AIT Worldwide Logistics reports that Air China’s terminal is back to normal operations, but China Southern’s terminal remains closed at Guangzhou airport. In Qingdao, air imports must be stored in the terminal for 10 days following disinfection. Wuhan has a three- to four-day backlog of air cargo because truck deliveries are suspended to cities facing outbreaks. Tianjin, in north China, is also preventing truck movements to cities with rising case counts. - Eric Kullisch of FreightWaves.com
China continues it’s rigorous disinfection protocols, and maintains a very harsh and strict stance against all types and forms of viruses entering it’s borders.
Let’s continue on our New Beginnings discourse in regarding this crazy and uncomfortable period of change. In this article we include a host of articles, and observations that supports the changing geopolitical climate, and turmoil present in the West.
Dangerous Crossroads: Putin Warns the US to Back Off in Ukraine
The Western narrative of the two-month old war in Ukraine imbued with the rhetoric of “democracy versus autocracy,” has dramatically changed with the assertion by the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin at a news conference in Poland Monday following his and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Kiev, that Washington wants to “to see Russia weakened.”
David Sanger at the New York Times noted that Austin was “acknowledging a transformation of the conflict, from a battle over control of Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow.” But this is not really a transformation. Sanger’s colleague at the Washington Post, David Ignatius, had written over three months ago that the Biden Administration was working on a road map to get Russia blogged down in Ukraine and attrition it in a way that it becomes a much diminished power on the world stage.
For the Kremlin, most certainly, Austin’s remark would not have come as surprise. As recently as on Monday, President Vladimir Putin repeated at a meeting in the Kremlin that the US and its allies have sought to “split Russian society and destroy Russia from within.” Putin revisited the topic again on Wednesday pointing out that “the forces that have been historically pursuing a policy aimed at containing Russia just don’t need such an independent and large country, even enormously large, in their view. They believe that its very existence poses a threat to them.”
In fact, several perceptive Western observers had estimated that the Kremlin has effectively fallen into a trap laid by the US that is intended to bring down Putin’s regime. Come to think of it, that famous gaffe on 26 March wasn’t a gaffe after all, when President Biden, speaking in Warsaw, had blurted out the impromptu, unscripted remark: “For God’s sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.”
All the same, Austin’s remark signifies that a dramatic change is taking place in the geopolitical situation, which could have positive or negative results. On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned the West that staying involved in the Russia-Ukraine war posed “serious” and “real” risks of a World War III and “we must not underestimate it.”
To be sure, the conflict is slowly but steadily turning into a new phase. Foreign fighters and soldiers from NATO regular units are increasingly beefing up the depleted Ukrainian army’s front lines.
That said, the optics also need to be understood. Austin’s war cry comes soon after Mariupol fell to the Russian forces. A couple of thousands Ukrainian nationalists and a few hundred military personnel from NATO countries are trapped in an underground labyrinth at the Azovstal complex in the city, which Russian forces have sealed off. It has been a severe blow to the US’ prestige.
The Russian special operation is on track — “grinding” the Ukrainian forces to the ground, to borrow the graphic expression from UK prime minister Boris Johnson. On Monday, Russian high-precision missiles hit at least six railway substations in Western Ukraine destroying railway facilities in Krasnoe, Zdolbunov, Zhmerinka, Berdichev, Kovel, Korosten, which were meant to be key transshipment points for the supply of Western weaponry to the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. Rail communication in several western regions of Ukraine is effectively blocked.
Reports from the east show that Ukrainian forces are suffering heavy losses. Russian forces have taken the city of Kremennaya and are approaching the town of Lyman, which would give them control of a direct road to Slavyansk from the east.
Austin’s hyped up rhetoric notwithstanding, Ukraine is not only not showing any signs of winning but keeps bleeding, and the territory under the actual control of the Ukrainian government is steadily shrinking. The US officials admit that Pentagon lacks the ability to track the weapons that are going in. Yet, the Biden administration has so far spent around $4 billion on Ukraine. Therein hangs a tale. Who are the real beneficiaries of the US supplies? The level of corruption in Ukraine is a legion.
The plain truth is that it will be many weeks or months before meaningful volumes of heavy weapons could be delivered to Ukrainian combat units but in the meanwhile, the Battle of Donbass will be fought almost entirely on the basis of the current strength on the ground. In a detailed analysis this week, a former colonel in the US Army and prolific media commentator Daniel Davis concluded: “It will take too long for Western governments to come up with a coherent equipping plan and then prepare, ship, and deliver the kit to its destination in a timeframe that could provide Kyiv’s troops the ability to tip the balance against Russia.”
The bottom line is this: The Biden Administration’s geopolitical agenda is to prolong the military conflict, which apart from weakening Russia militarily and diplomatically, turns Europe into a battlefield and makes the continent heavily dependent on the US leadership for a very long time to come. For Biden, the war provides a useful distraction in US politics in an election year.
Austin hosted a conference of the US’ allies on Monday at the American base in Germany to form a monthly contact group on Ukraine’s self defence to coordinate the “efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul.” It has the ominous look of a “coalition of the willing.” Even Israel was recruited. But the US is underestimating the steely Russian resolve to fully realise the objectives behind the special operation in Ukraine. Moscow will not brook any roadblocks, no matter what it takes.
Putin issued a stern warning today:
“If someone from outside moves to interfere in the current developments, they should know that they will indeed create strategic threats to Russia, which are unacceptable to us, and they should know that our response to encounter assaults will be instant, it will be quick.”
He was explicit that Russia has military capabilities that the US cannot match.
“We have all the tools to do it, the tools that others can’t boast of at the moment, but as for us, we won’t be boasting. We will use them if the need arises and I would like everyone to be aware of it. We have made all the necessary decisions in this regard,” Putin warned.
White House Says It Would “Strongly Support” Finland & Sweden NATO Membership
Trial balloon, or reality?
The Biden White House now appears to be going all-in on the potential for Finland and Sweden seeking formal application for NATO membership, despite Moscow's recent repeat warnings that such an action would immediately ratchet nuclear tensions in the Baltic region. While previously issuing vague statements of positive support for the Scandinavian countries' discussions on the controversial issue - given especially that Finland shares an over 800-mile long border with Russia - on Thursday Secretary of State Antony Blinken took US support further by saying for the first time the Untied States would "strongly support" Sweden and Finland pursuing NATO membership.
From HERE.
Updates on MM you-tube videos
Of my thirty plus videos, one video was banned because I violated the rules on Medical disinformation, and two became restricted viewing inside the United States. You can come to your own conclusions as to why.
Completely deleted as in “removed”.
Cannot be viewed in the United States; indicated in yellow as “partially blocked”.
“Cause Of Death – Reality vs. Google vs. Media”
A Big Horse
Governmental Dysfunction Rises with Time. “US Hegemony is Constrained by Two Powers, Russia and China”
Great Costume
Land use comparison
Can NATO Re-Arm Ukraine?
Kiev is Losing Stuff Faster than the West can Send it
by James Tweedie for the Saker Blog
The stated aims of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine include the de-Nazification and demilitarisation of the Kiev regime.
In opposition, the NATO member states led by the US are arming the Ukraine and its Nazi battalions, while sending thousands of “volunteers”, “advisors” and other mercenaries to fight with the aim of prolonging the war for years.
The question, as always, is who is winning?
In a media briefing on March 25, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) revealed some of its estimates of Ukrainian military strength before the operation commenced on February 24, focussing on heavy equipment, along with its claims of how much had been destroyed so far.
According to the MoD, Ukraine began the war with 2,416 armoured vehicles — although it did not say how many were main battle tanks (MBTs), infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) or armoured personnel carriers (APCs). The MoD also listed 1,509 field artillery guns and mortars, 535 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), 152 fixed-wing aircraft, 149 helicopters, 180 medium- and long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and 300 radars of various kinds in the Ukrainian inventory.
The MoD’s twice-daily briefings include updates on Ukrainian loses from those equipment stocks. The April 29 morning report claimed 2,638 tanks and armoured vehicles destroyed — 222 more than the ministry said the Ukraine started the war with. On top of that are the many reports of Russian troops or Donbass militia capturing Ukrainian equipment intact or repairable and putting it back into service for themselves.
Two-thirds of the Ukrainian air force’s helicopters and four-fifths of its fighter and attack jets are gone as well, according to Moscow, along with most of its anti-aircraft weapons. Even the US Department of Defence’s spokesman admitted in mid-April that the UAF had less than 20 aircraft in late March. And Ukraine does not have a navy anymore.
And most importantly to the Russian way of warfare, the MoD claims to have knocked out almost 1,200 Ukrainian artillery pieces and over 300 MLRS units. Meanwhile the Russian air and missile forces have crippled the Ukraine’s ability to replace those losses, destroying factories and repair centres.
Either the MoD under-estimated Ukrainian strength had to start with, or is over-claiming (which always happens in war) or the heavy gear sent by NATO is starting to turn up on the battlefield.
The Ukrainian government has made exaggerated claims of Russian casualties and losses but is very reticent about its own, admitting to only 3,000 soldiers killed and a handful taken prisoner so far.
Russia is also guilty of the old US sin of publishing body-counts. On April 16 the MoD claimed Ukraine had suffered 23,367 “irreplaceable” casualties. The next day it stated that of the 6,824 foreign mercenaries who came to fight for Kiev, Russian forces had “eliminated” 1,035, while 912 had fled the country and 4,877 were still hanging around like a bad smell.
Looking on the Bright Side…
Some Western “military analysts” asserted before the war that the Ukrainian forces had 820-850 tanks, mostly old T-64s left over from the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. If one assumes a ratio of three APCs or IFVs to every MBT, then the Ukraine had about 2,500 infantry carriers and 3,400 armoured vehicles in total.
NATO states were already pouring arms into the Ukraine for years before the conflict escalated, and have sped up the deliveries since then. The US says it has provided 200 M113 APCs, 100 armoured Humvee utility vehicles, 90 M777 155mm howitzers with 183,000 rounds of ammunition, 16 Mi-17 helicopters, enough parts to return 20 derelict Ukrainian aircraft to service and 7,000 Javelin anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). Canada has given four more howitzers.
The UK has sent or pledged 120 APCs, including 80 Mastiff (MRAP) and a “small number” of Alvis Stormer HVM armoured short-range SAM carriers. France is training 40 Ukrainian soldiers to man the CAESAR truck-mounted 155mm howitzers it is donating. Since each vehicle has a crew of five, we can assume that Paris is sending just eight guns. Australia is sending 20 Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles, another lightly-armoured truck.
Poland has sent over 200 Soviet-built T-72 tanks and several dozen BMP-1 IFVs, while the Czech Republic sent a mix of 40 T-72s and BMP-1s. Slovakia donated a single S-300 SAM battery. The Ukrainians actually know how to operate and maintain these things, and have the right calibre ammunition for them.
German arms giant Rheinmetall has volunteered 88 old Leopard 1 tanks and 100 Marder IFVs it has in its stocks.
But most of this stuff is useless, starting with the much-vaunted Javelin missiles which failed to penetrate the latest explosive-reactive armour (ERA) blocks fitted to Russian tanks. Many of the armoured vehicles being donated belong in museums.
The M113 APC is a design from the 1950s that first saw combat in the Vietnam War, where it immediately proved to be a deathtrap. It is a tall, boxy, slab-sided vehicle with armour made from aluminium, not steel. It was so vulnerable to the anti-tank weapons used by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) back in the 1960s that US soldiers preferred to ride on the roof than inside it.
The Leopard 1 is another relic of the ‘60s, kind of the tank equivalent of the VW camper van. Its design was based on a prevailing belief that armour had lost the race to shaped-charge anti-tank warheads, so tanks should be made light and fast. Its 70mm-thick frontal armour is no match for modern ATGMs and that can punch through 700mm or more of solid steel.
The armoured Humvees and Mastiffs were used by US and British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are designed only to protect their occupants from rifle and machine-gun fire and home-made roadside bombs during ambushes by lightly-armed guerrillas, not to stand up to tanks.
An IFV is distinct from an APC in mounting heavy armament to support the troops it carries in combat. APCs are just “battle taxis” to get troops close to where the fighting is without taking casualties from random artillery shell fragments and stray machine gun fire on the way, then get back out of range. The Ukraine’s arms industry was already making its own vehicles like the Mastiff until Russian cruise missiles wrecked its factories.
These lightly-armoured vehicles will not prevent many casualties on the Ukrainian side, or cause any to the Russians. The weapons carried by Russian armour and attack helicopters can make mincemeat of them. Photos and videos of the war show Ukraine’s more-sophisticated Russian-made IFVs literally torn apart and incinerated by modern ATGMs or tank gun rounds.
The M777, the US Army’s main field gun, is made in Britain. The huge and legendary US arms industry of Colt, Remington and Winchester nowadays seems incapable of making a simple gun that goes bang reliably.
A Losing Battle
Even if the equipment coming in from the West was any good, there is still clearly not enough of it to keep up with the rate of attrition. The 560 tanks and APCs sent or pledged so far are just a fifth of what Russia claims to have already destroyed, and the 98 extra howitzers are less than a tenth of the artillery Ukraine has lost.
Even going by higher estimates of Ukrainian strength, Kiev has lost two-thirds of its armour and three-quarters of its air force in two months of fighting. Russia is still claiming up to 50 Ukrainian armoured vehicles destroyed every day, even though they must be getting pretty scarce on the battlefield — especially given reports that the Ukrainian army has concentrated its heavy equipment in the cities. At that rate Ukraine’s armoured and mechanised brigades will very soon be reduced to foot-slogging infantry.
The Ukrainian artillery is being whittled down at a slower pace, but once the offensive to wipe out the forces trapped in the ‘Donbass cauldron’ enters the assault phase one might expect to see a lot more guns accounted for.
But the fact is that much of NATO’s “lethal aid” will never reach the front. Russian missiles have already obliterated warehouses full of it in Lvov, the city close to the Polish border. Railway yards and electricity supply sub-stations have also been hit, along with bridges across the Dnieper river that cuts the Ukraine in two from north to south.
Russian air superiority means the Ukrainian army has to smuggle arms to the eastern front in civilian vehicles. You can’t fit a 155mm howitzer or a tank in the back of a goods van.
Meanwhile, Russia is systematically destroying Ukrainian munitions dumps and fuel storage and refining facilities. Sooner or later the troops at the front are going to run out of ammo.
What actually makes it through is being captured by the Russian and Donbass forces and fired back at its former owners. And now the US has admitted it has no idea if the arms it is sending to the notoriously-corrupt Ukraine are ending up on the black market.
What’s it all for?
Just like the series of false-flag atrocities committed against Ukrainian citizens by their own security service, the point of all this “lethal aid” seems to be to persuade President Volodymyr Zelensky to keep fighting Russia when all military and political logic says it should make peace.
Amid all the self-delusional Western media fantasies that the wheels are falling off the Russian military campaign, almost nobody is asking how Kiev plans to keep fighting beyond the next few weeks.
Zelensky could have struck a peace deal with Moscow a month ago that surrendered only that which he had already lost — the Crimea, the Donbass and NATO membership ambitions — while purging Nazis from the government and armed forces who he insists were never there to begin with.
But instead the “big fool” chose to believe his own propaganda, take advice from Washington and push on deeper into the “Big Muddy”, in the words of Pete Seeger.
“Wind Blown Patches Of Snow Cause A 3D Effect In Eastern Colorado”
Poland Reportedly Interested in Annexing Part of Ukrainian Territories
North Korean election results in 2019
Johnstone: “Oh God It’s Going To Get So Much Worse”
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
Rightists have spent the last couple of days freaking out and invoking Orwell’s 1984 in response to something their political enemies are doing in America, and for once it’s for a pretty good reason.
The Department of Homeland Security has secretly set up a “Disinformation Governance Board”, only informing the public about its plans for the institution after it had already been established.
The disinformation board, which critics have understandably been calling a “Ministry of Truth”, purportedly exists to fight disinformation coming out of Russia as well as misleading messages about the US-Mexico border. We may be certain that the emphasis in the board’s establishment has been on the Russia angle, however.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, in her patented “You’re such a crazy idiot for questioning me about the White House” manner, dismissed alarmed questions about what specific functions this strange new DHS entity was going to be performing and what its authority will look like.
“It sounds like the objective of the board is to prevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country in a range of communities,” Psaki said. “I’m not sure who opposes that effort.”
The answer to the question of “who opposes that effort” is of course “anyone with functioning gray matter between their ears.” No government entity has any business appointing itself the authority to sort information from disinformation on behalf of the public, because government entities are not impartial and omniscient deities who can be entrusted to serve the public as objective arbiters of absolute reality. They would with absolute certainty wind up drawing distinctions between information, misinformation and disinformation in whatever way serves their interests, regardless of what’s true, exactly as any authoritarian regime would do.
I mean, is anyone honestly more afraid of Russian disinformation than they are of their own government appointing itself the authority to decide what counts as disinformation?
This important point has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle due to the utterly hypnotic ridiculousness of the person who has been appointed to run the Disinformation Governance Board. Nina Jankowicz, a carefully groomed swamp creature who has worked in Kyiv as a communications advisor to the Ukrainian government as part of a Fulbright fellowship, is being widely criticized by pundits and social media users for her virulent Russiagating and whatever the hell this is:
Because of this person’s embarrassing cartoonishness, a lot more commentary lately has been going into discussing the fact that the Department of Homeland Security’s Ministry of Truth is run by a kooky liberal than the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has a fucking Ministry of Truth.
Which is really to miss the forest for the trees, in my opinion. Would it really be any better if the “Disinformation Governance Board” was run by a chill dude you wouldn’t mind having a beer with? Especially when we know the ideological leanings of this department are going to bounce back and forth between elections and will always act in service of US empire narrative control regardless of who is in office? I don’t think so.
The real issue at hand is the fact that this new institution will almost certainly play a role in bridging the ever-narrowing gap between government censorship and Silicon Valley censorship. The creation of the DHS disinformation board is a far more shocking and frightening development than last year’s scandalous revelation that the White House was advising social media platforms about accounts it determined were circulating censorship-worthy Covid misinformation, which was itself a drastic leap in the direction toward direct government censorship from what had previously been considered normal.
We should probably talk more about how as soon as people accepted that it was fine for government, media and Silicon Valley institutions to work together to censor misinformation and rally public support around an Official Narrative about a virus, the ruling power establishment immediately took that as license to do that with a war and a foreign government as well.
Like, immediately immediately. We went from a massive narrative control campaign about a virus, which people accepted because they wanted to contain a deadly pandemic, straight into a massive narrative control campaign about Russia and Ukraine. Without skipping a beat. Like openly manipulating everyone’s understanding of world events is just what we do now. Now we’re seeing increasingly brazen censorship of political dissent about a fucking war that could easily end up getting us all killed in a nuclear holocaust, and a portion of the Biden administration’s whopping $33 billion Ukraine package is going toward funding “independent media” (read: war propaganda).
We should probably talk more about this. We should probably talk more about how insane it is that all mainstream western institutions immediately accepted it as a given that World War II levels of censorship and propaganda must be implemented over a faraway war that our governments are not even officially a part of.
It started as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine, without any public discussion whatsoever. Like the groundwork had already been laid and everyone had already agreed that that’s what would happen. The public had no say in whether we want to be propagandized and censored to help the US win some kind of weird infowar to ensure its continued unipolar domination of the planet. It just happened.
No reason was given to the public as to why this must occur, and there was no public debate as to whether it should. This was by design, because propaganda only works when you don’t know it’s happening to you.
The choice was made for us that information is too important to be left in the hands of the people. It became set in stone that we are to be a propaganda-based society rather than a truth-based society. No discussion was offered, and no debate was allowed.
And as bad as it is, it’s on track to get much, much worse. They’re already setting up “disinformation” regulation in the government which presides over Silicon Valley, the proxy war between the US and Ukraine is escalating by the day, and aggressions are ramping up against China over both the Solomon Islands and Taiwan. If you think imperial narrative management is intense now, wait until the US empire’s struggle to secure global hegemony really gets going.
Do you consent to this? Do you? It’s something you kind of have to take a position on, because its implications have a direct effect on our lives as individuals and on our trajectory as a society. How much are we willing to sacrifice to help the US win an infowar against Russia?
The question of whether we should abandon all hope of ever becoming a truth-based society and committing instead to winning propaganda wars for a globe-spanning empire is perhaps the most consequential decision we’ve ever had to make as a species. Which is why we weren’t given a choice. It’s just been foisted upon us.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. By taking our control of information out of our hands without asking our permission and determining for us that we are to be a propaganda-based civilization for the foreseeable future, they have stolen something sacred from us. Something they had no right to take.
Nothing about the state of the world tells us that the people who run things are doing a good job. Nothing about our current situation suggests they should be given more control, rather than having control taken away from them and given to the people. We are going in exactly the wrong direction.
A strange find
Outstanding and amazing photo-worthy cloud
So your school will not allow Holloween costumes?
Can you guess?
Scooby dooby doo, where are you…?
(Betty Crocker) Cherry Pie
Easy, and quick to make. Perfect for us novices who want a fine slice of pie to go with our “cup of Joe” (coffee).
Ingredients
Pastry
- 2 cups Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons shortening
- 4 to 6 tablespoons cold water
Filling
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour
- 6 cups sour cherries, pitted
- 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, if desired
Steps
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1Heat oven to 425°F. In medium bowl, mix 2 cups flour and the salt. Cut in shortening, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 table knives through ingredients in opposite directions), until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle with cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost leaves side of bowl (1 to 2 teaspoons more water can be added if necessary).
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2Gather pastry into a ball. Divide pastry in half; shape into 2 rounds. Wrap flattened rounds of pastry in plastic wrap; refrigerate about 45 minutes or until dough is firm and cold, yet pliable.
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3Roll pastry on lightly floured surface, using floured rolling pin, into circle 2 inches larger than upside-down 9-inch glass pie plate. Fold pastry into fourths and place in pie plate; or roll pastry loosely around rolling pin and transfer to pie plate. Unfold or unroll pastry and ease into plate, pressing firmly against bottom and side and being careful not to stretch pastry, which will cause it to shrink when baked.
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4In large bowl, mix sugar and 1/2 cup flour. Stir in cherries. Spoon into pastry-lined pie plate. Cut butter into small pieces; sprinkle over cherries. Cover with top pastry that has slits cut in it; seal and flute. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil during last 15 minutes of baking.
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5Bake 35 to 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust. Cool on cooling rack at least 2 hours before serving.
Most Common Means of Transportation to Work by County in the United States
Government Says UFOs Aren’t American Technology
The most likely root of the unexplained phenomena may be from foreign adversaries, the New York Times suggests. The Pentagon report allegedly examines more than 120 incidents that U.S. Navy pilots witnessed over the last two decades, as well as sightings from foreign militaries. Intelligence officials believe “at least some of the aerial phenomena could have been experimental technology from a rival power, most likely Russia or China,” the Times reports.
“Detailed Replica Of Manhattan Carved Out In A 2.5 Tonne Block Of Marble”
DIY Liquior cabinet
Out of a retro television. You through out the electronics, and add a switch operated light, say a 15 watt bulb. Nice.
What’s It Like To Be A Member Of A Triad?
My involvement began in high school. There was nothing dramatic about it, I just became friends with a bunch of people I thought were cool and one thing led to another.
High school gangs are like triad training schools. They are not part of the triads per se, they’re more of a triad Mickey Mouse fan club where a group of young wannabes strut around pretending to be something they’re not. You’d be surprised at just how many of these there are.
The leaders of these high school gangs are usually affiliated with a low ranking triad member, called a 49 in triad lexicon. These are the foot soldiers. The 49 functions as big brother whose help the boys would call on in case of trouble, but big brother is also a scout who kept an eye out for promising young talent.
I must’ve seemed like one, because I was soon introduced to the 49er’s tailou (big brother), who was also a 49er. We met a few times at a local disco, snorted cocaine, gargled ketamine, popped ecstasy, and soon he trusted me enough to put me in charge of a few high-school gangs.
The triads are structured like a MLM scheme. At the lower levels, the more followers you recruit, the more powerful you become, the higher up you climb. The people above your rank are referred to as tailou or ____ ko which means elder brother, and your followers are referred to as DauGei, or children.
It’s all about the organization. So we organized.
We recruited the same way ISIS and Al Qaeda does: by giving disaffected and disenfranchised young men a sense of belonging. We start off by convincing the kids that we were cool by bringing them alcohol, drugs and other illicit goods. Then when they have issues they’d come to us for help and we’d help them. Many of the kids I recruited were bullied in school and looking for some revenge, and we’d give the kid’s bully a thorough trashing.
Some of the kids would naively come to see us as these cool guys who were looking out for them, and they’d seek to be a part of our circle. Once we got the kids on hooked on the illusion of brotherhood and coolness, they’re ours to keep. And they’ll bring their friends as well.
We went around the schools settling petty disputes such as who stole whose girlfriend – at the high school level, everything is petty- , and we enforced pax triadica with our fists. We demanded discipline from our members, and if one of our own went out of line we’d beat him up ourselves. We were a group of young bullies with our own set of rules and standards of behaviour. My recruits unwittingly traded one bully in school, for circle of friends who bullied one another.
From petty disputes we graduated on to settling disputes between local businesses. Unlicensed bars, moneylenders and illegal gambling dens would pay us a set fee, and in return we’d step in if they have problems. The money was terrible, but for a young kid, having adults and business owners turn to you for help is a huge ego trip.
I was able to grow the organization effectively because I understood the principles of peer pressure and groupthink. So if you’re a parent, I would advise you to obsess over who your teenager is hanging out with; there are many manipulators like me out there.
I must’ve been a pretty good recruiter, because the boss took me under his wing and introduced me to his boss, Suen Ko. Suen Ko was a hung kwan, or a mid-level lieutenant in the triad hierarchy. This is where I started to get involved with the actual organization. We had a short initiation ceremony in a karaoke room, and I became a 49 under Suen Ko.
Suen Ko owned a few nightclubs and bars, and virtually every night we’d be in one of his fine establishments drinking, partying, and partaking in every drug we could get our hands on. Our sort attracted a certain sort of girl, and there were girls aplenty. The bars were a money maker, but Suen Ko’s real money came from selling bootleg CDs.
At the time, bootleg CDs and eventually DVDs were an organized crime gold rush. This was before napster and way before bittorrent, and demand was so high that we filled up entire shopping malls with outlets selling pirated movies, music and software. A common joke was that if Bill Gates ever visited our malls, he’d have a heart attack on the spot.
For about 5 cents in costs for a blank CD, we sold the end product to the consumer for 15 local bucks a pop. Not even cocaine had that kind of margin. We were selling the bootlegs as fast as we could print them, and best of all piracy was perceived by the local cops as a low-impact crime and as such wasn’t rigorously enforced. Heck, many of our regular customers were cops. At the time, you could drive up to a police checkpoint with a stash of bootleg CDs on the backseat, give cheeky grin and a thumbs up, and the cops would just wave you through.
Suen Ko made millions within his first year.
I was good with computers, and I became his IT department. I helped him organize his production, and in return he gave me a handsome cut. I made quite a bit of money in my teens, but I quickly blew it all on drugs and girls.
The biggest eye opener was during the annual company dinner. They had to construct a tent hall on an empty field to fit all 5,000 of us in, and there were local politicians and community leaders on the front row tables. That drove in the impression of just how big the tree was, and how deep the roots went.
If I made the triads sound like corporations, that’s because that’s what they are. We were even registered with the Registrar of Companies as a multimedia company and we paid our taxes. The big bosses looked just like any other middle aged Chinese uncle you’d meet at the local supermarket. The best way to avoid detection is to be in plain sight and blend into the background. The so-called gangsters you see on the street strutting their stuff are amateurs; many of them are just aping what they see in the movies. The pros keep a low profile and get on with making money.
Once you go far enough up the hierarchy, violence is actually pretty rare. For the most part, being a triad is just like working in any other corporate job.
But when violence does occur at that level, it’s freaking terrifying.
Roundabout the end of my first year, there was a war. The politician who Suen Ko worked for was at odds with another politician from the same organization. There were a few shootings, grenade attacks, and choppings, but it didn’t affect me directly at first so I didn’t give much thought to it. Then a call came one night. All hands on deck. We dropped everything and converged on the HQ.
Pardon the expletive, but it was scary as fuck. There were a hundred or so of us milling about an office block, and someone started handing out machetes and sashimi knives. Suen Ko took me up to the office, and there were hard looking fuckers at every corner. The air was so full of cigarette smoke I could barely breathe. Everyone looked grim. Apparently we were expecting an attack.
I was a skinny teenager, and I was out of my depth. Till that point, I’d been involved on the white collar side of things. The guys I saw that night had the word hard etched on their faces. I’ve never felt more scared than I did that night.
We stayed there overnight, but no attack came so we went back to our branch office. They attacked us there. A dozen or so guys rushed in and we fought back with chairs, clubs, machetes, boxes of A4 paper, everything we could get our hands on. It was a hazy frantic panicky desperate fight for survival. We were cornered and if we lost it would’ve been game over. One of theirs died in the melee.
The police arrived fairly quickly and I went to jail for a bit. It was in a cell that I resolved that this life wasn’t for me. For some miraculous reason, I got off scot-free. I went home, packed my things, and left everything behind to start a new life.
So how did it feel like? Terrible.
It’s not a healthy way to live one’s life. It got to the point where I was so paranoid that whenever I went to a restaurant I’d sit facing the entrance so I’d know who was coming in. I saw potential threats everywhere, and I carried symptoms of PTSD for a long time afterwards.
It took me a very long time to put my past behind and to learn to live again without fear like a normal human being. I had cut off all ties with everyone I knew, and have difficulty trusting people. Till today I know many, but am close with very few.
If there’s any teenager reading this who is in a similar situation as I was, know that the world is vast and there are opportunities everywhere. The cool kids you see in school are anything but.
Don’t make the same mistakes I did
– Anonymous
“A Guide To Chicago Home Styles”
China: “No one wants a third world war”
Foreign Ministry responds to Lavrov’s warning.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged that “no one wants to see a third world war” after Russia raised the prospect of the “real” threat of nuclear war.
Beijing moved to make the statement in response to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who on Monday responded to discussion about current tensions being comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Lavrov warned that “the risks now are considerable” in the context of the world heading towards another world war.
He also warned the west not to downplay the “serious” and “real” risks of a nuclear conflict if the United States continues to interfere in Ukraine.
“I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it,”
Lavrov said.
As we previously highlighted, the US military is already deeply embedded in Ukraine and is playing a substantial role in the country’s response to Russia, despite official denials of boots on the ground.
According to French journalist Georges Malbrunot, who returned from Ukraine after arriving with volunteer fighters, Americans are directly “in charge” of the war on the ground.
Responding to Lavrov’s comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters today,
“No one wants to see the outbreak of a third world war.”
“We hope that relevant parties can keep cool-headed and exercise restraint, prevent escalation of tension, realize peace as soon as possible and avoid inflicting a heavier price on Europe and the world,”
he added.
As we highlighted last month, China responded to NATO’s moral exhibitionism on Ukraine by asserting, “We will never forget who bombed our embassy in Yugoslavia.”
Meanwhile in the USA…
Percentage of population with unfavourable views of China (2019 survey)
See how effective the anti-China campaign has been by the Western unipolar nations…
China to build space ‘defense system’ to deflect possible asteroid impact by 2025
Interesting. The technology has many applications. -MM
From HERE.
China seeks to build a system capable of effectively monitoring asteroids and potentially altering their course to protect Earth from a possible impact.
The deputy head China’s National Space Administration (CNSA), Wu Yanhua, revealed on Sunday that Beijing expects to hit an asteroid as part of an experiment at some point in 2025.
What is planned to be set up is a near-Earth asteroid monitoring and defense system that would also be potentially capable of protecting spacecraft as well, Wu told China Central Television during this year’s Space Day of China event.
The system, which would include both ground-based and space-based elements, would catalog and analyze asteroids to determine which ones pose a potential threat to Earth or humanity’s activities in space. In particular, the system would involve a computer simulation framework that would model potential asteroid impacts, he explained.
The project is still pending approval by the Chinese authorities, the Global Times has reported, adding that it requires “coordination of multiple departments.”
China is not the only nation concerned about the threat that asteroids could pose to Earth. NASA has been developing a similar project as well. In November 2021, the US Space Agency launched a probe designed to strike a small asteroid to test if altering its course through impact is possible and whether this can be an effective planetary defense against such a threat.
Mounted on one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, the probe, called DART, is supposed to strike a small space rock orbiting a larger asteroid, changing the speed of the moonlet by a fraction of a percent – but enough to be observed and measured from Earth. The probe is expected to reach its target about 10 months after launch.
No known asteroid capable of inflicting serious damage is on a collision course with Earth in the next 100 years, NASA said last October. However, the agency added that 60% of such space rock might in fact remain undiscovered.
A meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk back in 2013. Although the object burned in the atmosphere and only small fragments of it reached Earth, the explosion left over 1,600 people injured, with dozens hospitalized.
Pizza Pie
“Toto, I Don’t Think We’re In Kansas Anymore”
Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,
Recently, an American colleague commented to me, “We no longer live in a democracy but a dictatorship disguised as a democracy.”
Is he correct? Well, a dictatorship may be defined as “a form of government in which absolute authority is exercised by a dictator.”
The US today is not be ruled by dictatorship (although, to some, it may well feel that way.)
But, if that’s the case, what form of rule does exist in the US?
At its formation, the founding fathers argued over whether the United States should be a republic or a democracy. Those founders who later formed the Federalist Party felt that it should be a democracy – rule by representatives elected by the people. Thomas Jefferson, who created the Democratic Republican Party, argued that it should be a republic – a state in which the method of governance is democracy, but the principle of governance is that the rights of the individual are paramount.
He argued that, “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty one percent can vote away the rights of the other forty nine.”
At that time, Benjamin Franklin has been credited as saying, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.”
Very well stated.
As Americans still legally vote, and it may well be that the voting is not altogether rigged, the US could be regarded as a democracy. Of course, to be accurate, it could also be defined as a bureaucracy – rule by officialdom, and/or a plutocracy – rule by the very rich. Both of these descriptions are undeniably accurate.
Another question that’s hotly debated is what sort of “ism” the US is living under. There’s a visible trend in new candidates to openly promote socialism. Historically, socialism has always been an excellent way to gain votes, as the socialist promises largesse to the average man that government will provide by robbing the rich. Not surprisingly, the average voter would find this prospect very attractive.
Socialist candidates in the US today base their argument for socialism on the premise that “capitalism has failed,” and that premise is providing them with great headway. They claim that prosperity for the American people is almost non-existent; that the middle class is shrinking and the small upper class is growing ever-richer.
These claims are undeniably true… but not because capitalism has failed.
Vladimir Lenin stated that “Fascism is capitalism in decay.” He was quite correct. Fascism is a slow cancer that eats away at an economy. It transfers wealth to the largest, most politically influential corporations. Yet, the concept of fascism is greatly misunderstood today. Most anyone who decries fascism will describe symptoms such as jackboots and swastikas, but fail to offer an actual definition.
For a definition, we might ask Benito Mussolini, the father of national fascism. He stated, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
By defining the term, we can conclude that the US is no longer a capitalist country and hasn’t been one for a long time. The US began its slide into fascism in a major way around the time that income tax and the Federal Reserve were created – in 1913. These measures were the brainchild of the largest bankers of the day and the Fed still remains under the power of the major banks.
Over the last century, the Deep State, which is corporatist in origin, has grown and has done a first rate job of introducing a combination of socialism and fascism, a bit at a time. This has slowly destroyed the economy, education and the national moral compass, not to mention achieving the utter corruption of the political system.
By contrast, capitalism is a free-market system, in which the economy, unfettered by the interference of governments, finds its own level at any given time. It fluctuates naturally, based upon supply and demand, each correcting the other with regularity.
But government edicts operate with force and permanence, constricting the natural flow of money, goods and services. Over time, regulations pile on top of regulations until the system becomes dysfunctional.
Socialism, by its very nature, is a central restrictive force on the free market. Its logical conclusion is very visible in Venezuela today, where government regulation has produced such a stranglehold on the economy that it’s broken down in every way, resulting in dire poverty and even starvation.
But, as stated above, in the US, the Deep State has been thorough in its presentation of the US economy as a capitalist economy. In doing so, they’ve provided the encouragement of full socialism in the political realm.
In the near future, the economy will begin to collapse under the weight of growing fascism and socialism. However, the blame will be laid at the feet of capitalism.
In my belief, the majority of Americans will be fooled into thinking that capitalism is the problem and that socialism will save the day. During the coming financial crisis, they’ll dive in with both feet.
Voters, even many of those who are moderate, will support socialist candidates. The first national election that occurs after the crisis has begun will result in an overwhelming victory for socialist and other leftist candidates. The next president will provide a plethora of socialist “solutions” to counter “the damage done by capitalism.”
But such a prediction does not require a crystal ball. This has happened many times before. The Athenian Republic ran into the same problem. The Roman Republic also deteriorated in this manner. As stated by Aristotle, “Republics decline into democracies and democracies decline into despotisms.”
Quite so. It’s a natural progression.
And so, it shouldn’t be surprising if the more imaginative American were to observe, worriedly, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
He would most certainly be correct. Like the flag in the image above, the founding principles have been turned upside down and the rights of Americans have been shredded. “America,” as a concept, no longer exists in the USA. Its vestiges remain, but soon, they too will be on the way out.
Liberty always exists somewhere in the world, but it does tend to change location from time to time.
Perhaps a final quote from late eighteenth century America would be of benefit – one from Thomas Paine.
“My country is wherever liberty lives.”
Russian Pork Roast
This is a a popular Russian recipe of roast pork stuffed with cheese and tomatoes. For best results, remove the foil to let the meat brown just before it is done.
Ingredients
Directions
Pizza Slice
European Countries by WWII casualties
Compare these values to the Deagel Report remote viewing numbers and percentages…
Whatever Happened to Blackbeard’s Silver-Plated Skull?
From HERE.
Blackbeard, an infamous pirate from the 1700s, was notoriously an excellent fighter and survivalist. He was so famous, in fact, that after his death his skull was rumored to have been plated in silver and used as a punch bowl for decades. This skull bowl was supposedly passed around from place to place and used for parties, rituals, and even fraternity initiations.
But how did this frightening pirate end up as a punch bowl in the first place? After years of being the most fearsome foe across the Atlantic, Blackbeard met with his final fate on Ocracoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. His head was put on a pole and used as a warning to others. It was passed around until its supposed current home in a museum in Massachusetts. Its exact whereabouts throughout the last 300 years are uncertain, though there are many theories.
From Teach to Blackbeard: The Making of a Legendary Pirate
Originally known as as Englishman Edward Teach (sometimes “Thatch”), Blackbeard was born around 1680 in Bristol. Unfortunately, not much is known about his young life. It is widely believed that he was educated early in life and that he had started his time on the sea as a sailor on a merchant vessel around Jamaica. At some point in the early 1700s, he decided to use his sailing and fighting skills to participate in the War of the Spanish Succession . Fighting for the British government, he fought Spanish ships in the West Indies to preserve their balance of power.
After the war, famous English pirate Benjamin Hornigold took an interest in Teach and let him join his crew. Hornigold typically operated his piracy out of New Providence, which was known as a famous safe haven for pirates. In 1716, Hornigold put Teach in command of a sloop (sailboat) he had recently captured. After preparing for nearly a year, Hornigold and Teach both set out from the safety of New Providence to find other ships and goods to capture. They were quickly successful, capturing several ships containing cargo such as flour and wine within a few months.
Teach was so successful in his piracy that he quickly caught the eye of other crews. That same year, Teach and Hornigold met Stede Bonnet, who had become a pirate a few months earlier. Bonnet confided in them that his 70-member crew was not happy with his command, and decided to let Teach take over his crew as captain of Revenge. At this point, Teach and Hornigold travelled with all three ships as part of their fleet, and even added a fourth vessel just a few months later.
It is interesting to note that there is little to no record of Teach or Hornigold engaging in violence when capturing these ships. Hornigold is reported to have only attacked old enemies that attacked him first, while there is no record of violence in relation to Teach at all. Unfortunately, Hornigold’s crews were not happy with his lack of violence, demoting him by the end of 1717. He took his original sloop and one other, leaving Teach with the other two. Teach and Hornigold never met again.
After parting ways, Teach quickly attacked a French vessel near Saint Vincent. This ship, called the Concord, was renamed Queen Anne’s Revenge and became Teach’s flagship vessel. The ship was equipped with 40 guns and a crew of over 300 men, and easily helped Teach take over a number of other ships. He used this ship for about a year before it was damaged beyond repair due to a sandbar off the coast of North Carolina, where it was left to sink.
Teach used his remaining ships to continue capturing and looting other ships. It is around this time that writers began to make note of his daunting physical appearance. They describe his long, black beard that seemed to cover his entire face, and how he cared for it by braiding it and twisting it with ribbons around his face.
Many historians believe that Blackbeard’s reputation as being ruthless and frightening is based on perception rather than actual evidence. There is currently no evidence that indicates that Blackbeard ever actually killed anyone. It is more likely that he used his powerful ships and physical appearance to intimidate others, which gave him his reputation as a vicious pirate.
The Infamous Downfall of Blackbeard
Teach’s downfall occurred in late 1718, when he took his ships to the coast of South Carolina and created a blockade. This blockade generated panic in the region, and also resulted in a significant amount of looting. After settling his issues with the locals, he then travelled up to North Carolina, where he asked Governor Charles Eden for a king’s pardon in return for giving up his piracy. Though some were surprised, this pardon was granted, and many believed this was the end of the infamous Blackbeard. They were unfortunately wrong.
In November 1718, Teach returned to piracy by capturing two French ships off the coast of Bermuda. These ships contained precious cargo including cocoa and sugar. When he returned with the ships to North Carolina, he convinced Governor Eden to declare one of them abandoned, which gave Teach legal access to the cargo. It is uncertain whether Eden was fully convinced the ship was simply “abandoned” at sea, or if he decided to collude with Teach in exchange for some of his loot. Regardless, this move made surrounding governors and lieutenants wary of Eden, and one decided to stop Blackbeard himself, without permission.
Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood of Williamsburg, Virginia, decided to be the one to fix the Blackbeard problem. Fearing his colony would be looted, since they had more precious valuables than North Carolina, he had to move fast. Spotswood launched a raid on North Carolina which included a British naval force instructed to advance on Teach’s ships.
Teach refused to submit to the ships, and not having any guns, the crews onboard had no choice but to fight Teach and his men with their own weapons. This was a risky move, as many had heard about Blackbeard’s skills in hand-to-hand combat, though none had seen it in person. Without cannons, though, they unfortunately had no choice.
Robert Maynard, a Virginian lieutenant leading the naval ships, decided to play a trick on Teach and his crew to give his men some leverage. During the fight, he commanded his men below deck to convince Teach that they were dead or had been thrown overboard. Once Teach fell for this and set foot on their ship to seize it, Maynard and his men rushed at Teach from below in a surprise attack.
Unprepared, Teach took several fatal blows before succumbing to his wounds and dying. It is recorded that at the time of his death, he had been shot five times and stabbed twenty. Because of the severity of his wounds, it is uncertain which of these was the final, fatal blow to Blackbeard.
Maynard had his men decapitate Blackbeard’s body and string his severed head from the bowspirit of Maynard’s ship. This display was a show of strength to the citizens of Virginia and North Carolina, especially to Governor Eden, whose reputation never fully recovered from his public relationship with Teach. After pulling into port, Maynard stuck Teach’s head on a pole at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay , at Blackbeard’s Point on Hampton Creek, to warn other pirates to stay away from the region, lest they fall to the same fate as the infamous Blackbeard. The head remained on that pole for several years, until it was little more than a decaying skull.
Blackbeard’s Skull: Lost to the Sands of Time?
There are many stories about Blackbeard’s skull, some being based on fact and others pure fiction. The mythological tales of Blackbeard’s skull include stories of Blackbeard’s ghost wandering the Chesapeake Bay searching for his lost head. Others say that after he was decapitated, his body was thrown overboard where it circled the ship seven times before sinking. Unexplained light sightings have been reported around Chesapeake Bay, with locals calling the lights “Teach’s Light.”
More legitimate reports have claimed that Blackbeard’s skull was passed around from person to person for the last several hundred years once it was removed from its pole on the beach. Many claim that it was coated in silver to become a drinking bowl, which was used at dinner parties along the coast. The use of this bowl often led to solemn discussions about pirates and their tragic, brutal fates on the eastern US coast. The skull was also reported to have been a central part of some fraternity rituals in the New England area. However, none of this has been fully confirmed.
Throughout the 1900s, the Blackbeard’s skull was supposedly in the possession of writer and collector Edward Rowe Snow, an author and historian from Massachusetts. In the 1990s, after his death, the skull was donated by his estate to the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, the skull is not on display at this museum. Because there is a significant lack of evidence proving that the skull indeed belonged to Blackbeard, they cannot in good faith display it as such. Some museums, such as the San Diego Maritime Museum, have borrowed the skull for temporary display, including of course a disclaimer about its uncertain origins.
It is unknown whether the skull will someday be on permanent display, or if more evidence will arise to clarify the origin of Blackbeard’s silver-plated skull. Records of the family that donated the skull only goes back so far, and the origin of the skull remains uncertain. Those who claim it’s the genuine article explain that there would be no point in faking that it’s Blackbeard’s skull, while those claiming it’s a fake say it’s simply wishful thinking. Whether it was preserved or lost to the sands of time, we may never know what happened to Blackbeard’s skull during the last 300 years. Perhaps his ghost finally found it after a long wandering on the Chesapeake Bay.
Strange but true
Some things that you might find in a garage sale or thrift store…
Kitty chair.
Say what?
Painting of Indiana Jones kitty…
This is very American…
What’s it Like to Work at a Bottom-Of-The-Barrel Used Car Lot
The lot I work at is absolutely the last stop. If you’ve got 3 repos and just got out of prison last week and don’t have a driver’s license, we can still get you in a car.
And with typical gross of $3500-$6000 (on cars that are $7k or less) BEFORE products and ancillaries, we get paid very well, and we sell a lot of inventory. But we also attract a certain type of customer. We legit have those silent alarm buttons under our desks like bank tellers have.
So a couple of weeks ago we had a car get stolen. Our repo guys recovered it about 3 days later (they found it before the cops did). No big deal, we’re no stranger to having cars stolen. The only issue is that we didn’t recover the key. It was a 13 year old German-made car so we had to have a new fob programmed.
Last week someone tweaked out on meth came in and wanted to buy that freshly-recovered car. He paid in all cash, but was about $1,000 short after TT&L so we decided to just in-house finance that $1k at 0% interest and put a GPS in the car.
Dude pays in all $20’s and $1’s out of a woman’s purse despite no woman being around. Whatever, I’m just here to help finalize car deals not be a fucking cop or whatever. It was so god damn annoying to count out $8k in all 20’s and 1’s
Next red flag comes whenever I try to register the car.. the license he gave for a test drive is fake. Again, whatever, we’ll do car deals without a license, I just need to know who you are. He gives me this insanely bogus story and eventually I get a picture of his real ID and we finish the deal.
So, remember how the car was stolen and we didn’t recover the key? This dude calls us a day later and says that people are chasing him down with a key fob saying that they stole the car from a very specific location and he wants a discount or his money back or something. Here’s the thing, we never told him it was stolen and we never told him where it was stolen from.
(side note: we didn’t pay BMW or the locksmith to invalidate the other key that was floating around out there whenever they programmed the new one)
He says he had to pay these thieves $1400 to get this second key fob back and he wants us to reimburse the money to him. Come to find out, his buddy that was with him when he was buying the car was the same guy on our cameras at the lot when the key and car were stolen. What kind of idiot steals a car then comes back weeks later to buy that car?
GPS isn’t locating. We tell the customer he has to come down yesterday to finalize the deal or made some random excuse to trick him into coming so we can adjust the GPS. He refuses to let us in the car at first. The battery is in the trunk and the customer finally agrees to let us in after moving his burglar tools and machetes around.
We adjust the GPS and he’s on his way (after more yelling and arguing over stupid bullshit). So later yesterday evening we go to close the lot down and realize that we were missing keys to 3 of our cars. Obviously we know who did it. They were causing a scene and being a distraction so one of their friends could quickly swipe some keys from the board.
GM gets on the phone with the dude Motherfucker we have you on video stealing our fucking keys bring them the fuck back so we don’t have to call the cops. We just want your money we don’t want to act like fucking law enforcement just bring the shit back you piece of shit and pay your bill god damn man come on
The dude was just right around the corner waiting with his friends for us to close. He sends his friend down to bring the keys back bro if you really have cameras you can tell it wasn’t me i’m just bringing them back to you man.
We lock the lot up, I leave a little note on this guy’s account that I’m not giving him a 60-day repo time window after this. He should be in jail, but rather than call the cops I just gave him a 10-day grace period on his $1000 that he owes or we’ll repo the car. Having a car repo’d after dropping $8,000 in cash is much worse than jail. Also, as a 3-time felon myself, I’d always rather try to handle this without getting the cops involved. I mean, if the cops arrested him, then we definitely wouldn’t get the rest of what he owed.
We went home and ended our Monday.
Let’s see how Tuesday goes! I started my day today with my customer showing his 240+ stitches he got when he tried to steal some rims to put on the car we sold him a few months ago, but the owner of the rims came out and stabbed him. Hilarious story, we laughed and laughed until he said he was laughing so hard his stitches were hurting.
The Big Differences Between A Normal Friend And A Russian Friend
Chrysta Bell performs ‘Sycamore Trees’ from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks
Keeping with the overriding theme of this period of time… I love this. It’s a wonderful dramatic interpretation of a powerfully emotional moment, and she sings the hell out of it.
Russian Chicken
Super easy to make. Very unique taste. It’s a real pleaser.
Sweet and tangy! This easy dinner recipe has a flavorful sauce made with Russian dressing, onion soup mix and apricot jam. Serve on a bed of rice for a delicious family meal.
5 | Skinless Chicken Breasts (boneless, cut into cubes) |
1 teaspoon | Paprika |
½ teaspoon | Salt |
¼ teaspoon | Pepper |
1 cup | Russian Salad Dressing |
1 cup | Apricot Jam |
1 envelope | Onion Soup Mix |
How to Make Russian Chicken
Add the cubed chicken to a 3 quart casserole dish. Season with paprika, salt and pepper and toss until the chicken is covered in the seasoning.
In a medium bowl, stir together Russian salad dressing, onion soup mix and apricot jam. Pour the sauce mixture over the chicken and stir to combine.
Bake the chicken, uncovered, at 350F for 1 hour.
South Korea exposed that the US military laboratory secretly made “biochemical weapons”?What do you intend to be close to China?
The zombie movie “Travel to Busan” was shown in the world a few years ago. In the film, the virus leaked by the Busan Biopharmaceutical Company in South Korea triggered a terrible zombie crisis. Now, with the exposure of the biochemical laboratory hidden by the United States in South Korea, Koreans have begun to chant that “Travel to Busan” is not a fiction, but a preview of reality.
Recently, the United States has repeatedly sent biological warfare reagents to the Korean peninsula through the US military stationed in South Korea. After the incident was exposed, South Korean people and media investigations discovered that the US military had secretly established four biochemical laboratories in South Korea, one of which was in Busan. The sinister behavior of the United States has triggered many demonstrations by South Koreans.
So, what secret weapon is the U.S. Biochemical Warfare Laboratory making? Is it related to the coronavirus pandemic that WHO is tracing? What does the US military intend to build the laboratory on the doorstep of China?
Today, Xiaota will talk to everyone about the conspiracy of the United States in overseas biochemical laboratories.
As early as last year, South Korea’s “Tong Shimbun” published an article that broke the news: “The U.S. Army in South Korea has set up Bacillus anthracis biological laboratories at four bases in Yongsan, Busan, Gunsan and Pyeongtaek.” Bacillus anthracis is a species that can pass through the skin and mucous membranes. The bacteria spread by the respiratory tract and the digestive tract, German and Japanese fascists, have tried to make it into biochemical weapons, but now, the U.S. military, which has inherited the Japanese biochemical warfare technology and experience, has vigorously developed this extermination weapon, even It has been made “more terrible than coronavirus”. This virus can not only kill people and animals, but can even survive and reproduce in the soil. As long as it is contaminated with Bacillus anthracis, the soil must be completely removed, otherwise it will always be a forbidden zone for life.
The U.S. military has built extremely dangerous laboratories overseas, obviously not willing to allow its own country to bear unexpected risks. The United States’ wishful thinking is brilliant. Judging from the information that has been released so far, from 2009 to 2014, the US military conducted at least 15 anthrax experiments in South Korea, and there have indeed been at least one virus leak.
It happened in May 2015. The bacillus anthracis was accidentally leaked at the U.S. Air Force Base in Osan, South Korea. 5 U.S. Air Force personnel, 10 U.S. Army personnel, 3 U.S. military members, and 4 Koreans who may be exposed to the virus He was treated in isolation, and his later situation is unknown.
It was this leak that exposed the news of the US military at the Korean Biochemical Laboratory, which caused a violent shock in Korean society. Countless South Korean citizens took to the streets to launch protest marches, demanding a reply from the US, and disclosure of laboratory information, and the laboratory was immediately cancelled. Many South Korean civil organizations gathered to call for a comprehensive revision of the “Status of Forces Agreement in South Korea” to limit the privileges of US troops in South Korea. There are also calls for the South Korean government to conduct independent investigations to find out the truth of the incident.
Obviously, the South Korean people have extremely distrusted the United States. Their request is tantamount to allowing the United States to return South Korea’s sovereignty. Of course, the United States cannot agree to it. However, in order to deceive public opinion, the US military still politely gave in. After the leak was exposed, the US military in South Korea and the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed a “joint proposal” to restrict the US military’s biochemical experiments to prevent similar incidents from happening again. But in fact, not only did the United States fail to comply with the agreement and restrict testing, it has instead intensified its efforts. At the 8th terminal of Busan Port, the US military base is implementing the experimental plan code-named “Centaur”, and the scale of the biochemical laboratory established in South Korea is continuously expanding. In January 2019, the U.S. military transported three kinds of bacteria including Staphylococcus toxoid to Busan and other U.S. military bases in South Korea, and the Korean Bacteria Family Barrel ushered in a new member.
Faced with interviews by the South Korean media, the head of the US military stationed in South Korea said: “The US system is very safe. Our experiments do not aim at biochemical experiments. They are mainly for defensive experiments against the threat of biochemical weapons. In this way, if the US military When biochemical threats are detected with South Korea, we can provide timely warnings.”
What the Americans say is better than what they sing. The United States says that “the American system is very safe”, but I’m sorry, the system cannot be built in the United States. The United States engages in biochemical experiments, but does not aim at biochemical experiments. The U.S. states that it will alert in time when it finds danger, but what is the use of such alert? It may be for the United States to block South Korea in time and prevent the virus from spreading to the United States. The United States says that the purpose of developing chemical weapons is to defend against biological and chemical threats, but the biggest threat in the world is the United States. The United States should still find a way to defend itself.
Even more frightening is that in the surrounding area of the US military laboratory, there have been outbreaks of uncommon local diseases many times. According to a 2019 report by the U.S. Audit Office, in the past 10 years, there have been 400 accidents in U.S. biosafety tertiary laboratories. Although the victims of these accidents are mainly confined to the staff in contact, the number of accidents Leakage, the harm will be to all mankind.
In July 2019, the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory in the United States suddenly announced its closure, but the specific reason was not announced. In view of the subsequent occurrence of “white lung disease” and the mysterious death of elderly people in nearby nursing homes in the United States, it is highly suspected that this laboratory is related to the ongoing global coronavirus epidemic.
The United States has not only built a large number of biological laboratories overseas, but also tried its best to prevent the resumption of the Biological Weapons Convention. In 1972, the “Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons” signed by various countries stipulated that the development, production, storage and use of biological weapons are prohibited. However, the Convention lacks a mechanism for monitoring implementation, and there is no permanent enforcement agency. In response to this problem, in 1994, the Special Assembly of the States Parties to the Convention authorized an ad hoc working group to be responsible for formulating a protocol to comprehensively strengthen the effectiveness of the Convention.
However, at a meeting of the ad hoc working group in July 2001, the United States refused to accept the draft convention protocol on the grounds that “biological fields are not verifiable” and “international verification may threaten US national interests and commercial secrets.” To this day, the United States is still the only “blocker” in resuming negotiations on the verification protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention.
Therefore, the various actions of the United States have to make people doubt the United States’ motives for setting up biochemical laboratories. The so-called biochemical defense is only an excuse. Manufacturing biochemical weapons to serve the hidden purposes of the United States is the real goal of establishing these laboratories. .
With regard to the use of biological and chemical weapons, the United States has always been “severely treating others and lenient in self-discipline.” In the past, the Americans held a bottle of white powder and declared that they had the iron evidence of Iraq’s use of biological and chemical weapons. Then they launched a war of aggression, but they did not find Iraq after the war. Chemical weapons base. Putin asked, what was the white powder you took out that year? Maybe it’s washing powder. The United States still dare not answer Putin’s questions.
But now, it’s the irrefutable evidence that the United States uses biological and chemical weapons.
In 1945, on the eve of the Tokyo trial, the U.S. military, which had long studied biological warfare, launched an investigation into Japanese germ warfare, and secretly contacted more than 20 Unit 731 criminals, including Ishii Shiro and Kitano Masaji, in order to avoid war crimes. Obtained a large amount of data on the bacterial warfare and human experiment research of the Japanese Unit 731. For many years, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan have denied the existence of this secret exemption agreement, leading to the public’s ignorance of the consequences of Japan’s use of biological weapons. But in fact, after World War II, the US military has never stopped research on biological weapons such as bacteria and viruses.
And on the Korean battlefield, the United States used germ warfare. In early 1952, several U.S. military aircraft circled the northern area of North Korea. Unlike the past, the planes did not drop bombs, they just left people’s sight after flying a few laps. After the plane left, the North Korean soldiers and civilians and the Chinese People’s Volunteers all found that there were many fleas, flies, crickets, ants and other insects around them that shouldn’t be in this season. The health department of the Volunteer Army paid great attention to this abnormal phenomenon, and quickly carried out laboratory analysis on the insects that appeared, and found that these creatures carried a large number of deadly viruses such as plague, cholera, and dysentery.
Although the Volunteers uncovered the conspiracy of the U.S. Army and took precautions, the virus dropped by the U.S. Army has spread in water sources, residential areas, positions, and farms, and it is impossible to guard against under the harsh conditions of the war. As a result, the Volunteers still have nearly forty commanders and fighters. Suffered from acute diseases such as encephalitis, meningitis, and plague.
The use of germ warfare by the US military has aroused strong condemnation from the international community. In June 1952, China and North Korea invited the International Scientific Committee to investigate the use of bacterial weapons on the Korean battlefield. The committee was led by Joseph Needham, a well-known biologist at the University of Cambridge. After two months of investigation, the Needham investigation team submitted a 600-page report to the international community. The report clearly pointed out that there are indeed signs of germ warfare in northeastern China and North Korea. The Chinese Volunteer Army and North Korean soldiers and civilians have indeed become targets of germ weapons. There is solid evidence that the US military is engaged in germ warfare. Moreover, the germ warfare of the US military on the Korean battlefield is very similar to the germ warfare of the Japanese army during World War II. It can be seen that the United States is the heir of the Japanese fascism that exterminated humanity in this era.
This time, South Korea’s protests once again pushed the US biochemical laboratory to the forefront, but in the words of the Americans, the protest crowd is just a group of ants lined up. The demands of the people cannot be answered by the United States. The Koreans can only target the South Korean government and criticize the government’s weakness, but the South Korean government is probably powerless.
South Korea is a country established under the control of the United States. The South Korean military obeys the command of the US military. The US military is stationed in South Korea in front of the master. The South Korean government has to pay a huge amount of military expenses to the United States every year.
In addition to military control, the United States is also the back controller of South Korea’s economy and politics. South Korea is a chaebol country. Driven by funds from the United States and Japan, the Korean chaebol monopolized South Korea’s economy. Several big chaebols such as Samsung accounted for more than half of the market share. The United States uses investment, exchange rate, and financial means to firmly control South Korean chaebols. When the South Korean president does not conform to the chaebol’s interests, the president will be defeated by the chaebols, because the chaebols are behind the American power. Therefore, successive South Korean governments have had to listen to the words of the United States.
The United States controls South Korea everywhere, and South Korea is their overseas base in the eyes of the Americans. So how can the United States care about South Korea’s resistance? But biochemical viruses endanger the security of all mankind, and peace-loving countries around the world should unite to fight the threat from the United States.
According to incomplete statistics, the United States has more than 200 biological laboratories in the world, covering Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In recent years, the center of the US biochemical laboratory has gradually shifted to the Sino-Russian border. In Ukraine, close to Russia, the United States has set up 16 biological laboratories. South Korea is densely populated, and the people’s voice against biological and chemical weapons is very high. The US military does not build dangerous laboratories on remote islands without people, but in South Korea. This is obviously treating China as an imaginary enemy. Therefore, China must maintain a high degree of vigilance against such a potential enemy with no bottom line.
Russia just told truth about Ukraine and it’s SCARY | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris
Pretty good reporting and discussion. Sure is much better than anything in “mainstream news”.
China to tighten export controls on dual-use technology
Ten buyers of Russian gas in Europe have opened accounts in rubles
Americans face mounting risk of hackers taking over brokerage accounts, regulators say
It’s not just corporations that are facing an epidemic of cyber attacks — American retail investors are also struggling to contend with a surge in hackers taking over their investment accounts, regulators warn. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory body, said in a recent notice that it has “received an increasing number of reports regarding customer account takeover incidents, which involve bad actors using compromised customer information, such as login credentials, to gain unauthorized entry to customers’ online brokerage accounts.” Ari Jacoby, chief executive and co-founder of cybersecurity firm Deduce, backed up this statement with data showing that account-takeover fraud increased by roughly 250% from 2019 to 2020. He told Security.org that account-takeover prevention is a $15 billion market that is “growing significantly year-over-year. “
Escobar: The Empire Of Lies, Operation Z, & The New Global Chessboard
The only antidote to propaganda dementia is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed.
Especially since the onset of GWOT (Global War on Terror) at the start of the millennium, no one ever lost money betting against the toxic combo of hubris, arrogance and ignorance serially deployed by the Empire of Chaos and Lies.
What passes for “analysis” in the vast intellectual no-fly zone known as U.S. Think Tankland includes wishful thinking babble such as Beijing “believing” that Moscow would play a supporting role in the Chinese century just to see Russia, now, in the geopolitical driver’s seat.
This is a fitting example not only of outright Russophobic/Sinophobic paranoia about the emergence of peer competitors in Eurasia – the primeval Anglo-American nightmare – but also crass ignorance about the finer points of the complex Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.
As Operation Z methodically hits Phase 2, the Americans – with a vengeance – have also embarked on their symmetrical Phase 2, which de facto translates as an outright escalation towards Totalen Krieg, from shades of hybrid to incandescent, everything of course by proxy. Notorious Raytheon weapons peddler reconverted into Pentagon head, Lloyd Austin, gave away the game in Kiev:
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
So this is it: the Empire wants to annihilate Russia. Cue to War Inc.’s frenzy of limitless weapon cargos descending on Ukraine, the overwhelming majority on the road to be duly eviscerated by Russian precision strikes. The Americans are sharing intel 24/7 with Kiev not only on Donbass and Crimea but also Russian territory. Totalen Krieg proceeds in parallel to the engineered controlled demolition of the EU’s economy, with the European Commission merrily acting as a sort of P.R. arm of NATO.
Amidst the propaganda dementia cum acute cognitive dissonance overdrive across the whole NATOstan sphere, the only antidote is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed. The West ignores them at their own collective peril.
Patrushev goes Triple-X unplugged
Let’s start with President Putin’s speech to the Council of Legislators in St. Petersburg celebrating the Day of Russian Parliamentarism.
Putin demonstrated how a hardly new “geopolitical weapon” relying on “Russophobia and neo-Nazis”, coupled with efforts of “economic strangulation”, not only failed to smother Russia, but impregnated in the collective unconscious the feeling this an existential conflict: a “Second Great Patriotic War”.
With off the charts hysteria across the spectrum, a message for an Empire that still refuses to listen, and doesn’t even understand the meaning of “indivisibility of security”, had to be inevitable:
“I would like to emphasize once again that if someone intends to interfere in the events taking place from the outside and creates threats of a strategic nature unacceptable to Russia, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning fast. We have all the tools for this. Such as no one can boast of now. And we won’t brag. We will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know about it – we have made all the decisions on this matter.”
Translation: non-stop provocations may lead Mr. Kinzhal, Mr. Zircon and Mr. Sarmat to be forced to present their business cards in select Western latitudes, even without an official invitation.
Arguably for the first time since the start of Operation Z, Putin made a distinction between military operations in Donbass and the rest of Ukraine. This directly relates to the integration in progress of Kherson, Zaporozhye and Kharkov, and implies the Russian Armed Forces will keep going and going, establishing sovereignty not only in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics but also over Kherson, Zaporozhye, and further on down the road from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea, all the way to establishing full control of Nikolaev and Odessa.
The formula is crystal clear: “Russia cannot allow the creation of anti-Russian territories around the country.”
Now let’s move to an extremely detailed interview by Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, where Patrushev sort of went triple-X unplugged.
The key take away may be here:
“The collapse of the American-centric world is a reality in which one must live and build an optimal line of behavior.” Russia’s “optimal line of behavior” – much to the wrath of the universalist and unilateralist hegemon – features “sovereignty, cultural and spiritual identity and historical memory.”
Patrushev shows how…
“tragic scenarios of world crises, both in past years and today, are imposed by Washington in its desire to consolidate its hegemony, resisting the collapse of the unipolar world.”
The U.S. goes no holds barred…
“to ensure that other centers of the multipolar world do not even dare to raise their heads, and our country not only dared, but publicly declared that it would not play by the imposed rules.”
Patrushev could not but stress how War Inc. is literally making a killing in Ukraine:
“The American and European military-industrial complex is jubilant, because thanks to the crisis in Ukraine, it has no respite from order. It is not surprising that, unlike Russia, which is interested in the speedy completion of a special military operation and minimizing losses on all sides, the West is determined to delay it at least to the last Ukrainian.”
And that mirrors the psyche of American elites:
“You are talking about a country whose elite is not able to appreciate other people’s lives. Americans are used to walking on scorched earth. Since World War II, entire cities have been razed to the ground by bombing, including nuclear bombing. They flooded the Vietnamese jungle with poison, bombed the Serbs with radioactive munitions, burned Iraqis alive with white phosphorus, helped terrorists poison Syrians with chlorine (…) As history shows, NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, only an offensive one.”
Previously, in an interview with the delightfully named The Great Game show on Russian TV, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had once again detailed how the Americans…
“no longer insist on the implementation of international law, but on respect for the ‘rules-based world order’. These ‘rules’ are not deciphered in any way. They say that now there are few rules. For us, they don’t exist at all. There is international law. We respect it, as does the UN Charter. The key provision, the main principle is the sovereign equality of states. The U.S. flagrantly violates its obligations under the UN Charter when it promotes its ‘rules’”.
Lavrov had to stress, once again, that the current incandescent situation may be compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis:
“In those years, there was a channel of communication that both leaders trusted. Now there is no such channel. No one is trying to create it.”
The Empire of Lies, in its current state, does not do diplomacy.
The pace of the game in the new chessboard
In a subtle reference to the work of Sergei Glazyev, as the Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union explained in our recent interview, Patrushev hit the heart of the current geoeconomic game, with Russia now actively moving towards a gold standard:
“Experts are working on a project proposed by the scientific community to create a two-circuit monetary and financial system. In particular, it is proposed to determine the value of the ruble, which should be secured by both gold and a group of goods that are currency values, to put the ruble exchange rate in line with real purchasing power parity.”
That was inevitable after the outright theft of over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves. It may have taken a few days for Moscow to be fully certified it was facing Totalen Krieg. The corollary is that the collective West has lost any power to influence Russian decisions. The pace of the game in the new chessboard is being set by Russia.
Earlier in the week, in his meeting with the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, Putin went as far as stating that he’d be more than willing to negotiate – with only a few conditions: Ukrainian neutrality and autonomy status for Donbass. Yet now everyone knows it’s too late. For a Washington in Totalen Krieg mode negotiation is anathema – and that has been the case since the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine meeting in Istanbul in late March.
So far, on Operation Z, the Russian Armed forces have used only 12% of its soldiers,10% of its fighter jets, 7% of its tanks, 5% of its missiles, and 4% of its artillery. The pain dial is set to go substantially up – and with the total liberation of Mariupol and the resolution one way or another of the Donbass cauldron there is nothing the hysteria/propaganda/weaponizing combo deployed by the collective West can do to alter facts on the ground.
That includes desperate gambits such as the one uncovered by SVR – Russian foreign intel, which very rarely makes mistakes. SVR found out that the Empire of Lies/War Inc. axis is pushing not only for a de facto Polish invasion to annex Western Ukraine, under the banner of “historical reunification”, but also for a joint Romanian/Ukrainian invasion of Moldova/Transnistria, with Romanian “peacekeepers” already piling up near the Moldova border.
Washington, as the SVR maintains, has been plotting the Polish gambit for over a month now. It would “lead from behind” (remember Libya?), “encouraging” a “group of countries” to occupy Western Ukraine.
So partition is already on the cards. Were that ever to materialize, it will be fascinating to bet on which locations Mr. Sarmat would be inclined to distribute his business card.
Twitter’s $17 Million Per Year Censorship Czar Could Get Axe Under Musk
That’s one well-paid chick. That’s absurd. Obviously, there is something rotten for a social media company that produces ZERO products.
Twitter's censorship czar Victoria Gadde - who broke down in tears last week during a conference call to discuss Elon Musk's purchase of the company - stands to lose her job which paid $17 million last year, as Musk is reportedly planning to cut jobs and executive pay as part of the takeover. Musk expressed "no confidence" in Twitter's current management following the announcement of his plans to buy the company. That said, the 48-year-old Gadde - who was behind decisions such as Zero Hedge's February 2020 ban for peculating that Covid-19 may have emerged from a Wuhan Lab, and former President Trump's ongoing ban, has a reported $12.5 million severance package, according to the NY Post. Musk shared a flowchart last week based on a 2019 appearance by Gadde on "The Joe Rogan Experience" where journalist Tim Pool absolutely wrecked her over anti-conservative bias.
From HERE.
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Uh oh – concerning the pic of the “talking head of the minitruth” –
A perfect find for the SPOTMs of the vigilantcitizen !