AFTER FILES! The Giants of Malta

Would the Indian government agree to the US’s request to use airbases in northern India to attack targets in China?

It’s unlikely. The Indian government seem to be self aware.

It would be like Mexico agreeing to attack the US. Mexico would be destroyed. Same for India, India would be destroyed.

China won’t attack the civilian population centers but power, water, and fuel would be wiped out. The Indians would need to have animals to move food and people. And learn to live with no power so water would have to be carried into cities.

The Indian government wants benefits from the US to appear aggressive, they don’t want to kill their country.

Also since India attacked China, China is well within rights to self-defense. And that would include turning the northern half of India into a buffer zone. I’m certain the Indians don’t want that and the Chinese would prefer not to do that unless attacked.

With the example of Ukraine and the West out of munitions, the Indian government isn’t dumb enough to ukraine themselves for the US.

Pepper Steak

Ingredients

• 1 (1/2 inch thick) round steak, cut into 1 inch strips
• 1 cup onion, chopped
• 2 cups green bell pepper, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon beef bouillon

Instructions

1. Brown meat in oil until brown.
2. Put meat into slow cooker.
3. Add remaining ingredients and stir.
4. Cook overnight or for 8 hours on LOW.
5. Serve over rice.

The Job Market isn’t Looking too Hot ……. Part 4

How poverty affected my education?

If I look back, I was above average in my class. But all that work for food, bad neighborhood, and lack of resources (time, stationery, school uniform etc.) affected my education badly. Also, my self confidence was very low.

So what happened? By the time I came in 10th Standard, my education was messed up. I got 46% marks in 10th exams. I cleared 11th standard with grace marks and finally…I failed 12th standard.

But, my failure was actually a gift. My friend-circle was gone, everything was meaningless to me. I had that talk with myself that made me realize that nothing matters except a good education.

One of my uncle guided me in this tough time. He asked me to carry my 11th standard Physics, Chemistry, Maths books and go to a nearby Ashram  everyday in the morning. I used to study there, eat free food, and come back in the evening. I followed that routine during my summer vacations and built my fundamentals. I realized that education is the only way out of my pathetic life. I used to recall Booker T. Washington’s essay, The Struggle for an Education  from my 10th English syllabus. It was a real inspiration.

Next year, with same level of dedication, I cleared 12th with flying colours with distinction in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Also, I appeared for Chaudhary Charan Singh University engineering exam and secured 3rd rank. That gave me enough confidence to try something bigger.

Next one year I did nothing but prepared for biggest engineering entrance exam, Indian Institute of Technology, Joint Entrance Examination  and cleared it. I spent next five years studying Computer Science & Engineering at Indian Institute of  technology (BHU) . Life was all set.

How poverty changed me as a person.

It made me rock solid. When usually people are scared about something, I drink some tea and carry on. Unless its about someone’s life, I keep my cool.

Also, I have immense respect for hard working people. While so many people around me feel ashamed to talk to Rickshaw

pullers, it gives me immense pleasure to talk to them. I speak politely with Rickshaw pullers, farmers, waiters and all those people trying to earn a living in tough economy.

It also made me realize the value of food. Usually this is how my plate looks like once I am done eating (even if food is not so tasty).

I never smoke. Sometimes I will drink a beer with my friends, but no hard liquor. Possibly because partially I hold my father and his drinking habits responsible for my bad childhood,

As far as money is concerned, being an ex-Oracle and current VMware employee, I earn well. Still, I don’t waste money. I consider buying costly gadgets, drinking a lot, and doing something useless to impress your “friends” as a waste of money.

That doesn’t mean I am a miser. For me, only few things are worth my hard earned money. I am living at a great place paying more than average rent for this apartment, because its so beautiful and peaceful.

I am also a proud owner of a Royal Enfield Thunderbird.

All in all, poverty made me the person I am today. It was one hell of a journey. And it’s still going on. It’s just not that challenging any more 😀

Life is good.

Shorpy

, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have effectively greenlighted Kiev using Western weapons for attacks deep inside the Russian Federation. The alleged debate, still ongoing, is just a “smokescreen” for the real objective: a pretext that could lead to WWIII.

There’s no reason to think Kiev will stick to “limited” strikes against relatively unimportant targets. Instead, it is likely to target critical security infrastructure in hopes of provoking an unrelenting Russian response, which in turn would pave the way for NATO to invoke Article 5 and de facto engage in a Hot War.

Already on the Edge of Doom

The escalation “ecstasy” defined by Peskov went out of control since a – secret – new batch of ATACMS was dispatched to Kiev earlier this year, complemented with longer-range ATACMS. Kiev has been using them for serious hits on Russian air bases and key air defense nodes. These ATACMS fire missiles at Mach 3 speed: a serious challenge even for the best Russian air defense systems.

All that seems to point to a crucial decision enveloped in several layers of fog: as the incoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the black soil of Novorossiya becomes self-evident day after day, the Western elites who really run the show are betting on provoking a full Hot War against Russia.

Richard H. Black, a former US senator from Virginia, offers a sobering analysis

:

“This is a continuation of the pattern in which the NATO forces recognize they are losing the war in Ukraine, with the fragile lines of defense breaking, and the NATO response is to escalate. This is not accidental, but very deliberate. It is not the first attack on the Russian nuclear triad. The ideological folks are seeing their world crumbling, after flying the rainbow flag over conservative countries and [waging] perpetual wars. They are frantic and could escalate to nuclear war to get out of the bind. They are taking a series of baby steps, and respond that ‘they don’t do anything in response,’ and so they keep taking baby steps until one of them lands on a land mine and we are into World War III. (…) Putin is very aware of the disconnect in the West, who keep saying he is just saber rattling, but he is not—he is informing the West of the dangerous reality.”

In Russia, Senator Dmitry Rogozin, a former head of Roscosmos, directly warned Washington: “We are not just on the threshold, but already on the edge, beyond which, if the enemy is not stopped in such actions, an irreversible collapse of the strategic security of the nuclear powers will begin.”

General Evgeny Buzhinky advanced an ominous scenario: “I am sure that if the strikes of Taurus of ATACMS are very harmful for Russia, then I presume we will at least strike the logistical hub in the territory of Poland in Rzeszów” where the missiles are staged for delivery to Ukraine.

The connection in this case would be irreversible: Russia hits Poland; NATO invokes Article 5; WW3.

Be Careful What You Wish For

NATO warlike “ecstasy” is predictably cloaked in cowardice. For all the rhetorical garbage 24/7 about “we don’t want a war with Russia”, the facts point to NATO using Kiev to attack and try to destroy a wide range of Russian military assets. There’s also no denying the US Deep State’s role in enabling Kiev’s terror attacks against Russian civilians in the Donbass, Belgorod, and elsewhere.

Considering the serious debate finally on across several Russian platforms, all of that might constitute a reasonable pretext for a tactical nuclear drop on the – legally illegitimate – Kiev gang. At least that would finish a war that is dragging for too long.

Yet that would be totally out of character when it comes to legalistic Putin – who deals with Armageddon-laden issues with the patience of a Taoist monk. Yet Russia has an entire arsenal of asymmetric tools – both conventional and nuclear — that can deliver a painful blow to NATO

in places where the alliance least expects.

We’re not there yet – even as we get ominously closer day after day. Dmitri Medvedev has issued the umpteenth red line: a US strike on Russian targets, or the US letting Kiev hit targets within Russia using American missiles and drones would be the ‘start of World War’.

And Foreign Minister Lavrov, once again displaying his trademark Taoist patience, had to come up with another serious reminder: Russia will regard the deployment of nuclear-capable F-16s in Ukraine – which de facto can only be operated by NATO pilots – as “a deliberate signal from NATO in the nuclear field to Russia”.

And still the gaggle of armchair Dr. Strangeloves – lavishly rewarded by the rarified Atlanticist plutocracy holding real power, funds, influence and mass media control – is not listening.

Man DIES; Shown the FUTURE of MANKIND in The Strangest NDE! Will Leave You SPEECHLESS!

American Reacts to Why Europeans Hate Living In The United States.

So, to sum it up... You pay crazy amounts of money for an education, that (hopefully) gets you a job. The public transportation is so bad its hard and cumbersome to get to it. When you get there, you have to work long hours risking getting fired at any time. When you get paid the IRS is making it difficult for you to pay your taxes. The lack of sufficient vacation time makes it hard to recharge and your level of stress never gets normalized. The long hours at work inhibits you from cooking good healthy food, so you eat fast food and processed prefab food. When you watch tv you are so tired that you cant see beyond the propaganda and think for your self. As you dont really have vacation, you cant travel and experience the world. Eventually you get sick, and then you have to pay crazy amounts of money to get care. At some point you just cant work anymore and thinks about retirement, and realize you cant afford to retire. Sounds appealing right?

Paradise Lost

Submitted into Contest #248 in response to: Write a story titled ‘Paradise Lost’..

This is a new addition that I am considering to my daily posts. Here I include some contemporaneous SF (short story) for the reader to enjoy. -MM

Calls for help came every day, in every language spoken from Alpha Centauri to Xanoid 10.

Meteor. Famine. War!!!

Help us, they pleaded. Whoever they was in that particular society that had figured out how to contact us.

“Please remain calm,” I used to say. “A unit will be dispatched to your location.”

But after our people went Silent, the calls went more like this:

“Hello? We need help.”

“We’re sorry, but Planetary Assistance is no longer available. Our thoughts are with you during your pending apocalypse. Goodbye.”

“Wait —”

And I would hang up and log the call for our directors, who would mark the planet for further study before its demise. No tears — just another experiment ending.

Of course, Earth was different. It had been a special project for our people. A hunk of spasmodic rock that we imbued with the best of all things green and growing, soft breezes, clear, cold sea, and people — people who looked perhaps too much like us, in hindsight.

Of course, we were sensitive when they called.

Help, they called when they were cold, and we brought them fire.

Help, they called when they were hungry, and we taught them our very own methods of tilling the soil.

When they ventured out of their cradle to the hostile parts of the Earth, we ushered in ages of warmth and good fortune that propelled them to prosperity.

But help, they called, because they wanted more. And like permissive, enamored parents, we continued to give it to them until they wielded the means of their own destruction.

The phone rang one night on my watch long after the Silencing. I checked the caller ID twice. Earth. A little tingle of electricity ran up my spine.

“You’ve reached Thalia IX — how may I direct you?”

“Hello? Hello? If anyone out there is listening, please, I need your help. Things are really getting out of hand here —”

An understatement if I’d ever heard one given the mass extinction underway on Earth amid the megacolossal storms and nuclear annihilation on a hair trigger.

“I’m sorry,” I said, clearing my throat to prepare for the sentence that usually got stuck like dry wafer crumbs. “But the Planetary Assistance Corps of Thalia IX is no longer available for rescue requests. Our thoughts are with you during your apocalypse. Goodbye.”

The girl made an indignant sound of surprise as I hung up.

It was the ninth call from Earth this week, I found in the log as I began to add my notes. All previous agents had deftly dispatched the callers begging us to intervene, to send another ship, to save them.

Caller reports escalation on Earth, I began to type. It would be of interest to the directors.

Shrill bells jangled again. Earth again. I frowned as I picked up the line.

“You’ve reached Thalia –”

“You can’t hang up on me,” the girl’s voice said.

The script prepared us for this scenario, though it was rare. Usually, our callers were in such a state of shock to reach us that they didn’t try again.

“Thank you for your call. While we understand you might be experiencing feelings of worry, anxiety, or dismay —”

The girl groaned in aggravation.

“Would you can it? My girlfriend is missing. We were supposed to shelter together this week,” she said. “Please, can you help me find her? I’m worried that she’s lost or hurt.”

Shelter where? I wondered, and would have asked if the girl hadn’t kept talking at a rapid clip. This girlfriend had fled their home after an argument about letting others into their shelter. Days on, she hadn’t returned.

How human to want to face obliteration together, and to do it alone out of spite, I thought as she spoke.

Finally, the girl paused her monologue.

“Look, I know who you are,” she said in a low voice. “I know you’re not — from here. This planet, I mean. But I know you’re watching.”

This was highly unusual and would require immediate escalation to a senior agent. I thought I should keep her talking while I send a request.

“How did you find this line?”

“It was on my grandfather’s old Macbook. I live in his house now. He used to work for NASA. Had all kinds of notes with it —”

NASA was an ancient terrestrial space agency with whom we had coordinated many of our attempts at aid.

“What’s your location?”

“Reno. Well, northern America. On the West Coast. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“And your girlfriend’s name?”

She paused and her breath hitched, as if the answer would break a dam she’d built across her emotions.

“Angel.”

And then the nervous feeling I’d been fighting back twisted through my arms and into my fingertips that hovered over the keys.

I tapped a-n-g-e-l one letter at a time. That was the name the humans gave to us long ago. Before we abandoned them.

No, not abandoned. Even Silent, we had sent our best ship to evacuate a few hundred of them. It had nearly torn us apart.

“Oh, shit, hang on,” the girl said suddenly.

A door burst open behind her. She set her phone down so the sounds were muffled, but I could just make out voices calling out in panic. A sound like static overwhelmed the line and just as I looked down at the phone to check if we had disconnected, the door slammed, and the noise stopped. Frightened  voices died down into a murmur.

“Sorry. Newcomers,” she said as she picked up the phone again.

I noticed that my heart had started to race. The protocol called this a sign of emotional investment — understandable, but a sign to cut contact immediately. Only I had a message from the directors to stay on the line.

“We’re unable to offer any additional assistance in departing the planet or averting disaster,” I said with genuine regret.

But the girl just snorted.

“I figured it was a limited time offer,” she said. “But please, could you find Angel? Could you help me bring her home? She has red hair and she’s very tall. Her cheeks are always red like she’s been slapped across the face, even though she’s way more likely to have slapped someone else. She has these lovely big round brown eyes and she was wearing fatigues when she left. She was so angry. I should’ve stopped her.”

She keeps talking, telling me all about how they met as children fleeing great ravages of dust with their families, and how they found each other again as revolutionaries.

I thought I could perhaps grant this one selfless wish. It wouldn’t be intervening, not really, to find her partner’s location. It wouldn’t have changed anything about their fate. And I had a few moments before the directors would appear at my shoulder.

“Standby,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper.

And for the first time, but not the last, I defied Thalian protocol. I accessed our cameras and saw for myself how our great experiment on Earth was ending.

A few clicks and the distinct figure of a tall, redheaded woman in military garb appeared on screen. She was standing at attention before a gate, eyes locked ahead in terror as others streamed past her.

On our satellites, I saw the storm heading for the geographic coordinates of the caller.

The muffled static on the line grew louder.

“I can report that Angel is safe in a shelter in the next town over,” I said. And I covered the mouthpiece before I spoke again, so she would not hear the waver in my voice. Tears I couldn’t control dripped down my arm. “Unfortunately, it may not be possible for you to reach her.”

One last moment of silence from this loquacious caller. She must have been able to hear the howl of the wind, the creaking of the timber board. She must have known before she called.

“I understand,” she said.

The sharp steps of the directors began to rap through the hallway behind me. I had a vision of myself seizing control and forcing them to help. We could still help.

“Thank you,” the caller said. “Thank you for finding her.”

Our thoughts are with you. The shallow words flashed through my head one last time.

Instead, all I said after the line was already dead, was:

“Goodbye.”

Are We Being Lied To About North Korea?

What’s the rudest customer service experience you have ever had?

Oh, I know that I’m going to need to compose myself to write this, trying desperately to keep emotions to a minimum. Let’s see how I do. I’m deleting the word “service” from the question.

On the first day of Spring a few years ago, I was working a BUSY, Sunday morning greeting, seating, and checking on my customers at my restaurant, a local family diner. A beautiful warm day, and busy is always a good thing. A bit of background here. I’m in an amazing small town on the central coast of California that is a tourist destination. My business runs around 85% local customers, and many tourists who find us want that hometown feel. We have a significant Hispanic population, and many of my staff are first generation U. S. citizens.

In the middle of a late breakfast rush, with 15 to 20 people waiting for a table, my sweet server comes to me and asks me to talk to an unhappy customer. She is a great server, and this was a first for her. I introduced myself to the table of 6 (2 families) that I had never seen before and asked how I could help. One of the TWO men seated was VERY ANGRY,although I could see that they had finished a hearty meal, his 13 year old daughter wanted more pancakes. I didn’t see the problem here, until he said, “ And she doesn’t want to wait for them!” The server had tried to explain to him, that it could take a bit because other orders were ahead of his. And the daughter is just smiling at me. All orders taken, go up in the same order, not one moved to the front just because. He kept yelling, “ But its for a child! How can you not want to feed a child? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?

I stepped back, told him to let me know if he decided to wait, and I would gladly put the order up, and I walked away. He followed me to the front of the house and screamed,” You’re a racist aren’t you? It’s because we’re Mexican! “ The whole restaurant got dead quiet, and another waiter, Hispanic broke out laughing and said, “Dude, are you kidding me? Look at our staff here, look in our kitchen! Are you crazy? “ I assured the man that I was in fact prejudiced! I believe everyone is in different ways. MY prejudice was against mean people and people who lie to me. I am not a tolerant person that way! I saw a few smiles of folks faces, and I wanted to give him an out so I told him if he changed his mind, and wanted me to put that order up, I’d be happy to. And here’s were I lost it. He screamed at Cesar, my busboy/host/all around helper, for being so stupid as to think I was a good person. I told him to please leave the building and never come back. I can take a punch, but don’t ever disrespect any of my staff. He got his family and huffed all the way out the door, and as he was pushing past people, the restaurant exploded with applause.

And it was my birthday.

Pizza Steak

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

• 4 rib eye steaks
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (28 ounce) jar Ragu
• 1 green bell pepper, cut into strips
• 1 large onion, cut into strips
• 1 (8 ounce) package fresh mushrooms
• 1 (8 ounce) package mozzarella cheese
• Parmesan cheese, to taste
• Whole black olives

Instructions

1. Mix tomato sauce, tomato paste and Ragu well.
2. Place the first steak in slow cooker for bottom layer and spoon just enough sauce over it to cover the meat.
3. Add a portion of the onions, whole black olives, bell pepper, mozzarella, Parmesan and mushrooms.
4. Layer again with second steak, sauce, cheeses and vegetables.
5. Do the same with third and fourth steak, layering as you go along until all steak, sauce and vegetables are used.
6. Cover with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.
7. Cook on LOW for 8 hours.
8. Serve over pasta. Angel hair pasta works nicely. Garnish with black olives.

Notes

Thicken sauce with Italian bread crumbs if needed.

Have you ever been in public and started a conversation with someone you didn’t know ?

Here in the Central Valley of California, it’s quite common for strangers to converse while waiting for an appointment. Mostly I let the other person indicate they want to talk, but on this occasion I decided to speak first.

A male customer, probably in his late forties, was sitting across from me as I also waited for service in a shop that repairs and replaces windshields. I noticed that after the man had been on his phone briefly he then sat quietly for a while, looking downcast. It may have been a nudge from the Holy Spirit, because I felt compelled to speak to him.

We were still in the midst of the on and off Covid lockdowns that were causing havoc in most people’s routines, so I made a comment about how we were probably having to wait so long because the business was short staffed (a common occurrence during Covid). Then I asked him how things were going for him during the Covid chaos.

He admitted things weren’t going well at all. In the course of our conversation I learned he was a building contractor who still had work. Jobs were difficult to complete, though, because it was hard to get materials owing to the lockdowns and other Covid problems. Worse still, his wife had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer (that’s who he was talking to on the phone) and he would be taking her to a doctor’s appointment later that day.

But…that also meant taking his mother along, who had dementia and lived with them and couldn’t be left alone in the house. The living arrangements had been fine before his wife got cancer and before the Covid mess disrupted his business and caused him to work ten hour days.

At this point he admitted he had to put his wife’s health before his mother’s, and he needed to find a memory care facility as soon as possible that could watch over his mother full time while he and his wife focused on her cancer recovery.

“I wish I knew someone who could help me sort this out,” he said.

“That’s me!” I exclaimed. “I have the phone number of the county coordinator who helps families find the best dementia caregivers in our area.”

That was because my father-in-law who had increasing memory loss had decided to move himself into assisted living near us a couple of years before, and I still had the contact information for the coordinator who found the perfect placement for him.

I gave this burdened man her number and he smiled and thanked me profusely. I could tell it was breaking his heart to make this decision regarding his mother, but he clearly was relieved to have access to resources that would lighten his load so he could walk alongside his wife as she battled breast cancer.

Girlfriend’s Open Relationship Request Leads To Her Getting Dumped, Kicked Out & MACED!