Many months ago I said here that if Ukraine would devolve into a NATO war then Poland and Germany would be ruined immediately. It didn't take a soothsayer to figure this horrible turn of the war wheel. Today, England is also is a first wave target in any astute reading of the sadly arranged, miserable tea leaves. We shall see soon. When? June 12. The massive Air Defender 23 forces take to European skies that morning.

No matter what happens that day, Beijing or Rio de Janeiro will be safer places to be. Who knows about NYC or Washington.

It can't happen here.

Posted by: Elmagnostic | May 26 2023 16:38 utc | 1

The world have moved “to the other side”. The “banana republics” are taking over, and those in the West are unaware of the reality. They are instead still being manipulated; like wind up toys.  Thinking one thing, and like Lemmings, moving towards pre-programmed actions and resultant conclusions.

President Biden has something “up his sleeve”, is he sincere, or is he trying to lull China into complacency? No one knows. My guess is that he’s not “doubling down”, but rather “Crushing down hard”, and he believes that a war with China will happen. In HIS personal favor.

Conveniently right before the 2024 election.

That’s what it looks like to me.

Upgrade in Pakastan

China is now considering to upgrade all the railway network in pakistan and connect it with its province so that it will largely reduce the time taken to reach China than other through the south China sea

This will make the importing for China very easy and cheap.

It is big success for pakistan as its rail network will get updated.

the project is worth of $58 Billion Dollars

GDP thoughts

Genuine US GDP is almost 50% less than the number stated due to the gross method with which its calculated that counts overhead costs as productive earnings. There’re very good reasons why the debt is $31 Trillion and the national government’s equity is negative $126 Trillion–many of those overhead costs and so-called productive earnings are actually monopoly rents that ought to be completely taxed and turned into government revenues but aren’t because the Donors (the Parasites) have captured the government. Actual GDP is about $15 Trillion making the debt 200% of GDP and the depth of insolvency worse than any nation on the planet. It will worsen until policy and regulation are ripped from the Donors’s hands.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 25 2023 15:52 utc | 35

Amana Pickled Ham

Amana Pickled Ham is served in many of the Amana restaurants as a side. This is a good appetizer to have around, and it keeps well in the refrigerator.

Ingredients

• 4 cups cubed cooked ham
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup vinegar

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients and place in quart jars.
2. Let stand for several days before eating.

Some memes don't age..

Modern fallacies/stereotypes about Chinese modern society:

• Chinese are incredibly obedient and submissive.
• Chinese do not think for themselves.
• Chinese are not creative, cannot innovate.

But…

PRAGMATISM (务实)

This word is huge to describe Chinese, and most Asians, in modern time, and in history.

Chinese can definitely think for themselves. They always ponder “what is in this for me, how can this benefit me?” Chinese don’t dive head first into anything without first checking it out. Chinese always see the big picture.

Chinese immigrants often ignore most luxury, work their arses off. 3 years later, they saved enough money to start a business. 6 years later, they buy their 3 million dollar house.

Chinese do not fight with the cops. They say sorry, pay the fine, move on. They choose pragmatism over principle. Principle says they should fight injustice. Pragmatism says it’s a waste of time fighting over $200 fine when they can use this time to make $1000.

Chinese do not get into fist fights. Chinese do not see the point. Too much risk, no gain. Getting into fights also make Chinese look unreliable and reckless. Companies do not trust and promote reckless people.

The big picture is always more important than a moment of emotional outburst (and I should take my own advice). Why waste time and money on something that is futile?

The big picture also dictates that you should worry about saving to downpay for a house, college saving for the kids, or at least find a suitable person to settle down with. Spending all your hard earned money partying, drunk and passed out on the streets, does nothing for your future beside liver cancer.

 

DEMOCRACY (民主)

First, WTF is democracy? Democracy is the practice of considering everyone’s opinion.

What do you want to eat for lunch? Take a vote. Where do we go for vacation? Let’s hear everyone’s opinions, then we vote on it.

Chinese love odd numbers. Odd number is exciting. Someone will have the deciding vote. 4 people, 2 v 2 votes, stalemate. 5 people, the last person has to pick A or B, and the group can move forward. Fair and square, no argument. Harmony!

This is much bigger than you think. Such democracy is practiced throughout history. Whenever there is an absence of an absolute leadership, democracy happens. Absolute leadership be a teacher, a boss, a parent, a government official.

Of course you can’t argue with the laws. You run a red light, you get a ticket. You don’t take a vote with the policeman. You don’t take a vote whether to have homework, teacher says you do homework or fail the class. If you do not go to work, your boss fires you, no discussion. Democracy approach isn’t always logical in every instance.

---

INTEREST IN DEMOCRACY

What do you want to have for lunch again? Let’s take a vote. Democracy happens far too often among Chinese.

But wait, you aren’t talking about this democracy, but that democracy?

I get you. You are talking about American style government system that is guided by American constitution?

Why should Chinese honor and be obligated to American Constitution?

Why should Chinese adopt American style government system when Chinese society has drastically different culture and history?

American system is not even doing well for America.

• Presidential election only allows 2 pre-selected candidates (everyone else can be voted, but with zero chance to win).
• Presidential term lasts 4 years. The new president dismantles most things the previous president spent billions of dollars to create. This cycle of reset is extremely costly and counterproductive.
• President candidates are not merit based. Even a cat can be president if he has enough money and support from its people.
• Poverty is ignored. Healthcare is ignored. Presidents put their priorities in serving the rich first: war profiteering over developing America. Protecting big pharma to exploit the poor who go homeless to pay for medicine.

How the fuck is this a democracy?

And better yet…

How the fuck would Chinese people be expected to be interested in this shit?

Right?

---

Remember, Chinese are pragmatic. Chinese want to be heard, want to be taken care of by the government. American style government is not taking care of its people. It instead exploits and robs American people to support the oligarchs. This is American democracy: a democracy completely by facade.

• Chinese don’t care about facade.
• Chinese don’t care about time wasting principle that is all risk and no result.
• Chinese don’t care about empty gesture and symbolism. Chinese people want results.

So the question is wrong in asking if Chinese is interested in democracy. It should be which style of government system does Chinese want?

Or… what the hell do you want for lunch? Burger or hotpot? Let’s vote on it.

INSANE! Biden to create new federal agency to track your behavior

Closing The Case Of Regime Changer Roman Protasevich And His Ryanair Flight To Minsk

Two years ago a Ryanair flight from Athens to Lithuania was diverted after the Belorussian flight control informed the pilot that it had received an email which said that the plane carried a bomb and would explode during landing in Lithuania.

The plane diverted to Minsk. All passengers stepped off board and where bused to the terminal. When they passed through passport control the immigration officers found that two of the passengers had outstanding arrest warrants against them. These were one Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend and co-worker Sofia Sapega.

The ‘western’ media and politicians were up in arms over the ‘unprecedented’ incident. But the event was far from unprecedented.

Western media also failed to report that Roman Protasevich had been a western government financed neo-nazi who had fought with the fascist Ukrainian Azov battalion before working for U.S. sponsored regime change media in Poland. He was one of the persons who had directed the failed 2020 color-revolution in Belarus.

Belarus had handled the airplane incident by the book. During the following days claims were made that Belarus received the terror threat email after the plane was informed – i.e. the whole thing was a setup. However, Belarus has claimed that it received the threat email twice, once before it notified the pilots and another copy later.

Moon of Alabama has followed the case throughout. Those interested in the details of the original incident can find them in our June 2 2021 post. For a wider political view of the ‘color revolution’ business in east Europe see this piece by Kit Klarenberg. Links to all MoA posts about the case are listed at the end of this piece.

A week after the incident, during a long TV interview, Protasevich spilled the beans about the whole regime operation. He also says that he has come to believe that one of his regime changer colleagues had sent the bomb threat email to get him arrested.

A few weeks later Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega were released and put under house arrest. A trial followed and, in early May of this year, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.

I though that the sentence, in light of his public turnabout, was quite harsh but others accused of the same regime change operations against Belarus had received up to 20 years prison time. Still, eight years is a long time for a young man who had clearly changed his mind. Sofia Sapega, who is a Russian citizen, had earlier received a 6 year sentence.

On May 22 Protasevich was unexpectedly pardoned:

Roman Protasevich said: “I’ve just signed the paperwork saying that I have been pardoned. This is certainly simply great news.”BelTA reported earlier that on 3 May the Minsk Oblast Court sentenced Roman Protasevich to eight years in a prison colony. He was found guilty of making public appeals for seizing power, committing acts of terrorism, giving offence to the president, spreading knowingly fraudulent information about Belarus, and other crimes.

Protasevich was quite surprised:

“This news is extremely unexpected. A month ago I could not think that it was even possible, that it would happen. I am really overwhelmed,” Roman Protasevich said. “I would like to thank President Aleksandr Grigorievich personally because this is his decision. This is a bold move, a decision of a strong-willed person. I want to thank the country and the people who believed in me, in my sincerity, who think that people can mend their ways and admit their mistakes.”According to him, he is focused on the positive agenda. “I don’t read what they write about me. I unsubscribed from all possible information resources a long time ago. I mean pro-Western, opposition one because they recycle stuff about me. I’m not interested in what’s going on there, what they’re saying. I am focused [on] the positive agenda. I will devote maximum time to my family,” Roman Protasevich emphasized.

Reporting on Protasevich’s pardon the Washington Post notes:

Sapega, a Russian national, was accused of running another Telegram channel called “Belarus’s Black Book,” which published personal information about the country’s security forces. She was sentenced in 2022 to six years in prison. Last month, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus granted its Russian counterparts’ request to transfer Sapega to Russia following her family’s pleas.

I have found no other new information about Sapega but, if she is still with Protasevich, it is likely that she will now receive similar leniency.

—
Previous coverage of the case published on Moon of Alabama:

• Lukashenko’s Revenge (Served Cold) – May 24, 2021
• Roman Protasevich – Arrested In Belarus – Is A Western Government Financed Neo-Nazi – May 26, 2021
• By The Book – What Really Happened With The Ryanair Flight In Belarus – May 27, 2021
• Ryanair Incident – Email Warning Received Before Plane Entered Belorussian Airspace – May 28, 2021
• How ProtonMail Lost The Public Trust It Needs To Do Business – May 29, 2021
• ‘Like An Amoral Infant’ – How ProtonMail Contributes To False Media Claims About Belarus – May 30, 2021
• Ryanair Bomb Threat In Belarus – ‘Western’ Media Narrative Disagrees With The Facts – May 31, 2021
• Timeline, Narrative Control And Consequences Of The Ryanair Incident In Belarus – June 2, 2021
• Roman Protasevich, Casualty Of The Ryanair Incident In Belarus, Is Spilling The Beans – June 4, 2021
• Putin Teaching A Journalist And Other New Bits Around Ryanair Flight 4978 – June 15, 2021
• U.S., UK Information Warfare Behind Regime Change Drive In Belarus by Kit Klarenberg – June 15, 2021
• ICAO Report – Ryanair Plane That Landed in Minsk Was NOT Forced Down – January 22, 2022

Posted by b on May 26, 2023 at 16:36 UTC | Permalink

15 Mysterious Individuals Throughout History That Science Can’t Explain

First Point

Russia is a Country with Tremendous Resources.

They have Oil, Wheat, Metals, Gas, Inert Gas, Enriched Uranium – the list is endless.

This means they can sustain themselves without any Import Dependence and yet the whole World Depends on their Exports

This means Russia is REALLY WEALTHY unlike the West who only have PAPER WEALTH

You see since the West is Paper Wealthy – its very easy to create an Economic Shockwave through Loss of Investor confidence. It is a realistic possibility in these Countries.

Since Russia is Really Wealthy or Commodity Wealthy – its near impossible to create an Economic Shockwave

So Shock and Awe sanctions simply couldnt have worked in the long run

Second Point

Russia and China joined hands before the Conflict

This was a huge plus for Russia.

Shock and Awe sanctions couldnt have worked in the long run but they could have wrecked Russia in the short run had it not been for Chinas support or rather the Lack of Chinas condemnation.

Today China has a reputation that is even better than the US in Financial Capital Affairs.

If China has confidence in a Country – the World immediately recognizes it. Its why when China began to move away from SL and Pakistan, their Creditworthiness reduced whereas when China backed SLs IMF Loan in 2019 – it was granted unconditionally.

The Minute China didnt join the bandwagon – the Short term impacts were hugely mitigated.

Again this was something the West didnt expect.

Third Point

The Impact of SWIFT

The West over rated the importance of SWIFT.

Maybe 20 years ago – SWIFT was vital since the only other option was Telex which could take a week or two. Today you have many Messaging Architectures with the same know how so as long as Russia has Gas and Oil – The Banks will always find payments

Subsequently Russia easily bypassed the Swift

Again this was something the West didnt expect

Fourth Point

The Industrial Depth of Russia

The West were convinced that Russia was an Oil and Gas Station

They didnt realize that Russia , former USSR had a huge industrial depth and it could easily bounce back its Industrialization. Unlike China which formed its Industrial Base from scratch in 1982 and took so long, Russia had a massive industrial base from 1948 to 1991 and Russia could easily jumpstart this from 2012 onwards.

Thus Russias Industries were far more stronger than the West thought they were

---

Subsequently – Is Russia Losing Economically

I would say Russia may perhaps lose $1 for every $ 3.50 that the West Loses.

As on Date Russia is adding $ 173 Million a day to its GDP and losing $ 100.4 Million a day – that is a net of $ 72.6 Million a day or around $ 24 Billion a year which comes to around 1.6% Growth in GDP rather than 15% Contraction as predicted by the West.

Even if this becomes worse and doubles and Russia loses around $ 27 Million a day or $10 Billion a year – thats still only around 0.67% Contraction in GDP rather than 15%

Worst Case Russia loses around 3% GDP – 5% GDP but Russian Govt gains $ 287 Billion of Fresh Reserves and has only $ 542 Billion Debt against $ 11 Trillion Assets

The West may gain around 0.25% – 3% GDP but the West collectively loses $ 3.42 Trillion of additional debt due to higher prices of reserves and Ukranian assistance. Thats a massive addition to their debt. They now have combined $ 48.24 Trillion Debt against only $ 21.70 Trillion Assets

---

Conclusion – The West is committing HARA KIRI and Russia is expected to gain Massively in the Long term from this Stupidity

Perhaps, the end of “color revolutions”…

1. First guess is he has helped identify other trouble makers either in Belarus or Ukraine or both.

2. The 2020 Belarus and 2019 Hong Kong demonstrations were always a bit odd. It appeared that many years of US/USAID/CIA/MI6 preparations were being started much too early when they were bound to fail. Why not wait?

Well now we know. In 2019 Taiwan the lead in the Polls swung from the KMT (if not pro-China at least not pro-America or actively anti-mainland) to the DPP who won in Jan 2020. Fears of Chinese authoritarianism based of fake news of HK police violence were very influential.

Belarus was setting the scene for “Russia as the bad guy”. Again for Regional but not local advantage.

My guess is that these American/UK funded groups will now largely be closed down by the Russian and Chinese intelligence services, and their experiences and tools will be passed on to other countries, even those with complex relationships to US like Hungary or Turkey. There will be no more color revolutions (outside EU/US).

Posted by: Michael Droy | May 26 2023 18:04 utc | 7

The Real Reason Prince Was Taken Out Revealed

When people, especially “armchair generals” try to ascertain the military capability of the Chinese, they often are wrong. There are many reasons for this.

• They mistake being peaceful for pacifism.
• The confuse the anti-Chinese propaganda with realistic assessment.
• The Chinese do not promote or advertise it’s military capabilities and abilities.
• China’s true numbers, quantities, and abilities are kept INTENTIONALLY secret. No one really knows the full numbers, and the full abilities, and the full capabilities. All reports on China are extrapolated guesses at best.

China has a military force that is broken down into two components.

1. Defensive.
2. Offensive.

The Defensive component is tactical in nature. It is designed to operate in and near China. This includes the South China Sea, Taiwan, and the neighboring nations of Korea, Japan, and South East Asia.

The Offensive component is strategic in nature. It is designed to strike deep inside the homeland of the attacking nations, proxies and sponsors. To destroy cities, infrastructure and disrupt civilian life to such a substantial degree that engagement of any war against China would be a very uncomfortable one.

Taken as a whole, China is a fortress.

It’s defensive preparations and military are absolute. Any nation trying to attack it would suffer massive causalities at multiple levels of engagement.

It’s cities are walled fortifications. It’s people are trained militia. It’s manufacturing capability is enormous, and could switch to war-time production in hours.

We cannot fully appreciate the defensive abilities of China without looking at the historical events; the most recent events where the United States fought China. That was in 1950 -54.

The United States and it’s allies lost and lost enormously.

In fact, the loss was so very horrific, that the retreat became a rout. And the piles of equipment and stockpiles in warehouses had to be bombed remotely, by the sea and the air, to prevent capture. (This is by definition a rout. Remote demolitions of abandoned material is a characteristic of a rout.)

General Douglas MacArthur was so upset and defeated that he demanded that President Truman start using nuclear weapons on China, but Truman refused.

Instead President Truman initiated a multi-decade long campaign of carpet bombing China with bio-weapons. Which didn’t do much to China, except make it very VERY resilient to bio-weapon attacks.

Ah.

Did come in handy. Don’t you know…

Anyways…

So, taken a a whole, the defensive branch of the Chinese PLA would put up a “good fight”.

By the nature of geography and numbers, any attacking nation could only focus on limited regions to wage war. Taiwan, South China Sea, XinJiang. And in each case the fighting would be extraordinarily difficult.

Attacking causalities would approach 80–90%. Loss of material, and weapons, and supporting systems is guaranteed.

Just like what happened in Korea, the last time.

While there is no doubt that United States forces, along with proxy nations would be able to bomb targets, and destroy buildings and maybe even a city or two, the direct result of THAT kind of attack would ignite the Chinese OFFENSIVE forces.

Uh oh.

Oh. God No!

…

Chinese offensive forces are simple.

They destroy the cities of the attacking nation. They use enhanced radiation neutron bombs mounted on hyper-velocity glide vehicles launched by MIRV ICBM platforms.

It’s a very “clean” system of radiation, very unlike the nuclear bombs of the West.

Instead of a big explosion with damage due to blast and pressure, heat, the bomb explodes and zaps entire regions with lethal radiation. Radiation that leaves in a few days.

Zap.

*Zzziiit*

Buildings will stand, but all life would be dead.

People. Pets. Cattle. Flies. Mosquitoes. Worms. Beatles. Butterflies.

All gone.

What survives would be dying.

The attacking nation would truly resemble a “ zombie apocalypse”.

In all studies by RAND; the premier American “military think tank”, the concluding summaries in regards to military conflict between the USA and China is to avoid it.

…

The only areas where the pro-war faction seems to see benefit are the…

• “news media” (especially Australian),
• the political establishment (to gain power though working with the media narratives),
• and the industrial-military complexes that would profit greatly though a massive big war (assuming their factories are not blown to smithereens).

On this item “Capability” alone, it is very obvious that a risk assessment on the capabilities of the Chinese PLA would deter anyone from even considering a war with China.

With that being said, all the other characteristics also underscore this point.

• Sustainability

China has a population, manufacturing ability, access to resources, more intelligent and hard working people, much, much, MUCH larger than the United States and Europe combined. In a war where only sustainability is an issue, China would easily win that war.

• Reduction

Because of this massive, enormous; gargantuan resource pool, the only way that the United States would be able to suppress it would be to cut off access to it. Which it cannot. The BRI has made that impossible. This, thus leaves the nuclear war option, which as defined above would result in the massive erasure of life in both the United States and Europe by neutron carpet-bombing.

• Operational theater

Any war might start out in an operational theater defined by the United States, but it will not stay there. Once the Chinese strategic forces are given the “go ahead”, the war will become global. The absolute targets would be the nations of the combatants. This would be the United States, and Europe, as well as the handful of Australian cities, and great areas of Japan.

• Peer confluence

China is above peer confluence with the combined armies of the United States and it’s allies / proxies. This is an assessment dating back to 2004, and I am of the opinion that (if anything), the gap has widened substantially since then. Only the rabble that are influenced by the anti-China propaganda, and watch too many Rambo movies think that a war against China would be “easy”.

Wars are NEVER easy. And to fight China is a mistake that should be avoided at all costs.

• Alliances

China is well aligned with the bulk of the world. To fight China would be to fight the world. Russia, Iran, North Korea are but the expected combatants, but in any war, you can well expect changing alliances, and force power projections to change in the favor of China.

And make no mistake. These alliances are active and have no doubts or misconceptions of the reality of this moment in time.

Conclusion

Q: What is the Chinese military’s threat level to U.S. forces?

A: Absolute. Complete, and final.

Why Are These Biden Officials Leaving Their Top Posts?

Recently several administration official who were working on China and Ukraine policies announced to step back or retire. The people in question were not neo-conservative China hawks like Secretary of State Anthony Blinken or National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

The unexpected loss of top sane hands has me concerned that there is some big move in planning that will damage U.S. relations with China and Russia even more than they already are:

The head of a new US State Department unit tasked to coordinate efforts aimed at countering Beijing plans to step down next month, the department’s second high-ranking official with a China portfolio to announce a departure in less than two weeks.Rick Waters, head of the State Department’s recently created Office of China Coordination, and known informally as its “China House”, will leave the position just six months after it was established to manage what Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “the scale and the scope of the challenge” posed by the country.

The career State Department official will “rotate out” of the unit and the Office of Taiwan Coordination on June 23 “as part of the Department’s normal summer transition process,” according to a State Department spokesman.

There was no reason given why Waters was moved aside. This comes shortly after an even more important figure suddenly decided to retire:

The announcement about Waters followed news of US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s retirement earlier this month.Sherman, the highest-ranking State Department official from the Biden administration to have travelled to China, has been an instrumental member of US President Joe Biden’s efforts to build an Indo-Pacific strategy that offers an alternative to China’s economic influence and expanding military presence there.

Sherman was a hard nosed negotiator but had a realist view on issues:

Before she was appointed Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman had pushed for a swift return to the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). She urged the Biden administration to immediately begin consultations with Europe, Russia and China on preserving the JCPOA after taking office. “It’s important for the U.S. to start its consultations as quickly as a new administration can,” Sherman said at Johns Hopkins University on November 19, 2020.

Another important figure will soon leave from a top Pentagon role:

The Defense Department’s top policymaker plans to resign, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the decision.Colin Kahl, who has been undersecretary of defense for policy since April 28, 2021, is likely to leave in the summer, the officials said.

The officials, who asked not to be named, said Kahl plans to return to the private sector, most likely to Stanford University, where he was a professor and fellow before he joined the Biden administration.
…
Before his time at Stanford, Kahl was national security adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden from October 2014 until January 2017. During the Obama administration, he was also a policy official at the Pentagon.
…
Two years ago Kahl faced a tough confirmation battle to become the No. 3 civilian at the Pentagon, in part because of his critical comments about Republicans on social media when he worked in the private sector. Republicans also criticized his involvement in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA and his other policy views about the Middle East.

Kahl was also known for opposing escalation of the U.S. proxy war with Russia:

Kahl has also been one of the administration’s top officials making the case against sending U.S.-made F-16 jets to Ukraine, which has been a point of contention between the Biden administration and lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans.Despite a plea from Kyiv for more advanced jets, Kahl has argued sending F-16s would take years and cost billions of dollars, while noting fighters aren’t Ukraine’s most immediate need.

China hawks had rallied against Kahl’s position on China:

In an interview with Defense News this week, Kahl offered extraordinary overconfidence that China will not attempt an invasion of Taiwan within the next two years and likely far further into the future. This bears note because U.S. military and intelligence officials increasingly do believe that Xi is likely to order an invasion before this decade is out, possibly before 2027. Their assessment is vested in intelligence reporting and comprehensive political and military analysis.

Kahl, however, is unconcerned.

Kahl announced his departure from the Pentagon shortly before Biden elevated a China hawk to the top position of the U.S. military:

President Biden is nominating Gen. Charles “C.Q.” Brown Jr. to serve as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president is expected to announce Thursday in a White House Rose Garden ceremony.Brown is currently the Air Force chief of staff.

The position is the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, and the chairman is the primary military adviser to the president, as well as to the defense secretary and National Security Council.

Gen. Brown had previously commanded the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific region. He is known for seeing China as the top U.S. enemy:

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. in his keynote address said China’s People’s Liberation Army has the largest aviation forces in the Indo-Pacific and the largest conventional missile capability in the world, and is actively fielding hypersonic missiles. China also is establishing bases around the globe, often in places where the U.S. already has a presence.China has said its armed forces will be fully modernized by 2035 and “world class by 2050,” said Brown, who noted that “China continues to move its modernization timelines left at a rate of change that is outpacing the United States.”

“The day after the last C-17 left Kabul, I was in the Indo-Pacific where a graver threat is manifesting, where the risk and stakes are high,” Brown said. “We must move with a sense of urgency today in order to rise to the challenges of tomorrow, because the return to strategic competition is one of our nation’s greatest challenges. Strategic competition may not be as stark or obvious as a 9/11-like event, but it can be just as catastrophic. We cannot wait for a catastrophic crisis, whether it be sudden or insidious, to drive change for the Air Force and the Joint Force. If we do, it will be too late.”

I think that all these moves are somewhat related. Wendy Sherman and Colin Kahl have known each other throughout their careers. Both of them cooperate with each other while serving in several Democratic administrations. It is hard to believe that did not talk to each other about stepping down.

But still I find none of the usual background pieces in foreign policy media that connects these moves or would explain the issues involved. Can they find no one who wants to talk about this?

Or is it just me seeing things that ain’t there because I fear that the Biden administration is preparing for even more escalatory policies?

Posted by b on May 25, 2023 at 14:07 UTC | Permalink

A comment

This mass resignation has all the hallmarks of a fully recognized cull–from top to bottom–an institutional recognition that a political cull is coming.

The first of these sorts of institutional culls that were instigated by anti-communist ideologues, back in the 1950s, were pushed by the FBI, CIA, the China Lobby (aka “Chiang Kaishek”, “Song Meiling”, and the general “Song” family + CIA/FBI/US Media empires of the era: Time and Live Magazines)–a coalition that the US Rethuglican Corporate Party happily funded and cooperated with (quietly, under Eisenhower’s awareness, which Nixon was keeping careful track of), along with Truman’s cabinet.

The cull that’s coming is going to swerve the US into an even more self-destructive path.

Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | May 25 2023 15:57 utc | 38

Another comment

“biden” was publicly proclaiming a thaw in us China relations. Also accompanied by a narrative campaign to fix the idea that decoupling is impossible.

My guess is that the US is preparing to court China to dump Russia a la Nixon and kissinger in the 70s.

Where it goes I dunno, probably not far. After all the US truly doesn’t think it needs to abide by agreements, being exceptional as they are. China will need more than words, they’ll need concrete irrevocable action before they’ll engage

Let’s see what happens next, for sure the US will need to abandon its economic war campaign, and withdraw all support from Taiwan and I don’t think the ‘biden” administration can do anything so useful.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | May 25 2023 16:28 utc | 46

Citizen Shoots 3 Robbers in a Houston Gas Station

Peer ability

On China, there’s no chance the Outlaw US Empire will ever become its peer over the next century. The power of integration within Eurasia is too strong for the weak Empire to crack. What matters most is the Eurasian people are all for it even if a few “leaders” are bought like those in Moldova and Pakistan–but even the bought Pakistanis won’t jettison BRI/China as development partner. The Thais are too integrated into ASEAN to abandon it as ordinary Thais will revolt. South Korea is an odd cookie. It’s greatly benefited from Asian integration and abandoning that for deeper vassalage to the Empire will likely be overturned with the next Presidential election. A good question: Is Japan a lost cause; will its people ever awaken and attempt to free themselves from occupation?

IMO, much depends on what occurs further with the Empire’s financial crisis and rapidity of dedollarization. Over half the population of the Outlaw US Empire is under the age of 35, with 25% under 15, which might make it easier to yet again rob from the young to pay for Imperial excesses. For the 13% nearing retirement age, this next election and how it will treat social policy will be crucial, even existential. Domestic politics have usually been ignored by US Imperialists, but with the escalating financial crisis and utterly wrong Fed and foreign policies driving it, I don’t see how it can be ignored in 2024 as it will be close to a replay of 2016. My crystal ball is hazy when it comes to what will happen here, although the next month ought to clarify it somewhat as the debt issue is either solved or isn’t.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 25 2023 15:42 utc | 31

Amana Ox Yoke Inn Rhubarb Custard Pie

Yield: 1 pie

Ingredients

• Double crust pastry for 9 inch pie
• 3/4 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 5 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb
• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup Half-and-Half
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Make crust for a 2 crust pie.
2. Put bottom crust in pie pan; sprinkle with flour.
3. Mix the rhubarb, sugar, beaten eggs, Half-and-Half and salt.
4. Pour into crust, and put on top crust. Make slits in top of pie.
5. Bake at 375 degrees F for 1 1/2 hours.

World Class

I dunno if it’s just me, but I think the Chinese military is “World Class” right now, never mind 2050. It’s got a huge navy, advanced missiles and aircraft, and a lot of men under arms.

Aljazeera: Chinese Military strength

Posted by: JulianJ | May 25 2023 18:08 utc | 70

5 Unexplained Moments Caught on Live TV That Were Never Solved

BANKRUPTED – the last memory chip maker in the United States

• Micron is the last memory chip maker in the United States
• CHINA is a MAJOR market for its product
• China warned that its product is a security threat and banned its companies from purchasing from Micron

• Micron share prices will likely crashed on Monday
• AND the company will likely go bankrupt
• it is NOW clear that the Chinese state is NOW responding to American assault on their hitech companies
• Micron will be the first of many American companies that the Chinese target

Ouch!

Which countries have fallen victims to the Chinese debt trap?

1). The US caused debt trap, then the US accuses China of causing the debt trap.

2). The US sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, then the US accuses Russia or pro-Ukraine group of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.

3). The US biological labs man-made the covid-19, the US regime used the virus as a biological weapon to have sneakily attacked Wuhan China in Sept 2019, then the US accuses China of releasing the covid.

4). The US has been committing genocides to its own origin inhabitants and conducting massive shooting massacres in streets daily and nightly, then the US accuses China of committing genocides of Uighur.

5). The US has been aggressive, especially 900 terrorist US army bases in the world, but the US accuses China of being aggressive, while China hasn’t had any war over the past 45 years and no single army base outside Chinese territories.

6). The US has been stealing everything from all over the world, but accuses China of stealing.

7). The US has been the heaven of Child labour and forced labour, but the US accuse Uighur of being the laziest people to make a living on their own.

8). The US style of democracy, human rights and freedom are lousy, the terrorism and virus, but the US keeps attacking the superior Chinese style of democracy, human rights and freedom which are the model for the developing countries, the beacon of the human races on Earth.

The US dominated financial institutions have not just led to the debt trap, but also led to the death traps and destruction traps for many developing countries in the world such as Sri Lanka, Ukraine etc.

The book “America Traps” written by a famous French has described the various forms of the US traps including debt traps, death traps, destruction traps, assassinations traps, stealing traps, biological weapons traps etc.

China has been building roads, schools, trains etc for developing countries to let them make a living by themselves.

That’s why One Belt One Road initiative are so popular and welcome in the world, over 180 countries and international organisations have joined in the Chinese BRI projects.

When the chips are down

Recently, China announced that it would be restricting chips made by the US firm Micron in its critical infrastructure projects, citing it as a “national security threat”. In doing so, Beijing deliberately played the same card frequently used by the United States and its allies concerning its own technologies, most namely Huawei, where unfounded concerns relating to “national security” were used to exclude the telecommunications firm from participating in 5G networks, as well as the US has blacklisted thousands of other Chinese technology companies.

Ironically, despite having led an all-out policy of technological embargo against China, the United States condemned China’s move accordingly, stating that “We firmly oppose restrictions that have no basis in fact”. Well, isn’t that ironic? Especially seen as China’s move is in fact limited in scope, and does not even come close to the US’s actions against it. Despite this, the US was also reported to have previously “warned” South Korea not to take up the market left behind by Micron if China went ahead with such restrictions, something which to Seoul’s credit, they dismissed.

The episode nonetheless reveals the interesting double standards (yet again) in the US’s attitude to China. Washington reserves its right to impose sweeping embargos on Beijing and blacklist countless companies, yet if even as much as one move is pursued the other way round, it is hastily denounced and as the G7 communique farce depicted over the previous weekend, it is so-called “economic coercion.” In other words, the idea that the US and its allies are allowed to impose whatever measures they like on China, legitimately, but that it is only to be a “one-way traffic.”

While this has already been previously discussed, what is more significant about this technology war between the United States and China, is that it is an extension of Washington’s belief that it must military, economically and eventually, politically dominate the country. The US does not believe so much in an “equal” or “balanced” trading relationship with Beijing, as much as it believes it has an infinite right to exploit the Chinese market “on its own terms”. In other words, China is to be exploited and conform to American preferences, in a very similar light how the British used superior military force to subjugate the Qing Dynasty to its terms and conditions.

In doing so, the United States desires to cripple China’s leading industries, block its advances up the technology tree, diminish its global market share, and exclude it from global supply chains, in the view to strategically dominating all of it through its allies. That doesn’t mean though they don’t want to “trade” with China, as per the G7 communique even says. But rather it does mean they want trade and economic relations with Beijing to be exclusively for their own benefit. Hence, when China was only a low-end manufacturing nation, they could care little, but the idea that Beijing may challenge them in key strategic and technological goods, is deemed unacceptable.

This has created an inverted perspective that China must open its markets unilaterally for the West, hence even Ursula Von Der Leyden complained about “market access”, but that it is acceptable for the West to place curbs on Chinese investments and exports to the country. In this sense, these policies are driven by an effort to sustain a monopoly against China, preventing a change in the global balance of economic, and therefore technological and military, power. Thus, the United States sees absolutely no problem in allowing its chip companies to sell to the Chinese market (to the things they choose), but has every problem with China manufacturing and selling its own chips accordingly.

In doing so, it was perhaps naively assumed by Washington that their technological advantages were so great that China did not have the leverage to take retaliatory action against a US chip company directly, they were wrong. US chip curbs against China’s semiconductor industry have been disruptive, but they are by no means fatal. It is a bruising, but not a decapitation, and China has continued to make progress irrespectively in making technological breakthroughs in areas of chip design and lithography.

This only goes to show us that in the long run, the US strategy against China is likely to fail, and as it happens American companies will almost certainly be the biggest losers of these disastrous policies which seek to roll back globalization and exclude them from participating in the most lucrative market on Earth. Micron is the first, but it almost certainly won’t be the last. Biden has overplayed his hand.

Earth shattering breakthrough by Chinese company

Chinese manufacturer Gotion High-Tech has announced a new battery pack will go into mass production in 2024 that it says will deliver range of up to 1,000kms for a single charge and could last two million kms.

The company says the manganese doped L600 LMFP Astroinno will be able to do 4,000 full cycles at room temperature, and at high temperature will get 1800 cycles and over 1500 cycles of 18-minute fast charging.

These incredibly high cycle numbers mean the battery could essentially last 2 million km before it starts to deteriorate. To put that into context, the average Australian car travels around 15,000 km per year so it would take 130 years worth of average driving to reach 2 million km mark.

Gotion High-Tech says the battery single-cell density is 240Wh/kg and that improvements in pack design have increased overall battery pack energy density to a point where 1000km range pack is possible with the highly durable chemistry.

“Astroinno L600 LMFP battery cell, which has passed all safety tests, has a weight energy density of 240Wh/kg, a volume energy density of 525Wh/L, a cycle life of 4000 times at room temperature, and a cycle life of 1800 times at high temperatures,” said executive president of the international business unit of Gotion High-Tech Dr. Cheng Qian.

Gotion High-Tech released a new video this week explaining the new chemistry, pack design as well as the battery’s safety and thermal properties.

20 Deadliest El Chapo Hitmen

THE US “INTENTIONALLY RELEASED COVID VIRUS IN WUHAN”

During the International Covid Summit in May 2023, Dr.(Phd) David Martin revealed historical patent filings on the development of the Covid virus. His explosive revelations indicate that US agencies and big pharma funded and developed Covid as a bioweapon and released it in Wuhan. The following is an article and a video of his speech.

5 BIZARRE Experiences of People Being in a Parallel Universe

Nobody justifies Dictatorship

The Chinese have held the opinion for millenia that everyone CANNOT be equal. Simple as that. A Sampan Coolie cannot have the same rights as a Hoppo or a Cohong Trader or an Artisan or a Inner Circle Minister.

Thats the Governing Principle of Chinese Governance

---

A Person can be WORTHY enough to participate in Governance or keep quiet and do his best to be productive to the Country.

Any Person can strive to become Worthy – which is allowed in China due to meritocracy of the highest order BUT the “Unworthy” cannot have a say in governance of the country. THEY HAVE TO BE RULED.

---

To me – this is one of the most successful forms of Governance.

Because I LIVE IN INDIA

Had i lived in Canada or Sweden or Iceland or Norway- I would have been screaming Democracy from the rooftops.

Because i live in India –

I have seen how in 1970 – My Nation and China both had a per capita income of $ 113 a year but today China has Six times my Percapita Income.

I have seen how in 1970 – My Nation and China both had equal wealth but today China has 9.8 Times more wealth than my Nation.

And i realize that the sole reason is because – EVERYBODY IS ALLOWED TO HAVE A SAY IN CHOOSING THE GOVERNMENT and the GOVERNMENT IS BUSY APPEASING THE “UNWORTHY” TO WIN THE ELECTIONS THAN DELIVER PROGRESS

The Rule of the Worthy over the Unworthy is Not Dictatorship. It is what made the world stronger and stronger. Rome, Egypt, Ottoman, Britain – all flourished under this system where the Unworthy were told what to do by the Worthy.

IN these systems – the Unworthy always remained Unworthy but in China – the Unworthy can tomorrow become Worthy enough by sheer talent and merit.

To me thats a Winning Formula!!!!

The Pendulum of Power in the Pacific have changed

• there is absolutely no way that American carrier fleet can survive a Pacific war
• the assassin toolkit that the Chinese can bring to bear simply overwhelms whatever the Americans can bring to bear
• with the continue decline of the American economy and rampant corruption within its political system, this is unlikely to change

Scott Ritter: “PUTIN WILL END THE WAR ONCE AND FOR ALL, THIS IS IT”

https://youtu.be/haaHQjc6XL4

If the Moon landings were faked, then one question that naturally arises is: why would any government go to such extreme lengths to mount such an elaborate hoax?

The most obvious answer (and the one most frequently cited by skeptics) is to reclaim a sense of national pride that had been stripped away by America’s having played follow-the-leader with the Soviets for an entire decade. While this undoubtedly played a large role, there are other factors as well – factors that haven’t been as fully explored. But before we look at those, we must first deal with the question of whether it would have even been possible to pull off such an enormous hoax.

Could so many people have really been duped into believing such an outrageous lie, if that in fact was what it was? To answer that question, we have to keep in mind that we are talking about the summer of 1969 here. Those old enough to have been there will recall that they – along with the vast majority of politically active people in the country – spent that particular period of time primarily engaged in tripping on some really good acid (most likely from the lab of Mr. Owsley).

How hard then would it really have been to fool most of you? I probably could have stuck a fish bowl on my head, wrapped myself in aluminum foil, and then filmed myself high-stepping across my backyard and most of you would have believed that I was Moonwalking. Some of you couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that everyone was walking on the Moon.

In truth, not everyone was fooled by the alleged Moon landings. Though it is rarely discussed these days, a significant number of people gave NASA’s television productions a thumbs-down. As Wired magazine has reported, “when Knight Newspapers polled 1,721 US residents one year after the first moon landing, it found that more than 30 percent of respondents were suspicious of NASA’s trips to the moon.” Given that overall trust in government was considerably higher in those pre-Watergate days, the fact that nearly a third of Americans doubted what they were ‘witnessing’ through their television sets is rather remarkable.

When Fox ran a special on the Moon landings some years back and reported that 1-in-5 Americans had doubts about the Apollo missions, various ‘debunking’ websites cried foul and claimed that the actual percentage was much lower. BadAstronomy.com, for example, claims that the actual figure is about 6%, and that roughly that many people will agree “with almost any question that is asked of them.” Hence, there are only a relative handful of kooks who don’t believe that we’ve ever been to the Moon.

All of those websites fail to mention, of course, that among the people who experienced the events as they were occurring, nearly 1-in-3 had doubts, a number considerably higher than the number that Fox used. And, needless to say, the ‘debunkers’ also failed to mention that 1-in-4 young Americans, a number also higher than the figure Fox used, have doubts about the Moon landings.

Returning then to the question of why such a ruse would be perpetrated, we must transport ourselves back to the year 1969. Richard Nixon has just been inaugurated as our brand new president, and his ascension to the throne is in part due to his promises to the American people that he will disengage from the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. But Tricky Dick has a bit of a problem on his hands in that he has absolutely no intention of ending the war. In fact, he would really, really like to escalate the conflict as much as possible. But to do so, he needs to set up a diversion – some means of stoking the patriotic fervor of the American people so that they will blindly rally behind him.

In short, he needs to wag the dog.

This has, of course, traditionally been done by embarking on some short-term, low-risk military endeavor. The problem for Big Dick, however, is that a military mission is exactly what he is trying to divert attention away from. What, then, is a beleaguered president to do? Why, send Neil and Buzz to the Moon, of course! Instead of wagging the dog, it’s time to try something new: wagging the Moondoggie!

Nixon’s actions from the very moment he takes office belie his campaign pledges to the American people (not unlike that Barry Obama guy, who also led the American people to believe that he opposed an unpopular war). In May of 1969, with Nixon just a few months into his term, the press begins publicizing the illegal B-52 carpetbombing of Cambodia engineered by that irrepressible war criminal, Henry Kissinger. By June, Nixon is scrambling to announce what is dubbed the ‘Vietnamization’ of the war, which comes with a concomitant withdrawal of U.S. troops.

In truth, however, only 25,000 of the 540,000 U.S. troops then deployed will be brought home. This ruse is, therefore, transparently thin and it will buy the new president little time. To make matters worse, on July 14th, Francis Reitemeyer is granted Conscientious Objector status on the basis of a petition his attorney has filed which explicitly details the training and instruction he has just received in assassination and torture techniques in conjunction with his assignment to the CIA’s Phoenix Program. With these documents entering the public domain, the full horrors of the war are beginning to emerge.

Just in time to save the day, however, Apollo 11 blasts off on July 16th on its allegedly historic mission, and – with the entire nation enthralled – four days later the Eagle purportedly makes its landing on the pristine lunar surface. Vietnam is temporarily forgotten as America swells with patriotic pride for having beaten the Evil Empire to the Moon. There is little time to worry about the brutality of war when Neil is taking that “one giant leap for mankind.”

The honeymoon is short-lived, however, for just four months later, in November of 1969, Seymour Hersch publishes a story about the massacre of 504 civilians in the village of My Lai, bringing home to America the full savagery of the war in Southeast Asia. It’s time then for another Moon launch, and Apollo 12 dutifully lifts off on November 14th, making another picture-perfect lunar landing before returning on November 24th. The country is once again entranced by the exploits of America’s new breed of hero, and suddenly every kid in the country wants to grow up to be an astronaut.

All is well again until March of 1970, at which time a U.S.-backed coup deposes Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia and Lon Nol is handpicked by the CIA to replace him. Cambodia then immediately jumps in the fray by committing troops to the U.S. war effort. The war is further escalated the next month when Nixon authorizes an invasion of Cambodia by U.S. and ARVN ground forces, another move engineered by Henry Kissinger. Nixon has been in office just over a year and the war, far from winding down, has now expanded into Cambodia both in the air and on the ground.

Meanwhile, it’s time for yet another Moon launch. But this one is not going to be just any Moon launch. This one, you see, is going to introduce the element of danger. With the first two having gone off without a hitch, the American people – known for having notoriously short attention spans – are already adopting a ‘been there, done that’ attitude. The problem, in a nutshell, is that it looks just a little too damn easy. In order to regain the attention of the American people, it has to be impressed upon them that our brave astronauts are placing themselves in grave danger.

And so it is that on April 11th, 1970, Apollo 13 blasts off with Tom Hanks and a couple of somewhat lesser known actors on board, but unlike the first two missions, this Apollo spacecraft fails to reach the Moon and instead drifts about for the next six days with the crew in mortal danger of being forever lost in space! Now that gets our attention! So much so that when three Vietnam vets hold a multi-city press conference in New York, San Francisco and Rome on April 14th, attempting to publicize the ongoing Phoenix Program in which they have participated and have firsthand knowledge, nobody can really be bothered with paying much attention. It’s hard to be too concerned about the fate of Vietnamese villagers, you see, when Tom and the boys are clearly in trouble.

Awaiting news of the fate of the Apollo 13 crew, we all have our eyes glued to our TVs as though we are watching postmortem coverage of Michael Jackson. When our heroes somehow make it back alive, defying seemingly impossible odds, we are all so goddamned proud of them that we decide to award Tom another Oscar. And all is well again for the remainder of the year.

I really have to repeat here, by the way, that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, America really did rock! I mean, how about that Apollo safety record? Seven manned Moon launches with seven perfect take-offs! Tom and the boys obviously never did make it to the Moon, but the other six crews sure as hell did, and all six set those lunar modules down like the consummate professionals that they were, and all six used that untested technology to successfully blast off from the Moon and attain lunar orbit, and then all six successfully docked with the orbiting command modules. And all seven of those command modules, even Apollo 13’s, returned intact and with their crews happy and healthy.

That was just an awesome time to be an American and especially to be an American astronaut … well, except for the three guys (Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee) who were burned alive during a test procedure in the command module of what was to be the Apollo 1 rocket. But they were troublemakers anyway who probably wouldn’t have wanted to go along with the Moon landing fable. And then there was that Thomas Baron guy who was a safety inspector for NASA and who delivered highly critical testimony and a 1,500-page report to Congress, only to then be killed a week later. That report seems to have been sucked into the same Black Hole that swallowed up all the other Apollo evidence.

Anyway, returning now to our timeline, the dawn of 1971 brings the trial of Lt. William Calley on charges that he personally ordered and oversaw the mass murder of the inhabitants of the village of My Lai. And on January 31st, Apollo 14 is launched and once again makes a flawless lunar landing. On February 9th, the Apollo team returns, just a few weeks before Calley is convicted of murder (he served an absurdly short sentence under ‘house arrest’ and none of his superiors were ever held accountable).

A few months after that, the New York Times begins publication of the infamous Pentagon Papers, revealing American policy in Vietnam to be a complex web of lies. Publication is quickly stopped by the Justice Department but resumes once again as June turns to July. This is quickly followed, on July 26th, by the launch of Apollo 15. Four days later, yet another flawless lunar landing clearly demonstrates that America is the most bad-ass nation on Earth. But Moonwalking has become a bit of a bore for the American people, so a new element is introduced and from now on our beloved astronauts will roam the lunar surface in dune buggies. The lunar modules haven’t gotten any bigger, but now they can transport vehicles to the Moon. Cool!

Back on Earth, the astronauts return on August 7th and the rest of the year passes uneventfully. On March 30, 1972, North Vietnamese troops mount a massive offensive across the DMZ into Quang Tri Province, revealing as lies the pompous statements by numerous Washington hacks that victory is close at hand. Nixon and Co. respond to the offensive with deep penetration bombing of North Vietnam and, for good measure, the illegal mining of North Vietnam’s ports. They also respond by launching, on April 16th, another rocket (and another dune buggy) to the Moon. On April 27th, the crew of Apollo 16 once again return to a hero’s welcome.

By the end of the year, a ceasefire is finally looming on the horizon. Beginning in October, Kissinger and David Bruce (a member of the infamous Mellon family) are secretly negotiating peace terms with Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam. In December, however, those talks break down – but not before Apollo 17 is launched on December 7th in a most spectacular way: it is the first night launch of a Saturn V rocket. With the latest Apollo mission still a few days away from returning, the talks cease and Dick and Henry unleash a final ruthless carpetbombing campaign against North Vietnam, snuffing out countless thousands of civilian lives. Meanwhile, America warmly greets its returning astronauts.

Just five weeks later, the talks having resumed, a peace agreement is announced. Within a few days a ceasefire is in effect, thereby officially ending America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. Though the CIA will remain to continue directing the war by proxy, America’s men and women in uniform come home. And the Apollo program – despite several additional missions having been planned and discussed, and despite the additional funding that should have been available with the war drawing to a close – will never be heard from again.

In addition to restoring national pride and providing a diversion from the savage colonial war being waged in Southeast Asia, the Apollo program undoubtedly served another function as well: covert funding of that war effort. Needless to say, faking Moon landings is less expensive than actually making Moon landings, and a whole lot of money was funneled NASA’s way during the Vietnam years to accomplish the latter. It stands to reason that a considerable amount of that money could well have been diverted into covert operations being conducted in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In addition, a portion of the Apollo funding likely financed the early stages of the militarization of space.

There is no shortage of Moon hoax ‘debunking’ sites out there on the wild and wooly World Wide Web. The majority of them are not particularly well written or argued and yet they tend to be rather smug and self-congratulatory. Most of them tend to stick to ‘debunking’ the same facts and they use the same arguments to do so.

One thing they like to talk a lot about is the Van Allen radiation belts. The Moon hoax sites talk a lot about them as well. The hoaxers will tell you that man cannot pass through the belts without a considerable amount of radiation protection – protection that could not have been provided in the 1960s through any known technology. And the ‘debunkers’ claim that the Apollo astronauts would have passed through the belts quickly enough that, given the levels of radiation, no harm would have come to them. The hoaxers, say the ‘debunkers,’ are just being girlie men.

As it turns out, both sides are wrong: the ‘debunkers,’ shockingly enough, are completely full of shit, and the hoaxers have actually understated the problem by focusing exclusively on the belts. We know this because NASA itself – whom the ‘debunkers’ like to treat as a virtually unimpeachable source on all things Apollo, except, apparently, when the agency posts an article that implicitly acknowledges that we haven’t actually been to the Moon – has told us that it is so. They have told us that in order to leave low-Earth orbit on any future space flights, our astronauts would need to be protected throughout the entirety of the flight, as well as – and once again, this comes directly from NASA – while working on the surface of the Moon.

On June 24, 2005, NASA made this rather remarkable admission: “NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration calls for a return to the Moon as preparation for even longer journeys to Mars and beyond. But there’s a potential showstopper: radiation. Space beyond low-Earth orbit is awash with intense radiation from the Sun and from deep galactic sources such as supernovas … Finding a good shield is important.”(http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/24jun_electrostatics.htm)

You’re damn right finding a good shield is important!! Back in the 1960s, of course, we didn’t let a little thing like space radiation get in the way of us beating the Ruskies to the Moon. But now, I guess, being that we are more cultured and sophisticated, we want to do it the right way so we have to come up with some way of shielding our spaceships. And our temporary Moon bases. And figuring out how to do that, according to NASA, could be a real “showstopper.”

As NASA notes, “the most common way to deal with radiation is simply to physically block it, as the thick concrete around a nuclear reactor does. But making spaceships from concrete is not an option.” Lead, which is considerably denser than concrete, is actually the preferred material to use for radiation shielding, but lead also isn’t very popular with spaceship designers. In fact, word on the street is that one of the main reasons the Soviets never made it to the Moon was because their scientists calculated that four feet of lead shielding would be required to protect their astronauts, and those same scientists apparently felt that spaceships wouldn’t fly all that well when clad in four feet of lead.

Now NASA is thinking outside the box and contemplating using ‘force fields’ to repel the radiation, a seemingly ridiculous idea that, whether workable in the future or not, certainly wasn’t available to NASA in the 1960s. Below is NASA’s own artist rendering of a proposed ‘force field’ radiation shield that would allow astronauts to work safely on the Moon. As you may have noticed in the earlier photos of the lunar modules, our guys didn’t bring anything like that with them on their, uhmm, earlier missions to the Moon. And you may have also noticed that the modules did not have any type of physical shielding.

 

How then did they do it? My guess is that the answer lies in that gold foil wrap. While it may look like an amateurish attempt to make the modules appear more ‘high-tech,’ I have a hunch that what we are looking at is another example of the lost technology of the 1960s – this time in the form of a highly-advanced superpolymer that provided maximum radiation shielding while adding virtually no weight. So all we have to do is track down a few leftover rolls of that stuff and we should be well on our way to sending guys back to the Moon.

According to Charles Buhler, a NASA scientist currently working on the force field concept, “Using electric fields to repel radiation was one of the first ideas back in the 1950s, when scientists started to look at the problem of protecting astronauts from radiation. They quickly dropped the idea though because it seemed like the high voltages needed and the awkward designs that they thought would be necessary … would make such an electric shield impractical.”

What a real journalist would have asked here, of course, is: “After dropping the electric shield concept, exactly what did they decide to use to get our astronauts safely to the Moon and back on the Apollo missions? And why can’t we do the same thing now, rather than reinventing the wheel? Don’t you guys have some of that gold foil in a closet somewhere?” No one in the American media, of course, bothered to ask such painfully obvious questions.

The 2005 report from NASA ends as follows: “But, who knows, perhaps one day astronauts on the Moon … will work safely.” Yes, and while we’re dreaming the impossible dream, let’s add a few more things to our wish list as well, like perhaps one day we’ll be able to listen to music on 8-track tape players, and talk to people on rotary dial telephones, and carry portable transistor radios, and use cameras that shoot pictures on special film that develops right before our eyes. Only time will tell, I suppose.

The Van Allen belts, by the way, trap most Earth-bound radiation, thus making it safe for us mortals down here on the surface of planet Earth, as well as for astronauts in low-Earth orbit (the belts extend from 1,000 to 25,000 miles above the surface of the Earth). The danger is in sending men through and beyond the belts, which, apart from the Apollo missions, has never been attempted … well, actually there was that one time, but I think we all remember how badly that turned out. In case anyone has forgotten, the astronauts returned to a world dominated by extremely poor acting, apes speaking with British accents, and a shirtless Charleton Heston. And I don’t think anyone wants to see that happen again.

The 2005 report was not the first time that NASA had openly discussed the high levels of radiation that exist beyond the Van Allen belts. In February 2001, the space agency posted a ‘debunking’ article that argued that the rocks allegedly brought back from the Moon were so distinctive in nature that they proved definitively that man had gone to the Moon. The problem though with maintaining a lie of the magnitude of the Moon landing lie is that there is always the danger that in defending one part of the lie, another part will be exposed. Such was the case with NASA’s ill-conceived The Great Moon Hoax post, in which it was acknowledged that what are referred to as “cosmic rays” have a tendency to “constantly bombard the Moon and they leave their fingerprints on Moon rocks.”

NASA scientist David McKay explained that “There are isotopes in Moon rocks, isotopes we don’t normally find on Earth, that were created by nuclear reactions with the highest-energy cosmic rays.” The article went on to explain how “Earth is spared from such radiation by our protective atmosphere and magnetosphere. Even if scientists wanted to make something like a Moon rock by, say, bombarding an Earth rock with high energy atomic nuclei, they couldn’t. Earth’s most powerful particle accelerators can’t energize particles to match the most potent cosmic rays, which are themselves accelerated in supernova blastwaves and in the violent cores of galaxies.”

So one of the reasons that we know the Moon rocks are real, you see, is because they were blasted with ridiculously high levels of radiation while sitting on the surface of the Moon. And our astronauts, one would assume, would have been blasted with the very same ridiculously high levels of radiation, but since this was NASA’s attempt at a ‘debunking’ article, they apparently would prefer that you don’t spend too much time analyzing what they have to say.

How exactly are we to reconcile NASA’s current position on space radiation with the same agency’s simultaneous claim that we have already sent men to the Moon? There are a few different possibilities that come to mind, the first of which is that, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we simply threw caution to the wind and sent our boys off to the Moon with no protection whatsoever from space radiation. If that were true, however, then the question that would naturally be raised is: why not just do it again? After all, all of our Moonwalkers made it home safe and sound and most all have lived long, healthy, cancer-free lives. So why all the fuss over space radiation?

NASA could, I suppose, take the position that space radiation is a recent problem. Perhaps in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, space was relatively free of radiation, allowing unshielded Apollo rockets to cruise about without a care in the world while crew members primarily busied themselves with such important tasks as trying to capture all the stems and seeds that were floating around the command module as a result of cleaning their stash of low-grade ‘60s marijuana. It was just a different solar system back in those days. As aging hippies like to say, if you remember the solar system of the sixties, you weren’t really flying around in it.

If it proves not to be the case that this space radiation “showstopper” is a new development, then I suppose that the only explanation that we are left with is that we did indeed have the technology to shield our astronauts from radiation back in the 1960s, but at some time during the last four decades, that technology was simply lost. What probably happened was that an overzealous night custodian simply threw the data away. The conversation around the NASA water cooler the next day probably went something like this: “Holy shit! Has anyone seen that folder that I left on my desk last night? It contained the only copy of the secret formula that I devised for building a weightless space radiation shield. It could be forty years or more before someone else can duplicate it! My ass is so fired!”

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