have dropped considerably. My wife started to make a lot of vegetables, and fish. I began to find myself eating this kind of nut and fruit oatmeal just about every morning. Ugh! Yet, after a few months I discovered that my over all body health did actually improve dramatically.

Household    

The biggest influence on your life are those in your immediate family. Thus, you need to cherish, and protect them. For without them, you are just a lonely speck floating upon a most turbulent sea.

  • My family is happy, healthy, and well-taken cared for emotionally, physically, and financially. There isn’t any stress at all.
  • My family life is very calm, happy and positive. [1]
  • My family is happy and I have a very calm and happy domestic life at home.
  • I and my family are healthy, happy, relaxed and doing what we love.
Notes;

[1]  My idea of what constitutes a happy family household might not be what you would. I think a calm and happy household is best for my temperament. I however, know others that love a chaotic household with all sorts of happy noise and activity. You need to customize this affirmation to fit your own personal lifestyle.

Lifestyle   

Lifestyle is a “catch-all” that really describes the overall desire that you hope to accomplish from this affirmation campaign. Thus, it is critically important. It is the difference between having a “wealthy” life as opposed to a “rich” life. And if you don’t know what I am talking about, watch the movie “Bronco Billy”.     

  • I love my life, and I love everything about my life.
  • I love the colors, the air, the weather, the people, the location, everything.
  • I improve upon what I have, not change it drastically.
  • The improvements are all what is listed here or better.
  • The improvements are glorious additions to what I already possess.
  • I live in a beautiful area, with great colors, fresh air, roomy spaces, and a calm and relaxed neighborhood.
  • I am very comfortable, safe, secure, happy, relaxed and live a nice fun and carefree life.
  • Everyone sees me as how I desire to be seen. [1]
  • I know what actions to take to secure my privacy and personal life. [2]
  • I have the strength (emotional and physical) to break through any barriers to achieve my goals.
Notes;

[1] I control what people think about me. Not others.

[2] Privacy is a fundamental human need. Yet governments, family members, and society pretty much has obliterated this belief. Which is why that I often go without a cell phone on me, and do things on my own personal schedule and not on the schedules that others use. Now, if you do not secure your privacy, the chances are that you will lose it.

Opportunity     

The thing about affirmation campaigns is that they rely on you (the person making the affirmations) on taking advantage of the opportunities that present themselves to you. Thus, it makes no difference if you have an opportunity manifest in front of your eyes, but refuse to take advantage of it. You need to act to manifest that situation.

  • I am aware of opportunities when they arise, and I am led onto which ones to take and follow up with.
  • I have physical, spiritual and non-physical entities assisting me in making the opportunities listed herein into personally profitable ventures.
  • Opportunities come my way and I always profit handsomely from them.
  • I am aware of the trends going on in my life, behind the scenes, and on tactical, and strategic levels.

Affirmation techniques

Here we specify and “hammer out” the way that these affirmations will operate. You do not need to do this, but by doing so you can control the implementation of the affirmations onto your world-line.

  • I know of, and use, the specialized techniques to improve the actionablity of my verbal affirmations listed herein.
  • I know what things to say in my affirmations to make my reality happen safely and quickly.
  • I am dismissive of those that are not worthy of my time, or effort.

Speed of implementation  

By specifying the speed of implementation, you create a slide event.   This moves your world-line adventures, and your life off the pre-determined template and direct and straight into your own hands.    

  • All these affirmations occur as quickly as is comfortably and as safely as possible. At no time is my family, health or safety at risk.
  • These changes are being implemented now, and will manifest soon. Really, really soon.
  • The normal rules of affirmation manifestation has now been advanced to this direct and immediate application without hesitation.
  • All these affirmations happen quickly, provided that dangers are avoided and I (and my family) are protected.

Death  

Here, it seems really morbid, but a few moments a day to make sure that your transition out of the physical reality would be calm and complete is really a good thing. Don’t you think?

  • Death will occur late in my life.
  • I will outlive my father, yet be healthy and functional up until death.
  • When the time comes for my death, it will be smooth and easy.
  • Those left behind will be well taken cared for.

Important Navigation Notes 

Here we get involved in the aspects that make this affirmation campaign “advanced”. It lays out the use of slide and how they will manifest and under what conditions. You will notice that they permit “minor imperfections” to occur as long as my baseline affirmations manifest.

  • This affirmation campaign is set up to engage the obtainment of objectives early on, with whatever minor imperfections that they might have.
  • I use world-line slides to accelerate the implementation of these affirmations.
  • The slides only come into use whenever they can [1] reduce the time to obtain the affirmation realization within my physical reality, and [2] they do not cause me any discomfort or trouble.
  • As time moves on, the imperfections drop away, and the true and idealized intention manifests.
  • This rule enables a quick near-immediate manifestation of my desires herein without having to wait for a long time to obtain the “perfect” intention reality.

Conclusion

This post describes an “advanced” affirmation campaign. It uses slides to accelerate the manifestation of the campaign objectives. As such, it is highly detailed and involves long lines of affirmation code.

It is only for advanced users to use.

As an example, I used elements of my very own affirmation campaign and I urge the reader to use and discard what they wish to make a similar campaign for themselves.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my affirmation campaign index here…

Intention Campaigns

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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Master Index

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Leave your love in small things

This fellow wants me to read his substack. So I did.

Interesting stuff.

A bit in-your-face, but not too bad.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves Before Every Crash

Crashes don’t happen because people are stupid. They happen because people are very good at lying to themselves — together.

Markets don’t collapse suddenly. They soften the ground first. Slowly. Politely. With reassurance. By the time gravity shows up, everyone is already convinced it won’t.

That’s the real danger. Not leverage. Not volatility.
Confidence.

Every cycle has its own vocabulary, but the lies are remarkably consistent.

Thanks for reading Unfiltered & Unfuckwithable! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This time is different.
There’s too much liquidity.
The Fed has our back.
Everyone knows the risks.
It’s not a bubble, it’s a paradigm shift.

These phrases should come with warning labels. Historically, they’ve been more lethal than bad earnings.

At the top, nobody sounds crazy. That’s the trick.

CEOs speak in calm sentences. Analysts upgrade targets with straight faces. Central bankers reassure markets like nervous parents at a school play. Everyone agrees the risks are “contained,” “manageable,” or “well understood.”

They rarely are.

Mahbubani would remind us that systems don’t break from one event, but from accumulated imbalance. Sachs would point out that debt, inequality, and policy distortion always appear before things snap. Reddington would smile and tell you that when everyone agrees, someone is lying. Bourdain would ask who’s still ordering dessert. Bryson would wonder how so many intelligent people can sound so confident while being so wrong.

The most seductive lie before every crash is a personal one:

I’ll get out in time.

It assumes liquidity, cooperation, and dignity under pressure — none of which survive panic. When exits get crowded, there is no choreography. There is only physics.

Institutions tell their own comforting stories.

We’ve stress-tested this.
Our exposure is limited.
This is not 2008.

Of course it isn’t. It never is. History doesn’t repeat itself — it rhymes, and the chorus is always denial.

The instruments change. The acronyms multiply. The justifications evolve.
The psychology stays exactly the same.

What makes modern crashes more violent isn’t ignorance. It’s complexity wrapped in certainty. Elegant models, stable correlations, tidy assumptions — and somewhere in the footnotes, reality waits patiently.

Markets don’t punish optimism.
They punish overconfidence.

By the time the cracks appear, the language shifts.

Losses become “temporary.”
Warnings become “noise.”
Drawdowns become “healthy.”

That’s when the truth finally arrives, usually without an invitation.

Crashes don’t destroy wealth.
They reveal where it never really existed.

They expose leverage dressed up as innovation, speculation sold as investment, and belief mistaken for strategy. They are brutal, unfair, and deeply clarifying.

And they always come after a period when everyone was absolutely certain they wouldn’t.

Spacey Cakes | Vintage Lounge Background Music for Cocktail Hour

Please enjoy today’s background music while you sip your coffee and view today’s content. -MM

https://youtu.be/-LlhtA28GZc?list=RD-LlhtA28GZc

Yesterday I went to the grocery store to buy oranges for a recipe. The main end-of-aisle display was a big offering of oranges from South Africa, and they were being featured on sale. A small side bin had been pulled beside the main built-in bin, and it contained oranges grown in the USA. Everyone was going for the South African oranges and not the American ones.

I also went to buy some wine, and another customer approached me to ask if I had seen any American wines on the shelves. I told her they don’t sell US wines here, but she had read in the paper that this grocery chain was putting American wines back on the shelves just for the Christmas period and all profits would go to the local food banks.

It was a good way for the grocery chain to get rid of any American wine they still had in their storerooms while helping Canadian families. Since there was no American wine on the shelves that day, we concluded that it must have been a successful way to get Canadian customers to buy US wines.

The concerted effort to boycott US products has deeply affected Canadian consumers. packaging and shelf displays all identify the country of origin now, whereas before we just grabbed a box of cereal and did not worry who produced it. The threats and insults of US President Mugshot used to demoralize Canadians have had the opposite effect. We are more patriotic and anti-American than ever before.

We would love to be friends with America again, but not until this evil man and his minions are vanquished.

Beef and Mushroom Casserole

250273ed3fb70f004325d81de82906bf
250273ed3fb70f004325d81de82906bf

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 pound lean ground beef
  • 1 (5 1/2 ounce) package risotto mix with garden vegetables
  • 1 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
  • 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

Instructions

  1. Prepare risotto mix according to package directions.
  2. Meanwhile in a large nonstick skillet, brown ground beef, mushrooms, bell pepper and garlic over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes or until beef is no longer pink, breaking beef up into small crumbles.
  3. Pour off drippings.
  4. Season with salt and pepper.
  5. Stir risotto into beef mixture.
  6. Sprinkle with cheese and basil.

Spoiled Brat gets her WINDOW SMASHED and gets 5 FELONIES

ksnip 20251226 114458
ksnip 20251226 114458

Martha’s Quiet Goodbye
A Tale of Notes, Noodles, and the Weight of a Single Bowl

Ah, dear reader—prepare your heart. Today’s story does not begin with a quack, a snort, or even a kazoo blast.
It begins with a step.
A soft, deliberate tap of a boot on dew-damp earth—not heavy, not hurried, just certain.

So settle in. Breathe deep. And step—gently, lovingly—into Martha’s Quiet Goodbye.


The Bowl Left Out

It was a Tuesday—crisp, golden, humming with the quiet industry of dawn.

While the farm still slept—Rufus curled in his mud puddle, Ditto dreaming of floating cheese wheels, the scarecrow creaking softly in the breeze—Martha moved.

Not with fanfare.
Not with fuss.
But with the quiet precision of love made tangible.

She placed a ceramic bowl on the porch step—the one with the hairline crack she’d glued with gold lacquer years ago.
Inside:
Steamed chicken, shredded tender
Rice, glistening with broth
Thin slices of ginger, for warmth
A sprinkle of fish flakes—Catnip’s favorite

Beside it, a bowl of clean water.
Beside that—a single sprig of lavender, just beginning to bloom.

Then, she tucked a note into the Farmer’s mailbox—not taped, not sealed, just resting there, like a promise:

“Back in three days.
Catnip’s favorite—extra fish flakes.
Don’t forget to water the lavender.
—M.”

She paused—just once—at the sleeping pile of fur on the welcome mat.
Catnip, curled tight, one paw tucked under his chin.
She knelt.
Placed her hand on his head—not to wake, but to bless.
A slow stroke, from forehead to tail-tip.
Then—a whisper, so soft only the wind could carry it:

“I’ll be back.”

And she walked down the lane—not looking back, but not rushing either.
Just going.
Trusting the bowl.
Trusting the note.
Trusting them.


The Farm Holds Its Breath

No one saw her go.
But the farm felt it.

Catnip stirred first—not with a start, but a slow unfurling.
He nuzzled the space beside him—cool, empty.
Sniffed the air.
Not panic.
Not yet.
Just… a soft, questioning purr.
He padded to the porch.
Sat beside the bowl.
Didn’t eat.
Just waited—ears forward, tail still.

Sir Whiskerton, sunbathing on the roof, watched the lane until the last flutter of her scarf vanished over the hill.
He flicked an ear—not in worry, but in witness.
Then, softly, to the wind:

“She’ll be back.”
“Back. Back.” echoed the breeze—not Ditto, but hope.

Even the lavender swayed—as if holding its breath.


The Moral of the Story

That evening, as fireflies rose and the farm hummed in C-sharp, Sir Whiskerton addressed the animals—not from the roof, but from the porch step, beside the still-full bowl.

“The moral of the story, dear reader, is this:
The deepest care isn’t in grand declarations—it’s in the bowl left out, the note tucked away, the trust that you’ll be waiting when they return.
Martha didn’t need to say ‘I love you.’ She said it in chicken and ginger. In lavender and quiet strokes. In the faith that love doesn’t vanish with distance—it lingers, like steam rising from a warm bowl, waiting to be found again.
So go ahead. Leave your love in small things.
The world doesn’t need monuments.
It needs bowls.
It needs notes.
It needs someone who knows your favorite fish flakes.

Doris dabbed her eyes.

“A culinary metaphor! I can’t bear it!”
“Bear it! Bear it!”

And Catnip?
He finally ate—a small bite, then another.
Licked the water.
Then curled beside the bowl—not on the mat, but on the step, facing the lane.
Watching.
Waiting.
Trusting.


Post-Credit Scene

Later, Ditto found the note—still in the mailbox, unread.
He carried it to the Farmer, who stood at the kitchen window, staring at the empty road.
The Farmer took it.
Read it once.
Twice.
Then—folded it carefully, and tucked it into his breast pocket—over his heart.

He walked to the porch.
Sat beside Catnip.
Stroked his head—the same slow path, the same quiet rhythm.
And whispered:

“She’ll be back.”

Catnip leaned in—just once—and purred.
Soft.
New.
Sure.

Outside—the stars twinkled.
The lavender glowed in the moonlight.
And somewhere, faint on the breeze—

Tap… steam…* wait *… home.


Jingle on. 🌼🥣💛
(Or, in farm-ese: Bowl… note… trust … love.)

The End.

Pervert Dad Gets Caught in The Act

ksnip 20251226 185529
ksnip 20251226 185529

The Night the Sky Fell

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.

Jennifer Fremon

Fiction

CharlotteWhen Charlotte was 11 years old, she met a boy named Jimmy by the lake. Jimmy had blond hair and blue eyes, and a smile that was as bright as the sun. He was carrying a stick with a fishing line and a hook attached to it. It was not a fishing rod, as those were expensive, for the families who owned the boats docked by the larger lake over in town. The big lake people lived here year round, had winterized homes and generators for the months where the entire town was buried underneath three feet of snow. The people at Smoke Rise Campground were mostly summer people, but not the kind who rented the fancy houses in town with king sized beds and jacuzzis in the yard. Charlotte and her family were the kind of summer people who stayed in the log cabins up the road with dormitory style beds on the second floor and a rope swing tied to the trees out back.They had been at the campground for over a week (evidenced by her suntan and the collection of bug bites on her legs) but this was the first time she had seen Jimmy and his fishing stick.He flashed that glowing smile and offered her the homemade fishing rod.“I can do the worm if you want,” he said.Charlotte wanted to protest, say that she was perfectly capable of baiting her own hook. Worms didn’t bother her, nor the mushy lake bottom, or the spider webs in the corners of the bathroom. Charlotte wasn’t one of those kind of girls. But Jimmy’s chest was puffed up all proud which made Charlotte smile. So she let him put a worm on the hook and she let him show her how to wade into the water holding the fishing line in her hand and then toss it out into the lake, even though these were things her father had already taught her years ago. And when she caught a fish, a tiny little thing, not even as big as her hand, Jimmy cheered and gave her a hug and Charlotte was thrilled.Charlotte smiled at the memory as she zipped up her backpack. Her son, Jackson, reminded her a bit of Jimmy. Jackson was 6 years old with bushy brown hair and dark brown eyes, and a fierce love of all things wiggly and slimy. Most of the kids at the park wanted to run, climb, speed down the slide face first, see who could jump off of the highest swing. Jackson liked all those things fine, but his favorite activity was crawling through the bushes in search of bugs or caterpillars, or digging underneath the dirt after a rainstorm to find the earthworms that were hiding there.Jackson was the only member of her family that was excited about this trip, albeit not for the meteor shower. But the potential of a “real lake” with fish and frogs and maybe even a turtle (!) was enough to have him bouncing up and down on his toes, pleading “Can we go now mommy? Are we leaving soon? Can we go right to the lake when we get there?”At least someone was excited. Michael had kept up a never-ending stream of complaints and questions ever since she had told him about the weekend. Did the cabin have hot water (usually yes, although it didn’t last very long so it was best to take very fast showers). Did the windows have screens? (Yes, officially all the windows were covered. As to the condition of the screens, one could only hope for the best.) Were the beds comfortable? Charlotte didn’t answer that one, although there were plenty of things she could have said. Starting with, it was a log cabin in the woods not the Four Seasons. Or, yes they were fine, exactly like the cots the preschool teachers put out at nap time. But instead she had smiled serenely and went back to describing the meteor shower. “Hundreds of them! Shooting across the sky! Did I mention the sky? There is no light pollution up there! On clear nights you can actually see the Milky Way!”Michael had frowned at that. “But the cabin has lights right?”At least he was speaking to her. The same could not be said for her 13 year old daughter who had refused to pack or even come out of her room all morning.It was only a 5 hour drive to the campground. They could all go five hours without killing each other couldn’t they?

Charlotte sighed and went into the kitchen to pour herself some more coffee.

Meagan

Even over the hum of the music in her AirPods, Maegan could hear her mother in the kitchen, the bang of the cabinet doors, the sound of coffee pouring. Normally she found these typical morning noises cozy and familiar, not unlike the comforter she wrapped herself in every night. But not today. Today they were simply reminders of why she was so mad at her mother.

Tasha had understood why Maegan was missing her party. All of her other friends got it too, they had shared a collective groan of sympathy, why were parents so annoying. Naomi had even offered to let Maegan stay at her house all weekend but Maegan knew there was no point in even asking.

“Its this meteor shower thing this weekend. My mom is all excited. Something about reliving her childhood at some old creepy campsite upstate.”

The truth was that the meteor shower actually sounded like it would be a cool thing to see, just not this weekend, not the weekend of Tasha’s 13th birthday.

Maegan rolled over in bed with a sigh, wrapping the blanket around her like a cape. She knew it was only a matter of time before her mom knocked on the door. She hadn’t even packed yet. If she didn’t get up soon her mom would just throw some clothes in a bag and who knows what she would bring? Not that it mattered what Maegan wore. No one was going to see her in the woods. No one important, anyway.

Maegan closed her eyes, her mind briefly conjuring up an image of a cute country boy with faded jeans and dirty boots. She pictured this imaginary kid reaching for her hand, while pointing up at a sky filled with thousands of stars.

But that was all a fantasy of course. The only boy that was going to hold her hand on this trip was her little brother, and there probably would be a frog in it.

Maegan heard the bathroom door close and the shower turn on, which meant she could stay in bed with her music a bit longer. She thought she might pack her favorite jeans anyway, the ones she would have worn to the party that night. Who cares if there was no one to see them?

Michael

Michael eyed the packing list on his phone one more time, before zipping up his suitcase. He was pretty sure he had thought of everything, but it never hurt to check again just in case. After all, there wasn’t a 24 hour Duane Reade in the mountains that he could just pop in to if he needed an Advil or some Tums, or some extra toilet paper.

When he felt satisfied that everything was in order, he left his bag on the bed and went into the kitchen. His wife was sitting at the table wrapped in a towel, a steaming mug of coffee in her hands. She smiled up at him when he entered.

“All set?”

He nodded. She had left another mug on the counter, which he rinsed for a minute in the sink before filling it with his own coffee.

“We should leave within the hour,” Charlotte said. “Beat the morning rush hour.”

Michael took the carton of milk out of the fridge, sniffed it just in case, and then poured some into his mug.

“You want to tell Meg that or should I?”

His wife sighed.

“I’ll do it after I get dressed,” she replied. “After all, I’m the one she’s mad at.”

Michael had nothing to say to that. He was not surprised that their 13 year old daughter did not want to spend the weekend in a dirty cabin in the woods staring at the sky instead of with her friends. While he sipped his coffee, he made a mental note to double check that he had packed the bug spray (he was almost positive he had but you could never be too careful). The last thing he wanted was to go home with a million mosquito bites. Or Lyme disease. Or, god forbid some brand new blood borne illness.

Charlotte placed her cup in the sink headed towards their bedroom. Michael rinsed it twice, put it in the dishwasher, wiped off the sink with a paper towel. He then sat back down with his coffee.

He knew that he could have flat out refused to go on this trip. He wasn’t 13 years old, or 6 for that matter. But Michael also knew all about his wife’s childhood camping trips: swimming in the lake, roasting marshmallows on long sticks discovered on the ground, staring up at the vast expanse of constellations while her father pointed out their names. He also knew that the Perseid meteor shower occurred every August, and that this summer was supposed to be the most spectacular one ever.

Michael hated bugs. He hated all things dirt related. He liked comfortable beds and places with reliable Wifi. He had never been camping, but he would bet a million dollars he probably wasn’t going to be a fan of that either. But he loved his wife and if her dream was to sit by her childhood lake and watch the stars fall, the least he could do was help make it happen.

Charlotte

It was a 5 hour drive to Pottersville, NY. Jackson slept most of the way, waking up only to say he needed to pee and ask if there were any Goldfish crackers. (There were of course, along with all kinds of other snacks. Charlotte was always prepared.) Maegan stuck her AirPods in both ears, turned her music up to full volume and ignored everyone. Michael put on a podcast and drove up the Thruway in the center lane at exactly five miles over the speed limit like he always did, while cars and trucks sped past him on both sides.

They arrived at the campground early in the afternoon; the sun glowing high above the lake. Jackson bounced up and down in the back seat, pointing at the dragonflies that skimmed the surface of the water, as they made their way slowly up the dirt road that led to the cabins. Theirs was called Eagles Nest, and appropriately looked like it was build from one of Jackson’s Lincoln Log toy sets. Maegan removed her headphones long enough to proclaim it “Horror movie worthy” before dropping her backpack on the living room floor. She then scanned the interior of the house. Her eyes brightened when she noticed a wooden ladder leading up to a loft style sleeping area.

“If anyone needs me, I will be in the creepy loft.”

Michael was also looking around, a nervous expression on his face. He ran his fingertips across the dining room table, examined the pillows on the couch, opened and closed the fridge. Finally he exhaled and went back to the car to unload the rest of the bags. Charlotte considered his lack of comment a win.

As for her impression, Charlotte thought the place had not changed a bit since she was 11 years old.

Jackson

Jackson waited patiently (or at least as patiently as a 6 year old could possible wait) while his parents unloaded their suitcases and backpacks from the car, and unpacked two bags of groceries into the fridge. But after the last carton of milk was put away, he couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“Now? Can we go now??”

His mother smiled at him. She then forced him to stand still while she slathered a pound of white, goopy sunscreen all over his face but that was ok. Sunscreen meant they were finally going to the lake!

His mom sat in a wooden chair on the shore while Jackson splashed around, diving his hands in and out of the mushy lake bottom, wading through the reeds that grew at the waters edge. He giggled as tiny little fish darted back and forth over his toes. But the highlight of the afternoon was when he found the frog. It was brownish green and slimy, with long wiggly legs and it squirmed when he held it in his hands. When he asked if he could bring it back to the house his mom laughed and said, “Why not? Just don’t let your sister see it.”

Charlotte

On the way back to the cabin, Jackson kept up a steady stream of excited chatter: Were there more frogs in the lake? Did she think there might be turtles, or even snakes?? Could he keep the frog in a jar on his dresser at home if he promised to take care of it all by himself?

For now, Charlotte allowed Jackson to put his frog in a large Tupperware bin that he found in one of the kitchen cabinets and told him that they would talk about the rest later.

She found Michael out behind the house, staring at a large barbecue grill with a frown on his face.

“That’s an upgrade,” she said. “When I was a kid it just was a campfire with a metal grate thrown on top.”

Michael looked appalled, probably picturing a rusty metal grate and six different kinds of bacteria.

Charlotte, on the other hand, was thinking about plump cheeseburgers that tasted faintly like smoke, the crackle of the fire.

“I can cook if you want,” she offered.

Michael shot one last wary glance at the grill before agreeing.

She cooked burgers on the grill and a pot of Kraft Mac and Cheese on the stovetop, which they ate on the covered porch, while the sun set over the trees. Jackson proclaimed everything “yummy” and even Maegan mumbled a grudging “Thanks for making dinner mom.”

Michael said nothing, but he ate everything on his plate.

Charlotte had told her family that the best time to watch the meteor shower was after midnight, so after a few card games and a quick story, she put Jackson to bed in one of the loft spaces. Maegan climbed into the other one with a book.

Charlotte popped open another beer and joined Michael back out on the porch.

“Thanks for coming on this trip. I know nature is not really your thing.”

Michael took a long swig of his drink.

“Its fine,” he said. “Jackson is really excited about the frog.”

He smiled then, in spite of himself.

“Are we really going to let him bring in back to the city with us?” he asked.

“What are the odds that he forgets about it?”

They met each others eyes then and laughed.

“Zero!” they exclaimed simultaneously.

A few hours later they woke up Jackson, and Meagan who had dozed off with her book still open across her lap. The four of them made their way back down to the lake, equipped with bug spray, flashlights and a large fuzzy blanket that had been in the trunk of their car.

Jackson swung his flashlight all around like a laser beam, hoping to see “night animals”, a comment to which Maegan replied “If I see one single night animal I am going right back to the cabin.”

Michael mumbled something about bats, which Charlotte chose to ignore. The truth was there probably were bats up in the trees but there was no point in telling him that.

They found a spot in the grass right past the shoreline and lay down on the blanket, staring up at the sky. Only a few minutes had passed before suddenly a bright white light streaked across their field of vision. A few seconds later, there was another.

“Did anyone else see that? It was a shooting star! Like for real, like in the movies! Mom did you see it?”

Maegan pointed up at the sky in excitement. “Look! Another one!”

Jackson reached out his hand as if he could catch the light inside it.

Charlotte looked over at Michael, who wrapped his fingers around her own.

“Its pretty great actually”, he said quietly.

“Its freakin awesome!” Maegan exclaimed. “I can’t wait to tell everyone. They have never seen anything like this.”

Charlotte closed her eyes for a second, listening to her family’s excited gasps, the chirping of crickets from the bushes. She remembered lying in this same field with her father many years ago, while he told her to be patient, to just keep watching the sky.

“Meteor showers come when they want to,” he said. “They like to make you wait. To see if you are going to quit, to go back to bed.” She could still picture he father’s wink.

“Don’t ever go back to bed.”

She wished her father could have seen this one.

“Mom?”

She opened her eyes to Meagan’s grinning face.

“Mom, thanks for bringing us here. Its really cool.”

Charlotte smiled. “You’re welcome honey,” she replied.

The four of them fell silent then, simply watching the streaks of light dancing in the sky above them.

After a few minutes, Charlotte felt a tiny hand tap her shoulder then and turned to look at her youngest child, waiting to see what he thought of the meteor shower.

“Mom?”

“Yes Jackson? Do you like the shooting stars?”

Jackson nodded impatiently. “Yeah sure, but mom, can I keep the frog?”

Whose War Is It Anyway?

Everyone claims to want peace.
Most want it on their terms.
A few don’t want it at all.

Wars don’t begin with missiles. They begin with speeches — solemn men at podiums explaining why they had no choice.

That phrase alone has probably killed more people than any weapon system ever built.


War is not about morality.

It’s about interests.

Strip away the flags, the slogans, the hashtags, the carefully staged outrage, and the pattern is always the same:

  • politicians seeking relevance,
  • industries seeking contracts,
  • strategists seeking leverage,
  • and ordinary people paying the bill.

The vocabulary changes. The structure doesn’t.

Freedom.
Security.
Democracy.
Deterrence.

Old words. New graves.


Today’s wars are not isolated events.

They are symptoms.

Symptoms of a world in transition — one where established powers refuse to accept decline and rising powers refuse to wait politely.

Mahbubani would remind us this is history doing what it always does: redistributing power.
Sachs would point out that economic stress precedes almost every conflict.
Reddington would quietly observe that chaos is rarely accidental — and often profitable.
Bourdain would cut through the bullshit and ask who’s cashing in while the cameras are rolling.
Bryson would marvel at how confidently wrong most commentary sounds.

Together, they’d agree on one thing:

Wars are sold to the public as moral crusades and managed privately as balance sheets.


The media plays its role flawlessly.

One war is tragic.
Another is strategic.
One population is human.
Another is collateral.

Context is optional. Selective outrage is mandatory.

The same voices that failed to predict the consequences of the last war are now explaining why this time will be different.

It almost never is.


The real cost of war arrives later.

Not in victory parades or press releases — but quietly, over time:

  • in higher energy prices,
  • in food shortages,
  • in inflation,
  • in refugees nobody wants,
  • in veterans nobody remembers,
  • in regions that never quite recover.

Wars don’t really end.
They just fade off-screen.


People keep asking the wrong questions.

Not who started it?
Not who is right?

The only question that matters is:

Who benefits if this continues?

Follow the money.
Follow the contracts.
Follow the leverage.

You’ll learn more in ten minutes than a week of televised debates will ever teach you.


The uncomfortable truth is this:

Most wars are not fought for the people who die in them.
They are fought for people who never go near the front line.

If that sounds cynical, good.

Cynicism is just clarity that has outlived its illusions.


Whose war is it anyway?

Rarely the public’s.
Almost never the soldier’s.

And always paid for long after the speeches stop.

 

  • “This is where I leave things I don’t want to forget.”

Pictures

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One example is typical of what happens. This guy spent a small fortune on setting up what in essence was a very simple experiment but involved lasers and sensitive measuring equipment.

The idea is that if you send a laser beam through both openings in the two panels, as light always travels in straight lines, there will come a point at which if you separate the panels far enough, you will no longer see the light emerge through the second panel.

He did all the maths to account for the accepted curvature of the earth and expected to show that whatever distance apart the laser always emerged through the hole in the second panel. He was so confident he could show the earth was flat he had planned on presenting his results at the Flat Earth Society convention.

Naturally his results instead confirmed the curvature of the earth. Watching the Netflix Documentary, “Behind the Curve”, you can see him squirming away saying something like “We will just continue until we get the results we expected” 🙄

Others chip in with comments like “There must be some factor we haven’t taken into account…. “

In short they will do *anything* to avoid the obvious conclusion.

Confirmation Bias at its best.

Why Dining Out Is DEAD

Emerald Nightfall

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.

George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Contemporary Fiction Science Fiction

You can tell when it’s coming.  Sunset brings on a strange vibration even that the sylvan creatures feel.  The birds change the mood of their twilight songs to a more somber melody.  We hillfolk know all the signs of this rare phenomenon that is coming at night fall when the clouds float like ancient spirits and a wave of rich emerald bathes the rocky landscape.It is the night of their return and woe to those who do not heed the coming of the Emerald Nightfall.  Some of the creatures start to howl or screech at the sagging full moon.  Smaller creatures, often prey, scurry into the brush for safety as the sky is engulfed in the swirling emerald kaleidoscope.  The wind begins to blow rocking the higher branches and boughs of the pines sounding like an oncoming train.Let me warn you of what may come and take heed, take shelter, but, pray, do not let the garish green misty light fall upon your being, because the stain, like Cain’s blood will never wash off.I have lived here in this cabin for nearly thirty years after my wife died in labor giving birth to a son I would never get to know.   It was on an Emerald Nightfall.  Back then I did not fully understand the impact of the transcendental power that came with this occurrence, but seeing Sarah slip away wrapped in a bloody sheet with my son Isaac in her arms, I came to fear and respect the powers of the unknown.There are those among us who are in communication with those powers and they warn us to be on guard lest our souls be taken as ransom.  Their stories of the horrible magic that comes with an Emerald Nightfall is enough to make a believer of a hardened man like myself.My name is Moses Stearns and I have lived long enough to witness two Emerald Nightfalls, this will be my third.  I felt the wind pick up earlier this afternoon while I was fishing in the stream near my cabin for dinner.  The clouds started forming and I knew it was coming.  Shadows start deepening and pulling free from the things they are shadowing for.”We’d bes’ be gettin’ on, Brigadier.” I utter to my black Labrador as I pack my tackle box. Even the gurgling water seems to be casting strange reflections as it cascades by.As I stated before, I came up to these hills in North Carolina after burying my wife and son in some forgotten cemetery in Raleigh.  I never saw no reason to go back.  The past has always brought me nothing but pain and grief.  Up here in the Great Smoky Mountains, I have found a temporary place in this world with my homemade squeezins and doing odd jobs here and there.  I need very little as it is and I keep my cash buried in mason jars out back. I’ve lost track of just how much I got stashed there, but it don’t really matter to me anyway.”Emerald Nightfall comin'” I waved to Chester as I continued on to my cabin. He just nods and closes the door.Chester has lived his whole life up here.  He knows.  He told me the green mist came from some evil cult that used to have human sacrifices in the deep woods.  Chester said they used to put chemicals in the flames to make it burn green.  I’m not much on superstitions, but all I know is the Emerald Nightfall reached where I was living with Sarah and I saw what it did.  After that, I didn’t want to tangle with the evil that went with it.

 

I heard what all them professors and doctors of astrology had to say about it and it all sounds like gibberish to me.  I heard one of them spouting off about it.  The television station we were watching put his name followed by PhD at the bottom of the screen.

“Hey Mo, come look at this.” Sarah pointed to the screen as she rubbed her round belly, “He’s talking about some phenomenon that is supposed to happen tonight.”

“Sounds like hooey to me.” I shook my head as I walked out of the room.

How was supposed to know she would have trouble sleeping and her leg cramps made her get out of bed.  How was I supposed to know she’d go outside for her walk?  How was I supposed to know that the emerald light would cover her and the baby?  How was I supposed to know what that would do to her until she woke up a few hours later screaming out for me?  And when I found her on the sofa, she reached out for me, but it was too late.

Hemorrhage is a terrible word or so I learned that night.

Dr. van Dyke told me, “Moses, there was nothing you could have done to save the baby or her.”

He put his hand on my shoulder as I sobbed over Sarah and the baby.

Franita D’Aramatang stopped by a day after their funerals.  She was dressed in black and wore a black turban with a gold star in the center.  She started speaking in this strange language as she burned this incense as she waved the smoke all around the room where Sarah died, “Spirits release the soul of Sarah and Isaac Stearns.”

I stood there awestruck, unable to move as Franita continued her ceremonial ritual.  When I looked at her dark face, all I could see were just the whites of her eyes.  She began to shake convulsively that made me wonder just whose side she was on.

I didn’t wonder for long as her head turned completely around on her neck.  The devil had walked into my home, but then she told me that they were safe.  Her words of assurement sounded like a child’s prayer filled with hope and faith; two things I have been short most of my life.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Why do you ask?  You called me.” Her eyes burned into mine.

“I did not call you.” I shook my head.

“Your inner voice told me to come.” She tilted her head as if I was mistaken.

When she left, I made up my mind that I had to leave.  Franita D’Aramatang had waken the spirits that would never sleep again.

 

The second time the Emerald Nightfall came, I locked the doors and windows.  There wasn’t enough protection to keep any probing spirits out, but while they rattled my windows, none dared to intrude my cabin. I guess I dud not have anything they wanted.  I did hear some stories from my neighbor Chester, that some people were sucked into the emerald mist, never to be seen again.  Listening to him ramble on made me very uneasy as I helped him repair his fence.

“The Quigley’s had some of them cult folk in their family, but the cult disbanded before you moved up here.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his kerchief, “I suspect if there are any of ’em, they are pretty aged by now or dying off for sure.”

“We’d better get this fence repaired before the Emerald Nightfall sets in.” I searched the sky, but it was still blue and innocent.

 

As I peered up at the sky, I saw green lines streaking across the sky.  The crickets were silent.  The birds sang a somber tune like something they would play at a funeral, my Sarah’s funeral.  I remember the sad melody played on a bugle and bagpipe as they lowered her casket into the open grave.

I would sit on my porch as the sun began to set peacefully between the gnarled old pines.  Shadows began to dance free just like they had the other two times.

My neighbor on the south side, Elmer Quigley sauntered over wearing a smile with a couple of gaps.  He tipped his straw hat and nodded,”Moses, ready for the Emerald Nightfall?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I answered without relinquishing my chair, “Care to join me for a spell.”

“I might til the twilight.” He sat without the grace of an older man.  Most folks guess his age was just a might over seventy, but when I looked into his gray lifeless eyes, I knew he is well past eighty.  My mama said the eyes don’t lie and I do believe this is a hard truth. Searching his overall pockets for his pack of Lucky Strikes, he managed to Pull out a cigarette and light his stick match on a rough patch in his clothing.  His gray focused on the tree lined horizon. “Been some time since our last one.”

“What, the Emerald Nightfall?”

“Yeah, that’s what most folks around here call it.” He sat back and blew a thick cloud of smoke.

“Yeah, and what do You call it?”

“Hunter’s Moon.” He smiled a crooked smile and winked.

“What’s a Hunter’s moon, Elmer?”

“Used to be a signal that the members was supposed to find a victim for the sacrificial rite.” His smug expression made me leery as I sat there watching the sky covered with this eerie blanket.  He shrugged, “We always managed to find someone until Judge Orcutt put a stop to, as he called it, ‘our barbaric ritualistic rites.’ But we found other ways to keep our practice from being swept away by this bureaucratic nonsense.”

“How did you manage that?” I asked as he began moving like a serpent.

“We went underground.” His shrug was so nonchalant it made my blood run cold. “We wrote in an invented language.  Can you imagine people inventing a language just so those in authority wouldn’t have a clue about what you are saying. You must understand that language can be used as a weapon.  How sublime.  What we speak, the words we use, can be as lethal as a bullet fired from a gun.”

His laugh echoed in the empty woods surrounding my cabin.  Suddenly, I felt trapped.  All the years I lived here, I felt the freedom of being my own man.  Final judgment would not come until my name was called, but here I was trapped like a critter in one of my snares.  His smile, his mild, self assuming manner was casting a spell on me.

Elmer rose to his naked feet, tossed his Cigarette butt into the tall grass and said, “I reckon I bes’ be headed on. Glad we talked.”

His eyes raked over me and I swallowed and said, “Yup, I see the sky startin’ to turn.”

“It always amazes me when the transition is taking place. It’s as if the world starts rotating the other way.  Counterclockwise.  Time begins to regress.  The creatures of the woods are silenced in reverence and for just a moment you regain what has been lost.  When Death is knocking on our door, we refuse to answer.  We refuse to answer.” His dark eyes raked me over again before he tipped his hat and went on his merry way.

He was gone, no longer a threat or nuisance. I would go inside and let this Emerald Nightfall pass. I got myself into bed and dreams came quickly.

 

We were holding hands in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  We were so much in love, just like all the rest.  We were so much in love we could not wait so we dropped out of college and moved in together.  Time did not fit into our plans.  We were both compulsive and sure that we could live on love. We ended up getting married when Sarah found she was pregnant.  Our life would begin in a domestic paradise.  But reality plays a harsh game and soon we realized we were in for a rough road ahead, still we felt young and strong enough to overcome whatever came our way.

I wrapped myself in this dream like a warm blanket and did not want to wake from it.

 

“Moses!” The wind shrieked, waking me from my dream. My head became an echo chamber as the wind rattled the recesses of my mind.  I did not answer, because I knew this was a trap.

“Moses, come here quickly, I need you!” The disembodied voice continued to shriek outside my door.  Suddenly I felt transported back to that horrible night when I first encountered the Emerald Nightfall.  Had I passed through some vortex of which I could not escape, I could not free myself from?  The memory.  That wretched memory was with me again.

It was her voice.  I reached over to her side of the bed, but she was gone. Where was she?

“Moses. something is wrong.  Help me…”

Her voice began to fade and weaken.

I called out for her, the dream still vivid in my mind. I could not help her.  It was too late.

But what if I could?  What if this Emerald Nightfall would let me transcend time and do what I could not do back then?  I would do anything.  Anything to have her back.

“I am here.” Her voice was pleading in pain.

I remember how I had promised her that I would protect her, but all of my promises became like sand slipping through my hands.  No matter how quickly I moved my feet, it felt like I was running in quicksand. When I held her, I could feel her slipping away.

What can I do Sarah?

“Open the door and you will find me.”

Colors flashed through the windows.

I could feel the walls vibrate. Any second I would be on my way to Oz with Brigadier in tow instead of Toto.

It felt as though I was climbing a steep mountain pass as I struggled to reach the door.  Brigadier let out a warning bark, but I tugged on the door handle with all my strength. Once the door was open there was the green mist staring at me like a specter.

“Sarah!” I called out in the howling wind, but there was no answer.

Once again I was a fool to my desire and earnest prayers.  She was not there.  The green mist covered me as Brigadier stood in the doorway barking furiously as I was sucked into the Emerald Nightfall.

“Moses, is that you?” The voice was as soft as any I had ever heard.  When the emerald mist cleared there was Sarah standing there as beautiful as I could remember.

“It is I.” I puffed out my chest in my false bravado.

She embraced me.  I could feel her hands and arms wrapped around me.

“I missed you so much.” I whispered in her ear.

“I missed you, too.” She kissed me on the cheek.  I felt the warmth of her lips pressed against my skin. I had waited a long time, a very long time.

 

I doubt few of us will remember our autopsy, but I remember it clearly as the coroner poked around my inners with his scalpel before writing down “Death by Affixation” and signing the document.

“It was a terrible fire.” Elmer put his hands in his pockets when the coroner walked into the waiting area.

“Damn shame.” The coroner sighed. “I have heard some strange stories about the Emerald Nightfall, but I never heard it starting a fire like it did.”

“No sir, it was a log that rolled out of the fireplace.” Elmer confirmed.

“Still, sorry for the loss.” The coroner reached out to pat Elmer on the back.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be grieving too much. I got this feeling that all is well with Moses.” Elmer nodded as he turned to leave. He couldn’t have been more right about that.

In 1437 a gunner managed to fire three shots in a day, the devil was believed to have assisted him and he had to make a penitential pilgrimage to Rome. Other contemporary accounts suggest 5 to 6 shots a day could be managed which means the Ottoman guns were not much faster or slower than normal.

To get some sense of the effort involved just consider the sheer size and awkwardness of these monster guns.

Loading

A 16.000 kg bombard with a length of circa 8 meters firing a 700 kg stone projectile would require something like 140 to 200 kg of gunpowder per shot.

The barrel might be around 75 cm in diameter meaning a boy or a man could crawl in the barrel on his hands and knees. Maybe that is how the 150 kg charge of gunpowder was loaded. Halfway the 8 meter barrel the diameter would decrease as the chamber of the piece was smaller than the barrel. A boy or small man might have had to crawl inside the barrel equipped with a ladle to fill the chamber for 2/3rds making sure not to compress the powder too much. There are also reference to loading irons being used to expedite this process, however knowing that many bombards were made of wrought iron the use of loading irons may have been somewhat unsafe even by the rather relaxed safety standards of the day.

After the chamber had been filled, hopefully without accident, it had to be sealed off with a wooden tompion which allowed the loose powder to loft during the initial phase of the explosion ensuring a higher chamber pressure.

With the chamber loaded and sealed a crew of men had to load the 700 kg stone projectile and seat it in the proper position. In earlier days wooden wedges were used to fix the projectile in position for added effect, the muzzle might also be sealed off with a loam seal. By the siege of Constantinople such measures were outdated.

Cooling and cleaning

On firing the gun would become fouled. The 150 kg gunpowder charge might result in up to 90 kg of residue being deposited in the barrel or the chamber. To prepare for the next shot would require scrapping or swabbing all this residue out, a procedure which must have been quite awkward owing to the enormous size of the gun.

The guys in charge of cleaning also had to worry about another aspect, firing the gun would cause it to heat up considerably. Hot metal has a lower hardness which meant that loading and firing a heated gun could cause it to deform and wear out more easily. Siege guns even in the 17th and 18th century had to moderate their rate of fire or periodically cease operations so that they could be cooled down with wet sheepskins.

The Ottomans however encountered the opposite problem, their guns were comparatively thin-walled and cooled too quickly. Quick changes in temperature exacerbated casting faults which were inevitable in such large bronze cylinders. A similar fault would actually help Thomas Newcomen improve his steam cylinder by adding a condensing jet but that’s another story. For the Ottomans temperature changes could cause cracks to develop which might cause entire guns to become disabled on firing. To prevent the guns from cooling too fast they had to be soaked in hot oil by the crew. The fact that the largest bombard did crack or explode suggests it didn’t work as well as intended.

Aiming

The guns were not fired from wheeled carriages. Instead they were placed on wood or earthwork beds protected from enemy small arms by wooden boards. To manage the recoil stout timberworks were constructed at the rear end. Sometimes lead ‘pillows’ were placed between the retaining wall and the rear end of the cannon that would take the recoil and deform like a crumple zone.

Each shot from these monstrous bombards had the capacity to wreck this entire assembly. The blast could damage the mantlets near the muzzle, break through the retaining block or slip out of their bed. Having several tons of loose cannon rolling around can’t have been beneficial for the artillery crew’s health. Nor was manhandling a multiple ton cannon back into place with handspikes an easy task. Provided that the whole assembly had remained intact the gun still had to be placed in such a manner that it could hit the desired spot. If it recoiled backward a little it had to be brought up again, if the muzzle traversed to the left or right it had to be brought in line again and the elevation had to be adjusted again.

Even in the 19th century when small well balanced cannons with trunions existed the physical act of elevating the barrel might require a gunner to aim, two men with handspikes to elevate the barrel and one to insert a wooden wedge beneath the

·

Following

In 1437 a gunner managed to fire three shots in a day, the devil was believed to have assisted him and he had to make a penitential pilgrimage to Rome. Other contemporary accounts suggest 5 to 6 shots a day could be managed which means the Ottoman guns were not much faster or slower than normal.

To get some sense of the effort involved just consider the sheer size and awkwardness of these monster guns.

Loading

A 16.000 kg bombard with a length of circa 8 meters firing a 700 kg stone projectile would require something like 140 to 200 kg of gunpowder per shot.

The barrel might be around 75 cm in diameter meaning a boy or a man could crawl in the barrel on his hands and knees. Maybe that is how the 150 kg charge of gunpowder was loaded. Halfway the 8 meter barrel the diameter would decrease as the chamber of the piece was smaller than the barrel. A boy or small man might have had to crawl inside the barrel equipped with a ladle to fill the chamber for 2/3rds making sure not to compress the powder too much. There are also reference to loading irons being used to expedite this process, however knowing that many bombards were made of wrought iron the use of loading irons may have been somewhat unsafe even by the rather relaxed safety standards of the day.

After the chamber had been filled, hopefully without accident, it had to be sealed off with a wooden tompion which allowed the loose powder to loft during the initial phase of the explosion ensuring a higher chamber pressure.

With the chamber loaded and sealed a crew of men had to load the 700 kg stone projectile and seat it in the proper position. In earlier days wooden wedges were used to fix the projectile in position for added effect, the muzzle might also be sealed off with a loam seal. By the siege of Constantinople such measures were outdated.

Cooling and cleaning

On firing the gun would become fouled. The 150 kg gunpowder charge might result in up to 90 kg of residue being deposited in the barrel or the chamber. To prepare for the next shot would require scrapping or swabbing all this residue out, a procedure which must have been quite awkward owing to the enormous size of the gun.

The guys in charge of cleaning also had to worry about another aspect, firing the gun would cause it to heat up considerably. Hot metal has a lower hardness which meant that loading and firing a heated gun could cause it to deform and wear out more easily. Siege guns even in the 17th and 18th century had to moderate their rate of fire or periodically cease operations so that they could be cooled down with wet sheepskins.

The Ottomans however encountered the opposite problem, their guns were comparatively thin-walled and cooled too quickly. Quick changes in temperature exacerbated casting faults which were inevitable in such large bronze cylinders. A similar fault would actually help Thomas Newcomen improve his steam cylinder by adding a condensing jet but that’s another story. For the Ottomans temperature changes could cause cracks to develop which might cause entire guns to become disabled on firing. To prevent the guns from cooling too fast they had to be soaked in hot oil by the crew. The fact that the largest bombard did crack or explode suggests it didn’t work as well as intended.

Aiming

The guns were not fired from wheeled carriages. Instead they were placed on wood or earthwork beds protected from enemy small arms by wooden boards. To manage the recoil stout timberworks were constructed at the rear end. Sometimes lead ‘pillows’ were placed between the retaining wall and the rear end of the cannon that would take the recoil and deform like a crumple zone.

Each shot from these monstrous bombards had the capacity to wreck this entire assembly. The blast could damage the mantlets near the muzzle, break through the retaining block or slip out of their bed. Having several tons of loose cannon rolling around can’t have been beneficial for the artillery crew’s health. Nor was manhandling a multiple ton cannon back into place with handspikes an easy task. Provided that the whole assembly had remained intact the gun still had to be placed in such a manner that it could hit the desired spot. If it recoiled backward a little it had to be brought up again, if the muzzle traversed to the left or right it had to be brought in line again and the elevation had to be adjusted again.

Even in the 19th century when small well balanced cannons with trunions existed the physical act of elevating the barrel might require a gunner to aim, two men with handspikes to elevate the barrel and one to insert a wooden wedge beneath the barrel. A much more awkwardly installed cannon about sixteen times its weight probably required more.

barrel. A much more awkwardly installed cannon about sixteen times its weight probably required more.

Cops Discover Dead Roommate in Freezer During Welfare Check

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ksnip 20251226 185806

Beef Chili Cheese Fries

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cb63606dc8c7a0be9a4a0f10803d0a7c

Thanks for reading Unfiltered & Unfuckwithable! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

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d7db1b01303c1e71c5df13f6ef3f1256

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 cups chopped yellow onions
  • Salt and cayenne to taste
  • 2 pounds ground beef
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • Crushed red pepper to taste
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
  • 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
  • 3 cups peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh or canned tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 3 cups beefsteak or beef broth
  • 2 tablespoons Masa Harina
  • Vegetable oil for deep frying
  • 2 large Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into shoestrings, rinsed in cool water and patted dry
  • 1/2 pound grated Cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 pound grated Monterey Jack cheese
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1/2 cup sliced pickled jalapenos

Instructions

  1. Heat the vegetable oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onions, season with salt and cayenne, and cook, stirring, until they begin to wilt, about 2 minutes.
  2. Add the beef, chili powder, cumin, crushed red pepper and oregano. Season with salt and cayenne, and cook until all the pink in the meat disappears, 5 to 6 minutes.
  3. Add the garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste and 2 1/2 cups beef stock; bring to boil, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, until the meat is tender, about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.
  4. Combine the Masa Harina with the remaining 1/2 cup stock and mix to blend. Slowly add to the pot, stirring to blend. The mixture will thicken. Cook for 30 minutes, then season again with salt and cayenne. It should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
  5. In a heavy, deep pot or an electric fryer, heat 4 inches of vegetable oil to 360 degrees F. Fry the shoestring potatoes in batches until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Drain on paper towels, then season with salt and cayenne.
  6. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
  7. Cover the bottom of a large, glass rectangular baking pan with the shoestring potatoes.
  8. Combine the Cheddar and jack cheeses. Sprinkle the cheese over the fries.
  9. Bake just until the cheese melts, 3 to 4 minutes.
  10. Remove the pan from the oven and spoon the chili over the top of the fries.
  11. Garnish with the sour cream and jalapenos.
  12. Serve immediately.

Attribution

Emeril Lagasse

Whose War Is It Anyway?

Everyone claims to want peace.
Most want it on their terms.
A few don’t want it at all.

Wars don’t begin with missiles. They begin with speeches — solemn men at podiums explaining why they had no choice.

That phrase alone has probably killed more people than any weapon system ever built.


War is not about morality.

It’s about interests.

Strip away the flags, the slogans, the hashtags, the carefully staged outrage, and the pattern is always the same:

  • politicians seeking relevance,
  • industries seeking contracts,
  • strategists seeking leverage,
  • and ordinary people paying the bill.

The vocabulary changes. The structure doesn’t.

Freedom.
Security.
Democracy.
Deterrence.

Old words. New graves.


Today’s wars are not isolated events.

They are symptoms.

Symptoms of a world in transition — one where established powers refuse to accept decline and rising powers refuse to wait politely.

Mahbubani would remind us this is history doing what it always does: redistributing power.
Sachs would point out that economic stress precedes almost every conflict.
Reddington would quietly observe that chaos is rarely accidental — and often profitable.
Bourdain would cut through the bullshit and ask who’s cashing in while the cameras are rolling.
Bryson would marvel at how confidently wrong most commentary sounds.

Together, they’d agree on one thing:

Wars are sold to the public as moral crusades and managed privately as balance sheets.


The media plays its role flawlessly.

One war is tragic.
Another is strategic.
One population is human.
Another is collateral.

Context is optional. Selective outrage is mandatory.

The same voices that failed to predict the consequences of the last war are now explaining why this time will be different.

It almost never is.


The real cost of war arrives later.

Not in victory parades or press releases — but quietly, over time:

  • in higher energy prices,
  • in food shortages,
  • in inflation,
  • in refugees nobody wants,
  • in veterans nobody remembers,
  • in regions that never quite recover.Thanks for reading Unfiltered & Unfuckwithable! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Wars don’t really end.
They just fade off-screen.


People keep asking the wrong questions.

Not who started it?
Not who is right?

The only question that matters is:

Who benefits if this continues?

Follow the money.
Follow the contracts.
Follow the leverage.

You’ll learn more in ten minutes than a week of televised debates will ever teach you.


The uncomfortable truth is this:

Most wars are not fought for the people who die in them.
They are fought for people who never go near the front line.

If that sounds cynical, good.

Cynicism is just clarity that has outlived its illusions.


Whose war is it anyway?

Rarely the public’s.
Almost never the soldier’s.

And always paid for long after the speeches stop.

 

  • “This is where I leave things I don’t want to forget.”

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ksnip 20251226 114711

Adapt or Die — This Is the Last Time I Say It

I’ll spare you any story from my ER time where someone is in custody or under the influence. I’m afraid that in many cases, there are mental health issues, and there’s nothing funny about laughing at someone with actual psychiatric issues. Sure, they do some dumb things at times, but I often am left wondering if they need a psychiatrist and some help much more than a cop and an ER.

I’m a physician now, but my best that was stupid moment dates back to when I was a combat medic quite a few years ago.

I was in barracks watching a game with some friends when a guy from my unit burst in on us and said another soldier had been stabbed and needed help. I grabbed my aid bag and my infantry friends immediately formed a sort of impromptu posse looking for someone’s face in need of a good stomping.

I arrived on the scene and there was Tweedle Dumbass lying face up with a bayonet sticking out of his armor and into his chest. As I stabilized the knife, Private Shithead explained he and Tweedle got into an argument: how could our Interceptor Body Armor stop a bullet, but not a knife? Tweedle Dumbass was sure it would stop the knife, while Shithead was sure it wouldn’t.

This is the armor in question, by the way.

They settled it with an experiment. Tweedle Dumbass put it on and Private Shithead stabbed him with his bayonet. Shithead was right. Knives can penetrate ballistic armor. I stabilized the knife, got the guys organized to daisy chain to guide evacuation, and called the paramedics. Apparently they thought a combat medic with a simple aid bag was going to fix this.

Dishonorable discharges and they had to pay for the ruined armor.

Why China Is Building $1,000 EVs Instead of $50,000 Teslas

Garlic Olive Oil Sauce for Pizza

Overhead shot of golden garlic olive oil sauce with flecks of herbs, pooling on a warm pizza dough. Simple & rustic Italian.
Garlic Olive Oil Sauce for Pizza in 15 Minutes

A simple, aromatic infusion that replaces heavy red sauces with a silky, fragrant base.

  • Time: Active 5 mins, Passive 10 mins, Total 15 mins
  • Flavor/Texture Hook: Silky, nutty garlic with a gentle chili warmth
  • Perfect for: White pizzas, gourmet flatbreads, and dipping crusts

Best Garlic Olive Oil Sauce for Pizza Technique

You know that smell? That intoxicating, savory aroma that hits you when you walk past a high end wood fired pizzeria? That is exactly what we are making today. Honestly, once I realized that the secret to those incredible white pizzas wasn’t some expensive imported cheese but a properly infused oil, my Friday nights transformed.

I used to just toss raw garlic on my dough and hope for the best, but it always ended up either burnt and bitter or crunchy and harsh. This method fixes all of that. We are talking about a velvety, aromatic drizzle that acts as a flavor foundation for everything from fresh mozzarella to salty prosciutto.

We have all been there, staring at a dry crust wishing for more than just jarred marinara. This recipe is the answer. It is quick, it uses pantry staples, and it makes your kitchen smell like a dream. Let’s get into how we layer these flavors so you never settle for a boring slice again.

Why These Flavor Layers Work

To get that restaurant quality finish, we have to treat our ingredients with a bit of respect. It is not just about mixing things in a bowl; it is about how the heat interacts with the aromatics to create a cohesive profile.

  • Lipid Infusion: The fats in the extra virgin olive oil act as a solvent, pulling fat soluble flavor compounds out of the garlic and herbs.
  • Sulfur Transformation: Gentle heating breaks down harsh Allicin in the garlic, turning it from pungent and sharp to sweet and nutty.

The Science of Why it Works

The cold start method allows for a gradual temperature rise, ensuring the garlic releases its aromatic oils before the exterior can brown. This prevents the formation of bitter nitrogenous compounds that occur when garlic is shocked by high heat.

Infusion Time Garlic Texture Flavor Profile Best For
2 mins Crisp/Raw Pungent & Sharp Garlic bread topping
6 mins Soft/Golden Sweet & Mellow White pizza base
10 mins Very Soft Toasted & Nutty Dipping sauce

The table above shows why timing is everything when you are looking for that specific “pizzeria” vibe. If you go too short, you get that bitey raw garlic taste that lingers for days. Go too long, and you lose the fresh herbaceous notes of the rosemary.

Analyzing Every Essential Component

When we talk about a simple sauce like this, the quality of your components really matters. Since there are only a few ingredients, each one has a big job to do in terms of texture and taste.

Ingredient Science Role Pro Secret
Extra Virgin Olive Oil Primary Solvent Use a “harvest” oil for peppery back notes
Fresh Garlic Aromatic Base Microplane it to maximize surface area contact
Red Pepper Flakes Heat Catalyst Add to cold oil to bloom the spice evenly

The way you prep the garlic is actually the biggest variable here. I used to just mince it with a knife, but switching to a microplane was a total shift for me. It creates a paste like consistency that melts into the oil rather than leaving chunky bits that might burn on your pizza.

Essential Ingredients and Substitutes

Here is exactly what you need to grab from your pantry. Keep it high quality where you can, especially the oil, because it is the star of the show here.

  • 0.5 cup extra virgin olive oil: This is the body of your sauce. Why this? Provides the silky mouthfeel and carries all other flavors.
  • 6 large cloves fresh garlic: Must be fresh, not the pre peeled stuff in a jar. Why this? Fresh cloves have the essential oils we need to extract.
  • 0.5 tsp red pepper flakes: Adds a tiny hum of heat. Why this? Balances the richness of the oil and cheese.
  • 0.25 tsp sea salt: Brings all the flavors into focus.
  • 1 small sprig fresh rosemary: For an earthy, woodsy aroma.
  • 0.5 tsp dried oregano: That classic “pizza” smell we all love.
  • 1 tbsp Pecorino Romano cheese: Finely grated for a salty, umami kick.

If you are looking for something with more body or a different flavor profile, you might want to try this Garlic Butter Sauce recipe instead. It is a bit richer and works wonders on a thicker crust.

Original Ingredient Substitute Why It Works
Extra Virgin Olive Oil Avocado Oil Higher smoke point, but loses the fruity olive flavor
Fresh Rosemary Fresh Thyme Similar earthy vibe, though slightly more floral
Pecorino Romano Parmesan Less salty but still provides that essential umami

Adding the Pecorino at the very end is my little secret. It does not fully melt into the oil, but it creates these tiny salty clusters that pop when you take a bite. It is a massive upgrade over just using salt alone.

Tools for a Silky Infusion

Close up of the golden, glistening garlic olive oil sauce drizzled artfully on warm pizza. Herb flecks add pops of vibrant...

You do not need a laboratory, but a few specific tools make this much easier. I always reach for my smallest stainless steel saucepan. If the pan is too big, the oil spreads too thin and the garlic can scorch before it infuses.

A microplane or a very fine grater is your best friend here. It turns the garlic into a slurry, which is exactly what we want for a smooth Garlic Olive Oil recipe that coats the dough evenly. You will also want a heat proof pastry brush to apply the sauce to your pizza dough.

George Bernard Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

George Bernard Shaw was very thin. One day, while he was with Churchill, Churchill attempted to shoot him with a dart.

  • Looking at you, some people might think there was a famine in Britain.
  • Someone might look at you and think it’s your fault…

He was a playwright and satirist, known for his biting wit. Some of his famous satirical quotes are listed below.

“Statistics are like bikinis. What statistics reveal is interesting, but what they hide is important.”

“Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the opposite.”

“Marriage is an alliance between two people; one may never know the reason, but the other may not know the way.”

“Marriage is a system that allows two people to endure together the difficulties they would never have faced if they were alone.”

“Never trust a government that fears its people.”

“Common sense is the most widespread concept in the world, and everyone believes they possess it.”

“Capitalism has its downsides, but socialism has even more negative aspects.”

“Democracy is a system in which people are free to choose who governs them, provided that they remain true to themselves.”

“The problem in the world is that wise people are full of doubt, while foolish people are full of confidence.”

The Darkest Point of Night

🏆 Contest #354 Winner!

J. Moody-Paiges

122 likes 41 comments

Science Fiction Speculative

Written in response to: Write a story about someone coming back home — or leaving it behind. as part of Is Anybody Out There?.

Every bit of starlight we see is ancient. The night sky is a tapestry of twinkling relics flung across millions of lightyears, eons from when they first burned. Even after a star dies, its light may linger for eternities as it travels across the cosmos, like the last strains of a song still echoing after the players cease. To gaze into the night is to be haunted by a bygone universe.Back home, even the light of the sun had to embark on an eight-minute journey across millions of miles to caress the face of earth. To think, I once basked in starlight only eight minutes old. Infantile by cosmic standards.I can still technically see the sun from where I sit typing this out – a little yellow pinprick through the porthole. But how old is that light now? Warmthless, lifeless, expired light, still straining to reach her children as we stray ever further.I’ve probably been spending too much time in the ship’s planetarium.I’m so far now from that star and her accompanying blue planet. I abandoned my old life so long ago. I destroyed those letters the same night I found them, but even here, years and light years away, every word burns brilliantly in my mind’s eye like so much dead starlight.I found the letters by mistake, in a box swiped I from Mom’s closet the night I ran away. When you’re older, even older than when I decide to give this letter to you, I may explain a little more about my childhood, but suffice to say that you would never have met your grandma even if we did all live in the same solar system. I left in a hurry, gathering my own few things and swiping anything else that looked even slightly pawnable. My hysterical tears and swollen-shut left eye weren’t making it any easier – souvenirs from the last conversation I’d ever have with Mom.That night, carrying everything I owned (and a few things I technically didn’t), I already knew I would never set foot in that house again. I just didn’t realize how far I’d get.My first night alone was spent sorting through the random loot I grabbed in my mad dash. As most of it was worthless, I didn’t have much hope for whatever was in the box. That turned out to be a special kind of worthless. Inside was a thick stack of handwritten letters from Mom, all addressed to me. The first was dated eight months before I was born.The words made my bruises and my heart ache. Page after page of how excited she was to be a mom. Paragraphs burst with lofty expectations I obviously didn’t live up to; every word sickly saturated with a love I would never be shown. Just empty sentiment. The fluffy, immaterial dreams of a silly girl who’d grow into a cruel woman.

After thumbing through the letters once, I dumped the whole lot in a storm drain.

But from the moment I found out you were on the way, I haven’t been able to get those letters off my mind. It’s not that I want to do the same – her letters were about possibilities and dreams that wouldn’t come true, expectations that would turn to disappointment and then rot into resentment. There’s no room for hopes or new possibilities for you. We already know what every day, down to your last, will look like.

So, really, this is an apology.

I’m not writing this because I expect forgiveness. Just like finding out Mom maybe loved me at one point never made up for all the misery she put me through, I know reading this won’t change anything. But maybe as you spend your entire life hemmed in by steel hulls, suffocated in the arms of starlight, you’ll find some solace in knowing I at least felt bad for putting you here.

I could lie and say I did it all for a greater good, but I figure you’ll hear enough of that ‘future of humanity’ spiel. The ship’s whole mission was sold around that pitch – the glorious, century-long journey into deep space to seed humanity on our new intragalactic home, with we, the crew, painted as selfless, pioneering heroes. I think it’s like putting a sugar coating on pills; makes the whole thing easier to swallow. If we all tell ourselves we did this for a grand reason, foisting this life on not just ourselves, but on our children, and our children’s children, for a purpose greater than all of us, maybe we can keep our sanity. Maybe it does bring comfort to some. If the belief in something greater helps buoy you through this life, who am I to knock it?

Still, there are worse places to spend a lifetime of sacrifice. The ship is the size of several cities, the greatest singular structure ever built. Tens of thousands of passengers live and work on hundreds of decks, fed by acres of greenhouses. She has libraries, lounges, forest-sized terrariums, farms, a lagoon, planetariums, conservatories, arcades, an ice-skating rink, and supposedly a speak-easy that I still have yet to find (not that it would do me any good for the next few months). Outside, in the cold embrace of eternity, her mighty hull declares her name for no eyes to read – the New Colossus.

It’ll probably be one of the first things you hear, one of the first things you attempt to babble out. They’ll teach you her history in school, you’ll make little clay models of her in class, and if the current punk trends are the same in sixteen-ish years, you may get her name tattooed on yourself in a fit of teenage rebellion. Evidently the name is from some old poem, written for an old statue, which referenced an even older statue.

It’s a bit of a convoluted history, but I do like the poem. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. It was about welcoming weary travelers to new, brighter beginnings. I was certainly tired, poor, and huddled when I found myself applying to the New Colossus program.

Many of the first gen passengers aboard the ship, including your father and I, also aided in building her. I hope you learn about the New Colossus construction from the laborers – welders like the woman across the hall, carpenters like your father, people who pieced her together with their own hands. When they speak about the building of the ship, there’s a reverence there better suited set to the notes of a hymn, not the buzz of angle grinders. An entire city sprung up around the shipyard; millions of hands dedicated to the most ambitious cause ever undertaken. Hope is stitched into the very bones of this place.

I worked alongside the others, but I don’t have the same stars in my eyes. I joined the project because I was a starving runaway, and figured they were desperate enough to hire me without looking too closely at my work-of-fiction resume. When the project finished, I didn’t apply to ship out because I was feeling particularly heroic or pioneering. I just needed another gig.

At the risk of sounding cold and calculating, I’ll admit that that’s a significant factor in why I married your dad. I knew him vaguely from our time doing construction, and he seemed nice enough, but we didn’t get together until our application process for boarding.

And I mean that literally. I had spent days camped out in the crowded, muggy warehouses serving as the application hub, surrounded by cots and folding chairs, and thousands upon thousands of other hopefuls waiting in lines for paperwork, physicals, and blood tests. Thousands of people far more qualified, more eager than I was. I was getting antsy. Which was stupid because I didn’t even care about the ship really, I was just looking for a new spot, and I had no prospects on earth, and I didn’t know where else to go, and… I found myself sharing my lament with the young carpenter by my side – he seemed to show up a lot. We’d accidentally formed a sort of buddy system in the surging seas of applicants. He responded off-handedly in his gruff, low way – though he wouldn’t look me in the eye – that young married couples had a significantly better chance of being boarded. I asked if he wanted to improve our odds. He agreed. The rest of our relationship has followed the same theme of pragmatism. Some people don’t get it, but it works for us.

After that, we were a shoo-in. I had no skills to speak of, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t needed to establish a new world – I wouldn’t live to see it. For the first generations aboard, the mission just needed breeding stock, and we were young, strong, and fertile. I couldn’t believe it was that easy. When I signed up, I didn’t consider what that really meant, didn’t care. I was thinking about a warm, clean cabin and guaranteed hot meals for the rest of my life. Not humanity, not distant worlds, not a righteous purpose. Not you.

I didn’t think of you.

Not until long after the launch; After the earth-bound branch of humanity broke thousands of bottles of champagne on the ship’s bow; After we broke through the stratosphere, the warm blue cradle of the sky giving way to black; After our sun, the primordial lantern that had lit the path of every ancestor, shrank away until it was just another distant star.

Not until baby strollers clogged the halls, and tottering feet pitter-pattered on every deck like a fall of spring rain. The New Colossus was essentially a nursery for the first years of her maiden voyage. And it turned my stomach.

We, the first gen, the earth-born, made the conscious decision to leave. But the little toddler with her pudgy fingers pressed to a porthole’s glass, doe eyes luminous with the light of a thousand suns whose warmth she will never feel – what choice did she have? We wax on about the honor in sacrifice, but does she feel honored to sacrifice something she never even had the option to keep?

I became obsessed with the ship’s timeline. It was a drastic change in my life, knowing what the next day, every day, would bring. As a child, every creaky house and ratty apartment I lived in was an altar to instability. What kind of mood would Mom wake up in, or had she even come home the previous night? Would she remember to pay the utilities, or would I be doing my homework in the dark? Even during the few good seasons we had, when she was sober and on the right meds, I could only wonder how long that spell would last. The answer was always not long enough. Life was even more uncertain after I ran away. For the first few months, I usually woke up not knowing where my next meal would come from, or where I’d bed down by the day’s end. So, suddenly having an exact calendar and itinerary for the next century was both comical and unsettling.

112 years 9 months 3 days total, to be exact. You can trace the ship’s calendar all the way from launch to landing. There are pre-marked events and holidays scattered throughout – launch anniversaries, harvest fests in the tera-domes, the best time to see certain stars or systems as we pass by. It’s all there. I know approximately where we’ll be in the universe when the kids around me become adults and start to have children of their own. And when their children will have children. Where the first Galapagos tortoise hatched aboard, Shelly, will celebrate her 50th birthday. I can estimate roundabouts where I’ll grow old and die. And what the stars outside will look like when I do.

The day that has always troubled me the most is marked in big sunshiny yellow letters – Zenith Day. It marks the exact halfway point of the mission. By the time the day is over, we’ll be closer to our new home than we are to Earth. To me, the name seems so wildly unfitting it borders on cruel. My many trips to the planetarium taught me that in astronomy, a zenith is the highest point of the sun, or solar noon. One could argue it’s the proverbial height of our mission, the shift from a departure to an arrival, but it’s also the farthest we will all ever be from the warmth of a sun. For every solar zenith, on the exact opposite side of the globe is in the nadir- the deepest, darkest point of night, as far from the light of day as you can be.

With that sickeningly cheery holiday haunting me from the distant future, I knew I wouldn’t be partaking in the ‘launch boom’ happening around us. We decided to wait a bit before starting a family. And we did. Waited. And waited. The kids around us became older siblings as a second wave of strollers came. They started school – little lines of kindergarteners bouncing down the hallways to class. I waited still. A dozen years passed before I thought I could bear the idea of bringing you here. You’ll be middle aged by the time we reach Zenith Day. You almost certainly won’t live to walk on real ground. If you choose to wait as long as possible to have children too, your kids will be sixty-ish by the time we land. The few years I waited won’t make a difference at all.

I’m not showing yet (I think) but by now all our neighbors know we’re expecting. Nothing stays private for long here – gossip can’t help but echo in a tin can, your father always says. I’ve never really gotten used to it, but I guess you’ll never have anything else to compare it to. They’re all excited for us, though. The old lady from two units over gave us a little crocheted model of the New Colossus, along with some crocheted stars and planets, meant to be hung from a mobile. The New Colossus is an almost inescapable motif and a symbol of pride to just about everyone. You’ll see pins, magnets, plushies, and cross-stitching of the proud hull. We even have a beautiful wooden carving of her sitting on our coffee table, hand-made by your dad. I don’t mind it usually. But for some reason, holding that tiny yarn ship, all I could feel was dread. I thanked her, trying to keep my voice from shaking, and as soon as we were back in our own unit, immediately sent the ship down the recycling chute. The stars and planets will hang over your crib, but not the ship. It seemed too cruel to have the place where you are already damned to live forever be one of the first things you lay eyes on. Womb and grave dangling above you.

Your father watched me put the little ship in the bin but said nothing. I know he’s been worried lately, though. I can feel the weight of his furrowed brow from across the room even now. He cares, but he just doesn’t understand why I’m grappling with what I can’t control. Like I said, he’s pragmatic. Things are the way they are. We can’t change that we’re on a ship none of us will ever step off of. I hope you get his steady, practical nature. It seems to make for a more peaceful existence. Will it be easier for you if you don’t ask the same questions that torment me?

Maybe it would be better for all of us if everyone asked less questions. If we never looked into the night to wonder what’s up there and then got to work building the damn machines that would take us there.

Will you be content and unquestioning, or will you scourge yourself with the same what-ifs that haunt me? Will you read this someday and understand why I made the choices I did, or will these words just make you hate me that way I hated her? When you look out at eternity will you see the cold and darkness, or the spots of light and possibility shining within them? When you look at your fellow crewmates, your father and I, at yourself, will you see us as in-betweens, as people with a finite purpose meant to get us from one place to the next, or as believers and pioneers and dreamers?

When Zenith Day comes in some distant future, will you imagine the golden caress of noon sunlight, or the cold clasp of darkest midnight?

I love you.

I’m sorry.

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https://youtu.be/t58q47nPWRg

These are some of the faces of British children resting in unmarked graves.

These little ones were abandoned and then taken in by Barnardo’s Charity Home. There they were clothed and fed, but sadly they all died a few years later.

The children’s names and life stories have been identified thanks to researchers from Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, where they were buried:

Lilian E. Brown, 15 years old. She entered Barnardo’s in 1914 after the death of her mother in 1908 and her father in 1913. She suffered from rickets, spinal problems, and deafness. She was transferred to the hospital due to an ear infection, where she died in 1915.

William R. Howard, age 7. He was admitted to the charity after his mother died in 1892. He was intersex (possessing both male and female sexual organs). He was adopted but died in 1897 from an unknown illness.

Joseph Harley, aged 7, was the son of a seamen’s boarding house worker and an African sailor. He was admitted in 1892 after undergoing leg surgery. He was still with the charity at age 18 when he contracted tuberculosis. He died in 1903.

Violet A. Beckett, age 6. She and her sisters were born into a well-to-do family, but after their store owner father died of pneumonia in 1906 and their mother subsequently died, Barnardo’s took them in in 1909. Violet died that same year of an unknown illness.

Annie D. Waterman, age 6. She entered the hospital in 1903 after her father died of tuberculosis and her mother did not survive the birth of another child. She suffered from eye ulcers and spent time at Barnardo’s. She died in 1910 of tuberculosis, at age 12.

William F. Long, age 10. William and his brother were admitted in 1912, when their mother’s illness prevented her from caring for them after their father drowned on the Titanic. William died three years later from an unknown illness.

Agnes Coburn, age 6. She had Down syndrome and suffered from severe conjunctivitis. She was admitted to the asylum in 1905 along with her two sisters after an uncle, who had taken them in following their mother’s death from tuberculosis, also passed away. Agnes died in 1917 of tuberculosis.

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Look carefully at the drawing below. Can this man genuinely lift himself and the block off the ground?

This brings to mind the famous Baron Munchausen, who reportedly lifted himself by pulling on his own bootstraps. Any force applied to the rope produces an equal and opposite push on the block action equals reaction. But the fixed pulley attached to the block halves the required effort. If the man is strong enough to lift half his own weight plus the weight of the block, he will rise off the ground. Tests have apparently confirmed that a 90 kg man standing on a 55 kg block can lift himself this way. The total weight to lift becomes only (90+50)/2 = 70 kg.

Using a system of two pulleys one fixed and one movable reduces the required force even further. Consider this example: a person weighing 60 kg stands on a platform weighing 30 kg, suspended by ropes passing over pulleys. With what force must the person pull rope a to keep the platform from falling?

Solution

If the person pulls rope a with a force of x Newtons, the tension throughout that rope is the same at point b because the pulley transmits force directly. The tension at point c, which must balance the two parallel forces x from a and x from b, becomes 2x as does the tension at d due to continuity. The platform is supported by ropes b and d. Rope a is not attached to the platform and therefore provides no direct support. Only the two forces x from b and 2x from d balance the combined weight of the person and platform.

Taking 1 kg = 10 N for simplicity: 3x = 600 N + 300 N, therefore x = 300 N. The person must pull with a force of 300 N to remain stationary.

 

Make Bakerystyle Bagels Home

How To Make Bakery-Style Bagels at Home

Introduction

Imagine waking up to the aroma of freshly baked bagels wafting through your kitchen, promising a delightful breakfast ahead. Making bakery-style bagels at home may seem like a daunting task, but with the right guidance and a sprinkle of passion, you can achieve that perfect chewy texture and golden crust right in your own kitchen. In this guide, we will dive into the art of crafting these iconic bread delights, from mixing the dough to boiling and baking, ensuring your bagels rival those from your favorite bakery.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

These homemade bagels are not just any breakfast treat; they are a labor of love that rewards you with a sense of accomplishment and the ability to customize flavors to suit your taste buds. The process of making bagels from scratch is therapeutic and satisfying, offering a culinary journey that culminates in a delightful bite of warm, freshly baked goodness.

One of the best features of this recipe is its versatility. You can play around with toppings, fillings, and shapes to create a personalized bagel experience. Whether you prefer classic sesame seed bagels or adventurous blueberry bagels, the possibilities are endless.

Ingredients

For this bagel recipe, you will need:

– 4 cups bread flour

– 1 tablespoon sugar

– 2 teaspoons salt

– 1 tablespoon instant yeast

– 1 ½ cups warm water

– Optional: poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or everything bagel seasoning for toppings

Feel free to substitute bread flour with all-purpose flour if needed. You can also experiment with honey or maple syrup instead of sugar for a different flavor profile.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Gradually add the warm water and mix until a dough forms.

2. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 10 minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic.

3. Divide the dough into equal portions and shape each into a ball. Punch a hole in the center of each ball to form the bagel shape.

4. Let the bagels rise for about 30 minutes, then refrigerate them overnight for enhanced flavor development.

5. Preheat your oven, bring a large pot of water to a boil, and boil the bagels for 1-2 minutes on each side.

6. Drain the bagels and sprinkle your desired toppings on them before baking at 425°F for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Expert Tips for Success

To achieve the perfect bagel texture, make sure the dough is slightly firm and not too sticky. The overnight refrigeration helps develop the flavors and gives the bagels that signature chewiness. Boiling the bagels before baking is crucial for the shiny crust and dense interior.

Avoid overcrowding the pot when boiling the bagels to ensure they cook evenly. You can customize your bagels by adding ingredients like cinnamon, raisins, or even jalapeños to the dough for unique flavor profiles.

Variations and Substitutions

If you’re looking to switch things up, consider substituting part of the flour with whole wheat flour for a nuttier taste. You can also create savory bagels by incorporating ingredients like cheddar cheese, garlic, or herbs into the dough.

For a gluten-free version, use a gluten-free flour blend and ensure all your ingredients are certified gluten-free. Experiment with different toppings such as sea salt, dried onion flakes, or even chocolate chips for a fun twist.

Serving Suggestions

These freshly baked bagels are best enjoyed warm with a generous slather of cream cheese or your favorite spread. Pair them with smoked salmon, avocado, or crispy bacon for a savory breakfast or brunch option. A side of fresh fruit salad or a piping hot cup of coffee completes the meal perfectly.

FAQs

Q: Can I freeze the bagels?

A: Yes, you can freeze the baked bagels for up to 3 months. Thaw them at room temperature and reheat in the oven for a few minutes for that freshly baked taste.

Q: My bagels turned out dense. What did I do wrong?

A: Dense bagels can result from over-kneading the dough or not letting them rise sufficiently. Ensure your dough has the right consistency and allow the bagels to proof adequately before baking.

Final Thoughts

Mastering the art of making bakery-style bagels at home is a rewarding experience that allows you to unleash your creativity in the kitchen. From classic flavors to innovative combinations, the journey of crafting these beloved bread treats is filled with joy and satisfaction. So, roll up your sleeves, preheat that oven, and embark on a flavorful adventure that will elevate your breakfast game to new heights!

How To Make Bakery-Style Bagels at Home

How To Make Bakery-Style Bagels at Home

Recipe by Author

Learn how to make bakery-style bagels at home with this detailed recipe. These chewy and delicious bagels can be easily customized with various toppings and fillings to suit your taste preferences.

🍽️
Servings
6
⏱️
Prep time
30
minutes
🔥
Cooking time
25
minutes
📊
Calories
280
kcal

Cook Mode
Keep the screen of your device on

Ingredients

  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 tablespoon instant yeast
  • 1 ½ cups warm water
  • Optional: poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or everything bagel seasoning for toppings

Directions

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Gradually add the warm water and mix until a dough forms.
  2. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 10 minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic.
  3. Divide the dough into equal portions and shape each into a ball. Punch a hole in the center of each ball to form the bagel shape.
  4. Let the bagels rise for about 30 minutes, then refrigerate them overnight for enhanced flavor development.
  5. Preheat your oven, bring a large pot of water to a boil, and boil the bagels for 1-2 minutes on each side.
  6. Drain the bagels and sprinkle your desired toppings on them before baking at 425°F for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Nutrition Facts

Calories: 280
Fat: 1.5
Carbohydrates: 56
Protein: 9
Sodium: 400

 

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In alligator-infested swamps, special forces use the sheer noise of their patrols to scare the predators off. But against a 15-foot saltwater crocodile, that tactic is a death sentence.

The U.S. Army trains extensively in alligator territory to build this awareness. During the “Swamp Phase” of Ranger School at Camp Rudder on Eglin Air Force Base, students spend days navigating the swamps of the Florida panhandle. These waters are teeming with American alligators and venomous snakes. Rangers do not fight or hunt these animals. Instead, they use the fact that alligators are ambush predators that generally avoid large groups. When Rangers conduct water crossings, they move in columns. The heavy splashing and movement of a dozen equipped soldiers pushing through the mud and securing ropes is usually enough to send nearby alligators fleeing.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 6th Ranger Training Battalion conduct a water crossing in a Florida swamp. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

If stealth is required on an actual mission, shooting an alligator is completely out of the question because gunfire or a struggle would immediately compromise the unit’s position. The primary defense is situational awareness. Operators are trained to scan the banks before entering the water, keep a wide berth from potential nests, and cross at narrow points. If an area is known to be heavily infested, commanders will simply alter the route.

The calculus changes drastically in regions inhabited by crocodiles, such as Northern Australia or Southeast Asia. Unlike American alligators, large saltwater crocodiles are highly aggressive, territorial, and will actively stalk humans. Units operating in these environments—such as the Australian Special Air Service Regiment or U.S. forces training in Darwin—consult local intelligence to map out known croc habitats. When navigating these waters is unavoidable, they stay out of the water entirely, utilizing inflatable boats or constructing rope bridges to bypass the danger from above.

Imagine you are a dental hygienist and live in Sweden..

You are employed to help “migrant children” with their dental issues.

As part of your job you examine the wisdom teeth development of the kids and you notice that 80% of those “kids” have fully formed wisdom teeth, implying they are not kids at all but adults older than the age of 18.

You tell the Swedish Migration Agency and they advise you to put it in writing.

When you send exact details, with examples of specific patients you are suspended, investigated and fired for disclosing private information relating to patients.

This happened to Bernt Herlitz in 2017.

When he appealed the unfair dismissal he ultimately lost and was fined about $50,000.

He and his family faced financial hardship and almost lost their home, until some generous benefactors raised money for him. Bernt remains unemployed today, despite staff shortages for dentists in his area in Gotland.

At the time, Sweden scoffed at the tests and claimed they were “discriminatory” but since then they have quietly brought in mass dental testing, for those whose age is in doubt, by the National Board of Forensic Medicine.

Bernt deserves a medal. Not vilification and unemployment

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