Chinese videos on the Israel bombing of Palestine, clearly show B-2 bombers flying and bombing the Palestinians. The ONLY nation with this bomber is the United States.

So, the United States is now at war with Palestine.

…

Ugh! You can pretty much figure it out by reading “between the lines” on what the “news” media says.

“Why doesn’t China condemn Russia? Why doesn’t it condemn the Palestinians?”

Why doesn’t it…

…

Never the less, the videos are clear. Those are B-2 bombers dropping munitions on the apartment buildings and homes of the Palestinians.

The United States has entered another new war, and Lindsey Graham is calling for an invasion of Iran.

WTF?

This is so dangerously goofy.

My “Prepper feeds” are information dense with reports all over the globe. The biggest stuff comes from NATO, and I have a video below that goes into detail regarding it.

You know, I was going to talk about my trip to a factory today, but the Western world is coming unhinged. Holy Fuck.

… but please do not freak out.

DC still stands by “small bads”….

Today…

Who supplied Hamas with weapons during their conflict with Israel?

Bought from the dark net, sold by Ukrainian Army represented, donated by U.S. and UK and some US dog nations, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Hey U.S. taxpayers save more money. Isreal need more weapons now!

So indirectly you can say U.S. innocent people who paid taxes assisted Palestinians to start a war on Isreal. Now you tax payers need to help Isreal defend against Palestinian. Oh U.S. tax payers. You poor soul please save more money as the your government need to start another war in Asia, another one in Latin America and another one in Africa.

Don’t worry tax payers after all the wars sometime in 2100 finally the U.S. government will help you get health insurance, college fees, homeless! But we still need to fund CIA, NED and MIC. I am very sure after spending on 800 military bases and 12 aircraft carriers and interest on 500 trillion dollars debts we will still have some pennies left to help you kind taxpayers.

WHY RETIRE in CHINA?

There are a lot of reasons to retire in a foreign country and the best one I found was china. The cost of living, food, weather and people make it my first choice of any country in the world. This video is very convincing and from an expat that has lived in China for more than 20 years. Living the experience is better than watching it on TV. don’t waste your retirement on the boring life. Live the adventure.

How do Chinese people view the British rule of Hong Kong?

I’ll talk about Hong Kong Chinese.

My mom grew up in British Hong Kong, the eldest child of a solidly middle-class Hong Kong Chinese family. She and her siblings are all university educated; all her brothers went on to become medical doctors. Mom left Hong Kong a few decades ago, lived in the UK for a few years and has lived in Canada ever since.

Given this background, one might expect her to be quite pro-British.

However, her perspective is that when she was growing up in the city, the British treated HK Chinese as second-class citizens (she actually gets a bit irate when we talk about this). As a Hong Kong Chinese herself, she felt that the superiority complex of the British in the colony was very strong. She disliked the endemic corruption in the government. Moreover, the colonial government had no democratic legitimacy (for all the talk in recent years of HK “democracy”, there were no elections held in Hong Kong until the 1984, just 13 years before the handover).

On the other side of the coin, the Hong Kong she grew up in had received a massive influx of Chinese refugees fleeing the upheavals in China. The period from the end of the Chinese civil war to the Cultural Revolution saw some 1.1 million people from China come across the border to make their home in the territory. She recognizes that under British rule, the legal and regulatory foundation was laid for Hong Kong’s success as a global financial centre and entrepot.

I think her views capture the feelings many older Hong Kong Chinese have about British colonial rule.

Many young HKers seem to idealize colonial Hong Kong as it was in the last decade of British rule — a golden era for the city where, as one of the five “Asian tigers”, Hong Kong experienced amazing economic growth, established its position as one of the world’s leading financial centres and saw its cultural influence spread across Asia and beyond (a precursor of today’s K-wave).

But ask older HK Chinese, and they will also remember what it was like before that golden era — to be treated as second class citizens in their own city, when corruption in the police force and government departments was rampant and when even water to the taps was only available for a few hours a day.

Steaks with Mushrooms, Blue Cheese and Frizzled Shallots

Prep: 10 min | Cook: 30 min | Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 4 (8 ounce) beef round sirloin tip center steaks, cut 1 inch thick
• 4 slices thick-sliced bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 2 small shallots, thinly sliced, separated into rings
• 1 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
• 8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, diced
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/4 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped

Instructions

1. Cook bacon in nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp.
2. Remove bacon with slotted spoon to paper towels, reserving 2 to 3 tablespoons drippings in skillet. Set aside.
3. Meanwhile combine flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in small bowl. Add shallots; toss to coat.
4. Heat bacon drippings over medium-high heat until hot. Add shallots. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until well browned, stirring occasionally.
5. Remove from skillet with slotted spoon to paper towels. Set aside.
6. Reduce heat to medium. Season beef steaks evenly with remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
7. Place steaks in same skillet; cook for 14 to 15 minutes for medium rare (145 degrees F) doneness, turning occasionally. Do not overcook.
8. Remove to serving platter; season with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Keep warm.
9. Add mushrooms and water to skillet. Cook and stir for 3 to 5 minutes or until mushrooms are tender.
10. Add cream. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until cream is almost absorbed. Stir in cheese and bacon.
11. Spoon mushroom mixture over steaks. Top with shallots. Sprinkle with parsley.

ALERT! ATTACK ON NATO, GLOBAL MILITARY MOBILIZATION, FULL SCALE WAR, VIPs MOVED, GPS JAMMED, UNREST

The on-going “hidden” world war III…

Have you ever discovered something about your pet that shocked you?

It wasn’t a pet, but one of our roosters shocked me into a more open mind about animal sentience.

We had chickens, and because of the rough behavior of the roosters toward the hens, they were separated from each other. We fenced in the crawl space under the chicken house and the roosters lived there. The hens and roosters were usually released for foraging on alternate days.

One day I was walking by the chicken house, and one of the roosters under the building looked me in the eye, picked up a little piece of wood, dropped it, and began pecking it. He then looked me in the eye again, and repeated the behavior, several times, until it dawned on me that he was miming eating. Sure enough, they were out of food, and that bird was telling me he was hungry.

I may have seen him doing that before, but I barely noticed it, dismissing it as meaningless chicken behavior. Now I was beginning to feel shocked at what I just witnessed. I gave them the chicken feed and later I released them for foraging.

The roosters were always a little feisty and I was alert to any attacks coming my way, but the second shock I got was when one of them did attack me, and at that moment the rooster who mimed a request for food rushed in and drove off the attacking rooster.

Ever since that day he was my rooster bodyguard, never letting any rooster attack me. I always gave him special attention and treats after that, making sure he had what he needed, and he got to live out his natural life span.

But chickens? Intelligent? Really??? That was shocking, and I had to release my human chauvinism after that. I could never have foreseen a chicken behaving with such intelligence, and I believe we humans have only a vague understanding, if any, about the minds of nonhuman species.

FIRST TIME REACTION TO AC/DC – WHOLE LOTTA ROSIE | SPEECHLESS…

Another reaction. The expression on all these girls are just GREAT!

Can China manufacture semiconductor chips and create a rival to Intel, Apple, TSMC, and NVIDIA?

Of course they can. China didn’t in the past not because they were not capable but because it made much more sense for the Chinese customers to buy foreign chips. China were late in game. When the west started making semiconductors back in the 1960s/1970s, China were still in cultural revolution. By the time the got out of it, they were already too late.

The Chinese government was not comfortable at all being so reliant on foreign imports. They tried in the past 20+ years to create a local semiconductor ecosystem but they failed despite spending over a trillion RMB. They failed not because they didn’t have the talents, but instead they failed because there wasn’t a market. Even Chinese customers chose not to buy from their local semiconductor startups. Why would anyone take the risk of trying out local products when there were good foreign products available?

But that all changed when the US sanctions started. The US government essentially created a captive market for the Chinese semiconductor manufacturers. These manufacturers suddenly got the badly needed revenue. When orders flow in, investments followed. With investments, young Chinese engineers are motivated to join the industry. Hence, a negative spiral down that prevented the Chinese semiconductor industry from growing turned into a positive upward spiral.

To be sure, they still have many more years to go before they can catch up to the best in class. However, bear in mind, they don’t need to be at the cutting edge to do extremely well. Great majority of the use cases of semiconductors only need up to 14nm, which the Chinese are capable of doing themselves. Now that Huawei has already proven that with the 14nm node, they can design chips that perform at 7nm level, that is good enough for 90% of the applications.

Today, Chinese lithography manufacturers can make up to 28nm. They literally came from 90nm to 28nm within a very short period of time. Once they stabilize their 28nm products, they would go very quickly to 7nm with DUV. EUV is a different thing, but even for that, I think it’s a matter of time. I use to think 10 years but seeing how quickly the Chinese are improving, I’m not sure anymore how to make an educated guess.

So to answer the question – can the Chinese be a serious competitor in semiconductor manufacturing? Absolutely. In a few years time, I bet the US will regret waking up this sleepy dragon. Instead of importing over $300B worth of semiconductor a year, China will export their products and crash the global market like they did in most things they manufacture. How about a $10 GPU? Anyone?

Irish Girl Reacts to “Mister Rogers Saves PBS” For the First Time

What made your “jaw drop” during a job interview?

I went to apply for a job at JFK Airport. I was a Family Practitioner and was told that they preferred surgeons. In any case, I decided I had nothing to lose and went in for the meeting. There were three or four people waiting for the interview and I was the only one who was not a surgeon.

Then the Deputy Director entered the room and asked if anybody spoke Swedish. Nobody did. Then he asked if anybody knew what a medicine called Kåvepenin manufactured in Sweden was. Nobody knew but I saw he had the box in his hand. I asked to see the box, looked for the composition and although the spelling was different than in English, it was clear that it was Pen VK (potassium penicillin V). So I said so.

The guy left the room and a few minutes later came back and told me, “You are right. You are hired. Everybody else may leave. “

Some protested but he said, “I hired him for his brain. None of you did anything and that guy took the initiative and got the right answer.”

I could not believe it. Fastest job interview I ever had in my life and I got the job.

What is the most ridiculous reason for which you have been fired?

A friend of mine was sacked over a pencil!

His company was a big international Human Resources consultancy, and their expenses were divided between clients. For example if they used a £250k printer/binder/etc for a job, a fraction of that £250k would be allocated to the job. No problem, but took ages to allocate every time something was used.

One day, he goes to the stationery cupboard to get a pencil. The office assistant asked him which account it should be charged to and for him to fill in a requisition form for the pencil. He just blew his top. It would cost the company 100 times what the pencil was worth for him to fill in the form, with charge codes, client details and so on. It was a waste of his time and everyone else who just wanted some stationery.

The departmental manager fired him for his outburst “Not what we would expect in this company”. About a few hours later, he had requested a meeting with the departmental manager and the Vice President of his section. They expected a grovelling apology and it’ll never happen again.

But no. He went in saying this was classified as unfair dismissal and he wanted £30,000 – or he would go to court. They told him that they were a top HR company with the top HR experts in the land working for them. He would never win a unfair dismissal case and would get nothing. He pointed out that a full case would take 2 weeks in court and as the company was a partnership, every partner was equally liable and he would subpoena every partner to defend the case. He said he might not win, but would console himself with reading about the HR court case in every HR publication. The VP realised it would be very damaging to the company’s PR and they came to an agreement. They paid the £30k.

After that, I asked him, how did you know about the unfair dismissal law? He said that it is true that the company did have the top HR person in the country working for them, but that top HR person sat opposite him and my friend got him coffee each day. When he was told what happened, he agreed that my mate was fired for having common sense and gave my friend a bit of advice.

After my friend left, the company changed its procedures and you could now get stationery when needed.

China’s National Holiday

China’s National Day, which falls on October 1, is just around the corner. For the Chinese people, September 30 marks the start of a seven-day holiday following the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In the upcoming days, they will enjoy the happiness and joy of the “long holiday,” which they have earned through their hard work.

Meanwhile, across the ocean in the US, this year’s October 1 is a critical day.

Federal government agencies will run out of funds previously approved by Congress at midnight on September 30, the end of the current fiscal year. A government shutdown due to the bipartisan inability to reach an agreement seems inevitable.

For the rest of the world, this situation appears to be a farce of a commonplace American political struggle. People are not concerned about whether Washington will shut down. Where exactly is the US debt ceiling? This is what worries them. Can it continue to rise indefinitely?

The US has not defaulted on its national debt in the past, which is why US debt has become the most reputable in the world. But it has now reached an alarming height – $33 trillion! That amounts to $100,000 per person across the nation! What’s even more concerning is its growth rate, with an increase of $10 trillion in three years! That means $833 million is being added to the debt every hour since it crossed the $33 trillion mark.

A nation that frequently accuses other countries of creating debt has set a huge trap for the world in recent decades. Let us not overlook the fact that the US possesses the power to “print money,” which it uses to sustain Washington’s audacious habit of borrowing and spending recklessly, exemplifying its dominant “style” of hegemony. Government finances in the US have struggled for nearly half a century due to excessive spending without proper control, resulting in the continuous accumulation of federal government debt.

In the realm of election politics and hegemonic policy, the US has wasted significant financial resources. These resources have been used to cater to the interests of interest groups and self-serving politicians. Consequently, there has been an excessive increase in military expenditures to sustain hegemony, along with a continuous distribution of funds to appease voters.

Filippo Gori, an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has published an article entitled “America’s Debt-Ceiling Disaster: How a Severe Crisis or Default Could Undermine U.S. Power,” on the website of Foreign Affairs magazine (April 24, 2023).

The article points out that “because most international trade is in U.S. dollars, the United States can print money to pay for goods that it buys from abroad, allowing it to finance a large international trade deficit without having to worry that it will run out of cash.”

This monopoly advantage, known as “too big to fail,” has resulted in a peculiar situation where the US is “insolvent” but not officially bankrupt. As a result, the US must employ diverse strategies to uphold the dollar’s dominance.

Another fundamental truth is that when the global community thinks about how the impact of this “Grey rhino” can be prevented and begins to make necessary preparations, the hegemony of the US and its foundation, the dollar, will surely be shaken.

China is a significant creditor of the US. The US’ containment of China, particularly through creating military tensions in China’s neighborhood, as well as the overall restriction on Chinese manufacturing and its impact on the livelihoods of the Chinese people, has heightened China’s worry about the US reneging on its debts.

The hardworking Chinese people, who are about to enjoy a wonderful holiday, know that they work hard for the well-being of their families. If their hard-earned money were to be used to prop up an empire’s hegemonic and brutal actions, as well as an unsympathetic political struggle, and then they were to be paid back in the form of “printed money,” they would definitely say “no.”

We believe that hard-working people around the world would share the will of the Chinese people.

China’s new rare earth technology has made new breakthroughs, US chips can’t live without China!

China rare earth insanely very cheap , compare to how rare earth produced and refine. No other countries could produced rare earth with current price .

What are some weird facts about the USSR and living in the Communist Soviet Union?

People in the USSR were allowed to have car in private—the correct term was “individual”—possession.

But we were strictly prohibited from using cars for gaining revenue. Profiteering would unleash on the owner the wrath of the Soviet court system. In worst cases it could be a prison term.

Gypsy cab entrepreneurs risked a fine for the first transgression. The second one would involve confiscation of the car, and an even heavier fine. If the prosecutor could prove you derived a “non-labor” (netrudovóy) income on a regular, “systematic” base, you’ll get behind bars.

Renting your car for a remuneration was of course out of question. If you used a car for example to run your errands as a member of a cooperative, the tax inspection would turn down any tax reports that showed the cooperative covering your expenses. They also would send the case to the state attorney’s for them to take care of your accountant.

Neither could you sell your car with profit.

There were too few cars. Even the few people who had the money to afford a car had to wait for years for a permission to buy one. Which is why it was commercially possible for new owners to sell the vehicle right away sometimes with up to 100% mark-up and more.

At the end of the posting, a newspaper notice from a Soviet provincial newspaper in 1960, “From the Courtroom: Because of Re-selling Automobiles”

The text says:

“The vehicle operator of the Construction department No. 10 in Novo-Alexandrovsk N.H.Semerik bought in 1957 in a car store an automobile Pobeda, paying the government-approved price of 20,000 rubles. Three years later Semerik sold the used car registered in the State Vehicle Inspectorate in his wife’s name for 31,000 rubles to another person, and bought in the store a “Volga” to himself.

As soon as he was in possession of the new car, Semerik and his wife registered themselves in a waiting list for a new car.

The people’s court of the Novoalexandrovsk county prosecuted Semerik N.H. for profiteering according to article 154 p.2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. It sentenced him to two years of incarceration, with confiscation of the vehicle “Volga” and the money on his saving accounts. Signature: I. Artamonov, chairman of the regional court of justice.”

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Have you ever been asked or told something so offensive you found yourself momentarily stunned?

Yes, indeed. When my daughter was four years old, she had a lazy eye. She was diagnosed by an ophthalmologist. Eyeglasses were prescribed which she wore for one year. After a year she went back for a check up and he reported that she no longer needed the eyeglasses, the problem was fixed.

Soon after this – maybe a year – she kept putting aside longer chapter books in favor of short easy readers. She had learned to read completely by age 4, so she was almost 6 at this point, she had been a very enthusiastic reader, so the fact that she kept describing books as too hard raised a flag. Also she tilted her head sideways while watching TV. I took her back to this ophthalmologist who said everything was fine(!) The weariness with reading continued, so I took her to a vision therapist who specialized in tracking problems. He told me that she only had sight in one eye – he told me that it would be difficult to get the other eye engaged again, which really means getting the brain working again, but that it was possible with a lot of hard work.

I believed this doctor but still I took her to a different ophthalmologist in a big city who had many accolades….for a second opinion.

This ophthalmologist announced brusquely that her vision has been ruined by me because I had not acted quickly enough. (He would not listen to any of the history that I tried to offer.) He exclaimed loudly that she would never have sight in that eye and then he demanded that my four-year-old son climb into his chair barking: “I had better check his vision to make sure you have not ruined him, also.”

I am not often at a loss for words, but his condemning words were body blows from which I simply could not recover quickly.

I left that office never to return. We went directly back to the vision therapist and I am happy to say almost 2 years later she had 90% vision in that eye and the balance is corrected with a contact lense. He literally helped turn on her vision in that eye. So she has 20/20 vision and all is well.

The awful doctor was the head of an eye institute which will go unnamed for now. The vision therapist had a very small practice and really believed in what he was doing. I am so grateful to him. It was very hard work, but it was successful.

When her vision was mostly 100% restored in that eye, I wrote a letter to the ophthalmologist at the big, famous eye institute and gave him a piece of my mind. Oh, yes, by then I had found my words!

8 Basic Skills A Narcissist Cannot Master

Today’s interesting class. Very interesting.

In what ways will a 33 trillion national debt affect the United States and ultimately the whole world?

The “national debt”’ of America isn’t 33 trillion.

That’s merely the debt owed by the federal government, which primarily taxes income, and funds with shortfall by issuing treasury bonds.

There is another set of government debt that is completely separate. State and local governments tax property, and fund the shortfall by issuing municipal bonds.

The total outstanding today is 33 (treasuries) + 4 (munis) = 37 trillion.

That’s 37, followed by 12 zeroes, or 14 figures.

How big is 37 trillion, relatively speaking?

It is more than 75% of the combined GDP of the world’s top 5 global economies: US, China, Japan, Germany, India, totaling ~3.5b in population.

It is more than 85% of the combined GDP of the rest, the >180 nations outside the big 5 club. That includes all of the first world beyond the US, japan and Germany. That’s 4.5b people.

America has a population of ~330m.

It takes the annual economic output of a population that’s an order of magnitude larger to repay the debt owed by the American government. Note this does not include unfunded liabilities, and private debt from households and corporations.

This is far and away the greatest threat to global financial security, on sole account of size.

What is the likelihood Xi Jinping will never meet with President Biden during Biden’s term?

Very High

The Biden administration has made it very clear that China must operate in the manner in which the USA sees fit

That China must develop in the manner in which the USA sees fit

In short –

• Make all the Washing Machines, Laptops, Smartphones, Microwaves and Televisions you want
• Make all the Jeans, Toys, Textiles you want
• Make all the low and medium grade components you want
• Hell even make all the Robots you want and High Speed Trains, EVs and Solar Panels and Green Energy

Yet at the same time

• You cannot go ahead of us or our allies in the areas of Advanced Computing, Space, Quantum Computing, AI etc. You should always be No 8.
• You cannot modernize your Military technologically
• You cannot pursue your own foreign policy and Geopolitics against our foreign policy
• You cannot support anyone who doesn’t follow the Rules based order
• You have to buy more Bonds of ours and acknowledge the Dollar as the world’s only reserve currency

This was the BIDEN DOCTRINE TO CHINA

Qin Gang and Blinken apparently discussed this where :-

In exchange for

China acknowledging the Biden Doctrine & relinquishing support to Russia & Forcing Putin to sue for peace by weaponizing the Yuan

The US would remove tariffs on Chinese products, remove export controls on certain equipment, remove 215 Chinese entities from the blacklist and propose Status Quo for Taiwan with no support for Taiwanese Independence

The plan was likely for QG to deliver an ultimatum to Lavrov and for Xi Jingping to gather Global South Leaders like KSA & UAE while US could persuade India and together force Putin to call a ceasefire in Ukraine

The Old Fox Wang Yi likely told Blinken to “go fuck himself” which is why Biden was so angry that he called XJP a dictator

I believe Raimondo tried the same thing, asking China to trade and develop in a direction acceptable to the US

I believe China again said GO SCREW, and DIE.

That’s why Raimondo was so angry when she returned back

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Blinken, Yellen, Raimondo all pushed China to follow the Biden Doctrine and China said No each time which was why they all returned back in a state of fury

So now Biden will say the same thing if he meets Xi Jingping

Maybe Hu Jintao would have agreed

Not Xi Jingping

So Biden and Xi meeting is a pointless exercise

There is no US Leader who is willing to ask China to do whatever it wants and COMPETE with China directly and win

What was the cruelest rumor you’ve heard about another kid when you were in school?

Starting in 6th grade, this nice boy from a troubled family was tortured for being suspected as gay. This was the late 80s in South Texas. The boy was caring but misunderstood. Sensitive. Soft. Other kids were non-stop cruel to him calling him a fag and “Terry the Fairy” (his name was Terry) from the time he arrived on campus until the moment he left. He never stood up for himself preferring instead to wish it wasn’t happening, turning them all off in his head by living in a fantasy reality instead, and becoming an angry shell of a generally happy boy.

One day in math class everyone was making fun of him with the usual taunts. Something snapped that day. He put his head on his desk and just said something like [Can you all just say it where I can’t hear it? I don’t care what you think, I just don’t want to hear it.] Everyone just laughed at him. Finally the teacher intervened and told everyone to be quiet (note no teacher ever made an effort to make them be nicer, just, on this day, to be quiet).

Finally, the boy broke down and told his parents. They were sympathetic but ultimately told him to just ignore it.

This continued until 11th grade when the boy discovered that he could get into college with a good GED score (not a top school, but he could work hard and transfer to one, which he did). He promptly signed up for the GED, took it, scored in 98th percentile, and immediately dropped out of school. He went on to college, did well, flew away and started his life.

That boy was me.

Fast forward 30 years. I am a successful man. Yes, gay, with two beautiful children and a thriving career thousands of miles away from South Texas and a life so rich and full I can barely remember any of their names — that’s the best revenge. 10ish-years later when Facebook started I received friend requests from many of those nasty kids I grew up with. Then, it seemed, that because I’d moved off to an exciting city and made good, and being gay was suddenly “cool”, they wanted to be my friends. I declined them and have not been to a single reunion nor do I ever plan on going. My attitude has always been: you hated me then, I didn’t like you, why on earth would I let you into my social media or ever purposely go see you now?!

It got better. My partner lovingly calls me “Terry my fairy.” I belong. I overcame and laugh at it now. They’re all mostly right where they were in that boring town surrounded by the same people, while I achieved that elusive thing: happiness. They did me a favor, really. They motivated me to get the eff out! If you’re reading this and you went to Hobby Middle School, or Clark High School, this post is really for you. I survived. I thrived. Thank you for the pain — it has served me well.

I never looked back.

Disturbing CEO Announcement: Workers to Be Reminded of Their Place

The CEO has many indicators of narcissistic personality disorder. Suggesting people need to suffer to recognize him and his company as an authority over their lives is a major red flag. Everyone who works for him or with him should walk away.

What do you think of Chinese communists?

From a western point of view and a few years doing business in PRC, I offer my thoughts.

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Over the past 20 years, I have worked with several state owned factories in sourcing raw materials to the US and had the pleasure to meet and get to know with the No. 1 and other senior level managers in these factories. I am assuming, probably with good reason, that these people are all active members of CPC.

1. They are all good business people and given responsibility for the company management, quite the same as a CEO is selected by a board of directors in a private company with many of the same factors affecting their selection. They have connections ( as in both systems) to get these positions and expectations of success in their assignment.
2. The Chinese leader in the factory further understands that he is also responsible not only for the workers’ welfare, but their families in the management of the factory community. As such, they all have compassion, and concern and take this responsibility often with great passion .
3. Like private company management and politicians in the west, some are greedy. I came to know one very good company manager for a period of 5 years, who was eventually appointed to a local government official position (similar to Mayor in US). When I returned the following year, I learned he was to be executed for crimes; he took a bribe for preferential treatment of a private business deal! Chinese punishment of CPC member who violates a trust is certainly much more severe than the West, perhaps a lesson well learned by many for the high price of a life.
4. I ate, drank, and sang with these people and see them firstly as compassionate human beings, acting similar to those all over our planet.
5. Certainly the burdens of the CPC on the success of the business that includes the welfare of all the workers and family members must weigh heavily on these people, perhaps more so than a CEO in a western private company who must answer to a B.O.D and the shareholders.

In other cases, I have had opportunity to interact with other CPC members , at a lower level, in Chinese Customs, regarding our trade in China.

At this level their understanding of global trade was clouded considerably with politically driven policies. Like all people, we learn from our teachers ( in this case , the CPC) , who often have a different agenda than politically different viewpoints.

But it seems we all have bosses of some sort whether another higher ranking CPC member or a small business company owner, and as human beings, we react for the benefit of our own survival.

So what do I think about CPC members? Just people doing what they have been taught by others to get through this life.

What are some advantages to living in China compared to living in the US?

1. Your salary. I get paid pretty much equal to what I would in the USA ($40-45k) as a history teacher at a local school, which includes a stipend for housing and round-trip flight home every year… but my salary goes further here.

At home, I could hardly afford an apartment (I’m from New Jersey) because I had student loans, car payments, car insurance, rent, utilities, etc.

Here, rent is paid. Utilities are cheap ($100 max for heat in the winter; $10 water bill; $30 unlimited internet). I have no car, no car insurance. I can get taxis (starting at $3) or hire a car (starting at $5) or take the metro (less than $1) everywhere. I can eat very well with a variety of foods, go get massages & spa treatments ($30 for 90min at my fave place, but you can go to cheaper places), and travel cheaply. All while still having enough to send home to pay for student loans…

2. The food. I left Shanghai for a year for another job and that is what I missed most. All the regional cuisines (Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Dongbei, Taiwanese, Xinjiang, Tibetan) are delicious and fantastic. I can also get a wide range of international cuisines within 5km of my apartment (Thai, Vietnamese, Vegan, Organic, Japanese, French, Italian, Mediterranean, Spanish, Mexican, Turkish, Moroccan, Indian, Malaysian, Singaporean, etc. etc.) and, for the most part, are reasonably priced. Shanghai is more expensive than Beijing and people here always complain about inflation, especially with cost of food. However, with everything else being relatively cheap, I don’t mind spending $15-30 on a Western restaurant brunch which includes a bloody Mary or two… (not the four star crazy buffets… they are $80-100)

3. Convenience. You don’t have time to clean your house or do your laundry? Hire an ayi (maid/nanny) … Mine costs about $6/hr … You don’t want to go to your favorite restaurant for dinner because the pollution is bad? Don’t worry, you can have it delivered. There are many restaurant delivery services where you can order online and someone goes to get your order from the restaurant and brings it to you… You don’t want to go to the foreign supermarket? You can order online and have it delivered. You don’t want to go to the store to buy bottled water? You can have it delivered. You don’t want to spend $100s on a new suit? Bring a picture to the fabric market and they’ll make it for $10s. You want to do a juice cleanse? You can buy one and have it delivered to you every day. You can get a lot of things done for you if you know how… And the list keeps growing! All the choices for foreign food markets & deliveries were not around 4 years ago, so the market is growing…

4. Travel. You can travel cheaply in the entire region. You can also splurge on a hotel because the cost of wherever you’re going is going to be nominal. I treated my mom to a private villa in Thailand for Christmas. I stayed at the Sofitel in Hanoi for my birthday. I am a ardent budget backpacker at heart and have been travelling & living in hostels for 8 years, but living in China has given me the opportunity to see many different cultures around East and Southeast Asia and stay within my budget. Only in the last year have I started splurging a bit, and while I don’t do it all the time, it’s nice to know that I can…

Now, I know friends at bigger international schools with bigger salaries that live in bubbles on the outskirts of town and spend my entire monthly salary on apartments or going out to eat… My boyfriend lives in such a bubble with a driver and he eats at the top tier restaurants all the time… I like being in the middle of it all… I would probably be considered rich by most Chinese, but middle-upper class by most expats here in Shanghai… I can`t enjoy top tier luxuries all the time, but I can afford way more that I ever could in the USA at my age (I’m 29)

and if you’re looking for a non-monetary and/or food answer:

5. Culture/Language. Living in the middle of Shanghai means that I interact with the local culture every day. I’ve learned to read and speak enough Mandarin to haggle in markets, order in restaurants, talk to taxi drivers, have conversations about where I’m from and what I do, navigate around the city, etc. It can be very frustrating sometimes, and I know if you are in your expat bubble, you don’t even have to speak any Mandarin at all, but I like what I’ve experienced. I speak Mandarin every day and as a history teacher, I find living and experiencing the changes in China to be fascinating. You can see the impact the past has had on the current government and how the economic changes are paving the way for a new China to emerge… it’s great to be here and experience all of the energy…

What would happen if someone in the military decided to shoot their mates and join the enemy?

I don’t want to know how many soldiers have played with these kinds of thoughts. Of course, almost no one goes through with it.

If you are in a shitty unit, you sometimes start hating your own guys more than the enemy. In such a situation, some people start contemplating murder. If you kill only one teammate, you’re screwed; therefore the only logical thing to do is killing all of them and defecting to the enemy.

What will always happen to you if you were doing something like this is the following;

• You kill all your “comrades”. No problem, it’s easily done.
• You surrender to the enemy. Still, everything is okay.
• Big surprise! You end up in a Prisoner of War camp. Don’t think that the enemy will give you any preferential treatment or somehow recognize you as a defector or collaborator. No one likes to have a complete psycho around them.
• After a while, your fellow prisoners will find out about what you’ve done and kill you.

Even the most deranged soldier can see that such an act can only lead to his certain death. That’s why it doesn’t happen more often.

What object would hurt you the most to lose?

When a person describes heroin withdrawal as ten times worse than the flu, they are doing it no justice — plain and simple.

That’s like saying that sex and ice cream are the same.

Sure, sex and ice cream are both awesome, but they’re not really the same when you dissect the feelings that each of them evokes.

Same with heroin withdrawal and “ten times worse than the flu” — yeah, they’re both awful, but really, they’re not the same.

The first time I went through real heroin withdrawal was in Lancaster County Prison after a ten year habit. It was torture beyond imagination, and I have yet the strength to write an in-depth description on Quora.

One of the withdrawal symptoms of heroin is the feeling of suffocation.

From the last time you shoot heroin, it takes about six days to fall asleep. When you finally do fall asleep, you wake up in an hour or two feeling like you’re suffocating on your swollen tongue and saliva.

There is one thing that helps that particular withdrawal symptom that jails do not provide.

Air movement.

My current girlfriend has two children. The only thing that we ever argue about is the amount of noise they make after I go to bed.

I need complete silence and darkness to fall asleep — I always have.

But ever since I got clean from heroin, there is one noise (that used to bother me to no end) that I can fall asleep to — the hum of a fan that circulates the air.

Without it, I feel like I’m going through heroin withdrawal.

When I feel like I’m going through heroin withdrawal, it triggers me to want to shoot heroin again.

I never want to go back to that life — the life that was really no life at all.

The object that would hurt me the most to lose, is my stupid fan.

It keeps me from wanting to shoot heroin.

I’ll choose my dirty old annoying fan over any other object on earth, hands down.

Leon

Robin Williams Explains Golf

Who is the rudest celebrity you have met, and who would be the nicest?

I met James Earl Jones and his wife in Dubuque, Iowa when he was acting in Feild of Dreams. There was a friend of mine who was a script supervisor on the shoot, and the entire cast and crew were frequently guests at a local restaurant in town called Mario’s.

I went to meet my friend there and met James Earl Jones and his wife. A customer made a racist statement about Mr. Jones and his wife, and I got into an argument with the idiot and had him escorted out. Mr. Jones invited me to join him and his wife for a drink, and the three of us talked about his career and life for almost an hour. I avoided asking about Star Wars, and I think that was part of the reason I got to stay so long.

Every time I went to the restaurant, Mr. Jones (if he was there) would invite me to the table, or walk over to me, and at least say hello and buy me a good bottle of wine. He frequently picked up my tab, and introduced me to both Burt Lancaster and Ray Liotta.

A great man who told great stories and clearly loved his wife.

My boss told me that she expects my work to be flawless when she checks it and I responded “okay” with a smile. She told me to stop smiling. How should I have reacted?

Go home and find a new job.

First, no work is flawless. It’s an impossible standard, so either she’s lying, or she’s deluded.

Second, bosses who try to enforce stupid and arbitrary rules like “no smiling” are soul-sucking creatures whose mere existence proves that they really are monsters.

Why I Will Never Come Back to the United States

“Couldn’t agree more. 32 years ago I met a woman while working in Stockholm that summer. The next year, I left Brooklyn to live in Sweden. The best decision that I ever made. After a good career in the Swedish Royal Opera, I collected my pension and now live in a small village outside of Palermo. No regrets. I’ll never return to the states.”

What is the most accidentally slick thing you said to a girl?

I was dating an eighteen years old girl, I was twenty-five years old. I had fallen in love with her, but this scared me because of the age difference. I felt guilty that she had not had a chance to experience a lot of life like I had.

She also did not have much of an education having just graduated from high school. I had already graduated from college.

I thought the correct thing to do was to break off the relationship giving her time to experience life more fully.

I took her out on a date intending to tell her at the end of the date that it was time to go our separate ways. All night long I was rehearsing the speech I was going to give her:

It is not you it’s me.

You have done nothing wrong

It is for your own good

Some day you will understand

At the end of the date, we were parked in front of her house when I turned to her to give her the speech the words that came out of my mouth were “do you want to get married?”

I swear I had never even considered marriage and to this day I have no idea where those words came from.

We have now been married for more than fifty-one years and are still deeply in love with each other.

I am one of the most fortunate people alive to have this amazing woman share her life with me

What’s something a poor kid would understand, but would utterly confuse a rich kid?

All that, but no bag of chips.

Remember the parties we used to have in school? The little things thrown together to mark the little milestones? Christmas or Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day?

Everybody would bring something. A bag of chips, a big soda, cookies or brownies or candy.

I used to look forward to those. It was a chance to have some of the things I never got at home. Money was always tight and everything else came first. So I never was able to bring anything.

Somewhere around the third or fourth grade the teacher made an announcement in class. If you don’t bring a treat, you don’t get to participate in the parties anymore. I looked around the room and noticed a lot of faces looking back at me, smug grins from smug little faces, faces lined with nice haircuts they didn’t get at the kitchen table.

There was something happening soon. I want to say the end of the year party. The grand send-off to summer vacation.

I went home and asked then pleaded then begged but “no” was “no” in my home. I guess when you live in an old house with no heat or A/C, no fans or television or telephone, no hot water or washing machine… basically just four walls, the extras didn’t matter much.

So I went with nothing.

The big day came. Kids piled in carrying their bags. The teacher laid the feast out on a long folding table. There was never that much before. Rows of potato chips, cans of dip: French onion, bean and the most valuable of all… nacho cheese. Every kind of cookie, cakes and pies, sodas and big bottles of juice.

I heard my name. Over and over. “Freddy didn’t bring anything.”

Time for the party. The teacher drags a chair out into the hall and tells me to follow her. I sit there alone with my book and read, trying to drown out all of the laughing and slurping and crunching.

That’s what the rich kids wouldn’t understand. Being outside.

Always being the one on the outside.

Strip Steaks with Garlic Sauce

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 2 (8 to 12 ounce) strip steaks
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup pitted black Kalamata olives, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed flat with the side of a knife

Instructions

1. Cut the strip steaks in half across the midsection to make 4 steaks.
2. Season the steaks on both sides with salt and pepper.
3. Heat oil and butter in a wide skillet over medium high heat. When the fat is hot, add garlic, and cook a few seconds until it is aromatic.
4. Add the steaks and cook until well-browned, about 3 minutes on each side (remove garlic when it gets brown).
5. Reduce heat to moderate, and cook for about 7 minutes more, or until done to desired tastes. Remove to serving plates.
6. Add the olives to the skillet, and stir to heat through.
7. Add a little water, beef broth or red wine to the skillet and scrape out bits that are sticking, then pour this pan sauce over the steak.
8. Serve with steamed or sautéed asparagus, orecchiette (ear-shaped pasta) or small shell pasta coated with gorgonzola or blue cheese.

How To Launch Nuclear Missile

Scene from movie “WarGames” (1983)

As a teacher, have you ever had an unforgettable student? What was he/she like?

Several, but one comes to mind in particular. (Going anon because he follows me on Quora). I’m going to call him Dmitri.

I met Dmitri when he was in 7th grade when I was to be his teacher. Before the first day of school at the middle school where I teach (which starts in 7th grade) we have a fun hiking day where students get to interact with their teachers, parents can come if they want, they usually do, and we get to be outside. Of course it’s optional, but students are strongly encouraged to come.

Dmitri came by himself. When we got to the top we do this exercise where everyone picks out two palm sized rocks. They choose one they don’t like very much and let it represent all their fears and angers, and then they throw that off the mountain, we encourage them to scream when they do this if they want to (it’s often fun to just scream as loud as you can), and then with the other rock you let it represent what you love about yourself or you let it represent someone you love. We often tell them that they can save it for someone they love. When Dmitri threw his first rock over the mountain (which is in a direction nobody is so no passing hikers could be potentially hit with rocks) he let out the most gut wrenching scream ever, he doubled over with it and screamed until he couldn’t anymore, I remember thinking to myself, “that is a child with demons”.

The school year started, I was Dmitri’s English and history teacher. He was a great student. The kind of student nobody worries about. 4.0 GPA, top marks in all areas, he was very popular although he didn’t have any real friendships, but he didn’t have any enemies either. He had a great sense of humor and was just a very likable kid. He was also a good writer. His essays were always pretty good, although also very closed off. Like he was locking the reader out of the story, he never connected anything to himself, he seemed scared to show that level of emotion. The way he outlined and articulated essays was good beyond his years, but he never made the reader feel anything. Which isn’t surprising, not that many 7th graders know how to make a reader laugh or cry.

About half way into the semester there was an assignment for the student’s to write about a time they struggled to say something. This could be having a hard time telling the truth, having trouble saying how they were feeling, or just any struggle with communication they have had. I see Dmitri’s essay in his folder as he’s sorting through some papers from his bag and go to grab it. He quickly grabs it before I can and says, “Oh, um, that’s a rough draft” Then he hands me another version. Which I accept. But before I go I ask if I can have the rough draft as well. I really like watching the way a student’s writing changes between drafts and assure him I won’t grade the rough version. He seems like he very much wants to say no, but he was a very passive kid and he so he agreed.

I’m grading papers that night and first read his final version. Pretty much what I was expecting, a well written, well organized introspective essay regarding when you should tell the truth to preserve somebodies feelings and when honesty is more important. It’s ideas were deep, but he did a weak job connecting it back to his own life. Then I read the rough draft. It was on a completely different topic and blew my mind. It wasn’t organized or planned, I don’t think Dmitri outlined it first and it seems like he wrote it without the intention of it being read. It seemed more like something he did for himself therapeutically.

The essay was about his older brother who had died of a drug overdose when Dmitri was 9 and his brother was 15 (this is not something I had known about). He talked about how difficult it became to talk to people after that. One quote that really stayed with me, taken directly from the essay, was “At the funeral everyone felt the need to talk to me. They gave me their condolences and told me it would be okay even when it clearly wouldn’t be. I wanted them to go away and shut up and just let me be alone with silence. After the funeral, after all the thoughts and prayers were out of the way, everyone faded into the background. They were so worried they’d say the wrong thing that they chose to say nothing at all. With a mother who had collapsed into herself I was left alone with a dead older brother and I ended up resenting the silence I had searched for at the funeral. I looked for [brother’s name] everywhere. In his room, on the trails we used to hike, in the medical examiners toxicology report. All I found was a stranger who I felt I had no right to grieve” Dmitri went on to talk about how after his brother’s death he had become obsessed with the police investigation into where his brother had gotten the drugs. Because, as Dmitri put it, he wanted someone to blame. He blamed himself for not knowing about his brother’s use, and his brother for using, and he just wanted someone who wasn’t him or his brother to blame. To quote another part of his essay “They never found the dealer and it took me over a year to realize it didn’t matter. I wanted them to because then it wouldn’t be [brother’s name]’s fault for doing drugs, or mine for not knowing he was doing them, it’d be all the dealers fault for giving them to him”.

It was, without a doubt, the best student writing I’d ever read. It made me cry, in parts it even made me laugh.

I talked to Dmitri about it.

He broke down in the conversation and said he hadn’t actually talked to anyone about his brother in over a year. We talked for awhile.

At the end of the semester I found a little box with a note from Dmitri. The note read: “I wasn’t sure what this was supposed to represent. There were no parts of myself I particularly liked and no one I felt comfortable declaring a love for, even if the declaration was a private one. Thank you for showing me the parts of myself it could be and for showing me what a healthy relationship is. You’re the person I was meant to give this to” Inside the box was his rock from the start of year hike. I’ve kept it for the passed 3 years, it’s the most thoughtful student gift I could have asked for.

I’ve loved continuing to get to know Dmitri. He’s in 10th grade now and with his intellect combined with one of hell of a work ethic and his determination to be the first in his family to graduate college, I’m quite certain he has a big future ahead of him.

Has anyone adopted a child later in life?

I am 60 and my husband is 67. In May we adopted a 16 year old young man. He moved in with us the January before his 15th birthday. The people he called mom and dad had just died. His biological mother did not want him and he never met his bio dad. We spent the year doing a TPR terminating parental rights. Once it was done, we adopted him. He is very shy and was never given anything as his parents were both on Medicaid. We have been able to introduce him to all sorts of things that the world has to offer. We went from being empty nesters for 10 years to having a teen. Sometimes I think he might be better with younger parents, but we give our undivided attention and he has our love and support, no abuse and a future.

i am risking EVERYTHING to share this with you!

Since he left FOX, he has been on fire.

A man with Cancer

I took care of an elderly man who had cancer. He lived Next door to me. I hardly knew him but asked about his health after not seeing him over the winter, he had lost 50 pounds and the doctor didn’t know what was wrong with him. So I volunteered to have him checked out and sure enough, he had malignant cancer. His family lived across country and didn’t want anything to do with him. Or his health. So I stepped in. The next 3 years we went through chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. See, his family were Roman Catholic, and I believe he was gay, although we never discussed it. They felt he was a sinner and abandoned him. It was sad. I mean Really sad, and since I lived next door, I stood at my kitchen window and kept an eye on the house when I was trying to give him quiet. We moved his bedroom to the living room, where he could sleep and I could look through the window to make sure he was alright. One day he attempted to cook and fortunately I saw the fire! I put it out and never let him cook again, which is when I took on his nourishment needs, although he could barely eat.
Thus became my life. I found out he never had a birthday party, so I had my family come with gifts and cards. He was elated!

When he finally did pass away, he had left me his house and his corvette. His family was furious, although they were very well off.

when I had him buried in his family plot, I bought a gorgeous headstone for him. The family had the management of the cemetery sledge hammer it to destroy all memories. I was heartbroken and really pissed off. The next time I went to the cemetery the manager said , “Well I had the opportunity to speak to the family, and I see you were right, they are awful people!” When I went to visit one day, it was early evening and it was snowing so softly, and as I was leaving an ENTIRE herd of deer stood up and looked at me. They didn’t leave, they weren’t frightened, they just stood there staring at me.

I knew right then and there that he was happy safe. His family doomed him to hell, but that is not where he was! My heart grew and I was able to replace my tears with a smile. Moral of this long story is this; it doesn’t matter what material things you have in life, take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Be there for people who need you, whether it is family or a neighbor. It helps your soul to know you did the right thing.

Last thing, when he left me his house and car in his will, he stipulated that his family get $7,000. This way they had no recourse to fight me. I mailed his dress uniform from when he was a marine, his dog tags and many more items a normal family would want. They refused delivery and had it returned. his house wasn’t worth much, but I sold it when the market bottomed out and put in a few kitchen and bathroom remodeling.

I will never forget him. There is a shadow box in my home with pictures, dog tags and coins from around the world, even a picture of him riding a camel on vacation. The bulk of his money went to Karmanos cancer society. I do not regret one moment of those 3 years. Remember, be there for the people who have no one. It’s what you DO not what you have. Thx for reading this long story.

EDIT; this is for the woman who said it was a “weird, sensational tale of fiction “ This was all 100% true. The management of the cemetery destroyed the headstone because it was a FAMILY plot, and the Family had the right to decide what was on it. I complained vehemently and was refunded the money I spent on the headstone. It was afterwards that the management conversed with the family and found them crass and rude. There is nothing I can do about your comment, except to say sorry you didn’t understood what my post meant to me. So many others did.

The Living Dead: The Most Disturbing Story From 9/11

At 08:46 (EDT), hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Centre’s North Tower. It wasn’t long after that firefighters and emergency medical specialists were dispatched to deal with the multitude of distress calls they received from people trapped within the burning building. One such medical specialist dispatched that day was Ernest Armstead, a veteran with over 30 years of experience. In this video, I will attempt to retell the horrific experience Ernest witnessed that day.