We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
Watch this video before it is taken down. It is currently suppressed.
Ray McGovern with Nima Alkhorshid on the possibility Israel might have sent a F-35 loaded with atomics, the intention was to detonate them in high altitude, getting an EMP effect destroying the Iranian civil electrical grid. The military…
As I understood the discussion, Pepe Escobar reported it, and Scott Ritter, as a military expert, said that that event was logically impossible.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t put anything past these monsters.
…
IF TRUE, RUSSIA SAVED THE WORLD ONCE AGAIN FROM …
… THE MINI-ME ROGUE STATE IN WEST ASIA BEING PROTECTED BY THE BIG ROGUE STATE IN NORTH AMERICA. A QUITE DANGEROUS PAIR FOR ALL OF US TO SAY THE LEAST.
Mao Zedong 毛 泽 东 (1893-1976) made sure in 1949, at the start of the People’s Republic of China, that all the Western Jews left China. I’m not speaking of the Jewish families of Kaifeng being there since the Song dynasty (960-1279). Obviously, they were not expelled. Also, I’m not speaking of certain Jews like Sydney Rittenberg 李 敦 白 (1921-2019) or Israel Epstein 伊 斯 雷 爾 爱 潑 斯 坦 (1915-2005) the Chinese rulers thought useful for them and China.
Contrary to many urban legends repeated with gusto by misguided people, I don’t think that the Jews (in general or those living in Israel) rule the World. Of course, their “elite” is part of the movers & shakers of this World but it doesn’t mean that they rule the World. They are powerful but not all-powerful as their excellent propaganda managed to make some incurable morons believe.
Their “elite” had a lot of money, sure …
But that kind of candies works only for lowly kakocrats and NO countries endowed with a minimum of aristocratic men at the helm of the State would have succumbed to money.
Same remark concerning the big rogue state.
What’s certain is that their “elite”, especially the Zionist variety (living in the US, Western Europe or Israel) is endowed with chutzpah to an inordinate level.
The British used them at the beginning of the twentieth century for getting a foothold in West Asia because Mark Sykes (1879-1919), the British representative in West Asia at the time, got extremely disappointing results in his negotiations with François Georges-Picot (1870-1951), his French counterpart. And being clever people, the Zionist leaders, having seen clearly through the British government and its representative, the clumsy Mark Sykes, skillfully accepted to be used in order to gain a state in Palestine, having stolen step by step the land from their rightful owners since then.
As crimes’ partners, the Zionists are in a very deep symbiotic relationship with the Anglo-American EstabLishment, hence the acronym I coined : KFC-AZAEL (Kakistocratic Feudal Conglomerate of the Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment).
It’s a well-known psychological phenomenon that a servant will take on unconsciously/subconsciously the characteristics of the master. In this case, both groups suffering from the get-go of extreme hubris; together, they reciprocally amplify to a staggering degree their common deadly character flaw.
Here’s a reminder of what happened between May 16, 1916 (Sykes-Picot Agreement) & November 2, 1917 (Balfour Declaration) :
There is also THE OTHER URBAN LEGEND that, thanks to his agent having got the news that Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo on June 15, 1815 before everyone, the Rothschild at the time screwed everybody at the London Stock Exchange and that his family held under their thumb the British aristocracy & its global policies since then … Legendary, huh ?!
What is sure is that the Zionists managed somehow to get A LOT OF MONEY from the US officials. The US elite is completely hypnotized by the prestige (the bribes ?) of the Jews & the Jewish culture ???
Believe what you want but for me, NO ONE IS ALL-POWERFUL …
I repeat myself : If true, Russia saved the World once again.
Not only that, Russia sent a crystal clear message to the mini rogue state & to the big rogue state, that there are truly red lines in this World & there is someone to seriously enforce them.
SO I WISH PEPE ESCOBAR’s REPORT IS 100% TRUE.
Those people, the ruling classes of the mini rogue state & the ruling class of the big rogue state, will never change.
THE ONLY SOLUTION IS THEN :
Ceterum censeo KFC-AZAEL-nem esse delendam
PAX SINICA PERSICA KOREANA RUSSICA
IMPERIUM MUNDI SEMPER INVICTUS
Have you ever been pulled over by a police officer for an unusual reason?
Yes. I was on my way home and got pulled over by a cop who handed me two packages of really nice dog treats, asked to fuss my dog, and then gave me a card with his name and number. He was really friendly, lovely, asked me alot about my dog, and even asked me where I got my dog’s beautiful collar from. He then wished us well and left.
This is why.
I had been at a restaurant with three friends and my assistance dog. I’m a wheelchair user. It was a nice place, a bit pricey, but nice.
My assistance dog was always impeccably well behaved. She went under the table, next to me, and went to sleep.
We ordered our meal, and were eating, when some very bratty kids (6 ish in age, old enough to read) started running around. They saw my dog and started bugging her, getting near her and yelling WOOF!!! Then one brat poked her. My dog’s only reaction was to get up and put her head on my knee.
I strongly told Brats to bug off, leave my dog alone, and to go to their parents. Brat 2 joined her, saying, loudly, DOGS AREN’T ALLOWED IN HERE, STUPID!
I smiled as nicely as I could and tried to explain that she was a special helper dog… then Brat 1… who was a good 3 feet from my dog (whose head was still on my knee) yelled THAT DOG BIT ME!
The two terrors ran screaming ITS A BAD DOG! ITS A PITBULL! ITS GONNA KILL ME!
My dog was a smallish, exceptionally gentle, patient, and calm black lab.
In no time parents are with restaurant manager demanding that they throw me and my “pitbull” out of the restaurant. All the other patrons are looking and pointing.
I have not moved. We are still eating.
The parents (and its clear why the kids were monsters…) come over and demand to see my ID so they can “engage their solicitor”. The manager, clearly upset and embarrassed, said “I need to ask you to leave”.
I said I was not giving my ID to anyone, I was not leaving, and I would appreciate if they would leave me alone as my dog was allowed by law and they were ruining my.meal. I might have added that at least SHE had her shots and was obedience trained…
The mother screamed that my pitbull (sigh) had nearly ripped Perfect Princess’ arm off. Note said child has a small round superficial bite mark on her wrist encircled by the same pink as her lip gloss.
I told them all that my dog bit no one, and to call the cops but I wasn’t speaking to them any longer. My friend just kept eating and chatting as if nothingvwas wrong.
Parents storm off, manager begs me to leave, tells me to leave, demands I leave… I explained about Assistance Dogs, introduce her, tell him he can see she was not a problem but by then Parents are back and they had called 999 saying there was a rabid pitbull running arounfçattacking children … manager tells me to please get out. I reply…
She’s not a bitbull.
There is no rabies in Britain.
She had not moved from her space next to me.
She is wearing an AssistancevDog jacket, Ive shown my ID, and tried to explain. Im going no where.
I’m not really upset because this shit happens often enough that Im used to it… the brats were a unique twist, but people are really ignorant about Assistance Dogs.
All of a sudden a handful of cops burst in. Parents tell their side. They strut over to me and demand I immediately leave. I said that when we were done eating I would, but not until. In all this the waitress had continued to serve us… so we just got our puddings.
Lead cop is totally self impressed, and starts to read me the riot act, demanding I surrender this pitbull I brought into the place. I kept eating. He bangs his hand on the table to get my attention.
When he does, the dog treat I had on the edge of the table falls off and my sweet pup sticks her head out, takes the treat, and goes back under the table.
Just then the other cops come back and pull cop1 aside. Theyve read the situation, told him so.
He asks to see my dog properly. I called her out, and told her to ‘say hello’. She was wagging her tail (total fusspot) and raised her paw to the cop. All three of them are now admiring my dog.
Parents come over demanding I get arrested, deported, hung drawn quartered, etc.
Cop says Your children are harassing this lady, her dog is allowed…
Mother says about dog bite.
Cop says “thats not a dog bite, lady, and wasting police time is an offense. Leave this lady alone, get control of your kids, and either go sit or leave.”
He tells manager that there is no problem with us.
Cop sees we are all done and kind of hust waiting for this foolishness to end so we can leave as we’ve got our coats on, etc.
He says “I suppose you guys would feel better just getting out of here yeah?”
I start to argue but my friend says “Yes, we are going. “
He says “Im just going to get some details from the manager, and we will stay until you go, to keep the peace”.
Waitress comes over and I am about to ask for our bill but the cop waves her away saying “they are leaving, please just let them go…”
We go! Our bill was well over 100… I put £10 on the table as a tip.
We got in my van after loading my chair, saw the cops leave as we were.
When I saw the lights behind me I thought we were in trouble gor skipping out on the bill!
I did call the restaurant later and spoke to the manager to offer to pay, he profusely apologised and sent me a gift voucher and asked for another chance.
We did go back, just me and a friend (and my dog) there was a sign clearly posted that assistance dogs were welcome … but that poorly behaved children were not!
We lost Taska March 2024. Her successor is just as calm and well behaved
Assistance dogs are amazing
What secret did you learn about your neighbor that made your jaw drop?
When I was growing up my neighbor Tom was my role model. My father was an alcoholic who was rarely home except to sleep. When I wanted to learn something, I would talk to Tom. He had dropped out of school to help support his family, but was very talented with his hands. He built the house he lived in, and I mean completely, plumbing, electrical, everything. He was also an outstanding mechanic. He was very strong, but incredibly gentle and patient. I knew he was a vet, but he never talked about it except to say he hadn’t really done anything. When he died, his family searched for his records. They wanted to bury him with any medals he had been awarded. I think most of us expected stuff like a Good Conduct, National Defense, maybe a European Victory Medal. What they found out was that this quiet gentle man was a genuine war hero. He had been credited with single handedly stopping an attack by a company of Germans, effectively destroying the company through the combination of casualties he caused and prisoners he took, despite having been wounded at the start of the attack. For his actions he had been awarded a Silver Star. There were also a number of awards for other actions. I ended up spending 20 years in the military, and his rack of medals remains one of the most impressive I’ve seen.
Every mans daydream
What was a gift that made you speechless?
I was 39 with a 4 year old son. Becoming a single mom through adoption and everything was great. I had a great career, lots of friends, the child I’d been dreaming of etc. Suddenly, a massive heart issue popped up leaving me on disability for 11 months while it was diagnosed and treated. We had just moved to a new place a couple of months prior. Then, just after I paid the bills and went in for a minor heart procedure, it turns out the people I had been renting from were not the owners of the house. They were squatters and I was scammed. The actual owner showed up wanting me to pay first, last and deposit, and the past due electric bill that was nearly $1000 at that point (my rent included utilities). Obviously I couldn’t pay it so I had to move out quickly just 2 days after heart surgery. We found a place and I got help moving the majority of Stuff. Some was stolen while we were moving the other stuff.
I was released to go back to work and my HR informed me that they had accidentally overpaid me during my disability, do they were deducting that from my next 4 paychecks. About the same time, the Franchise Tax Board hit me with a penalty for not filing my taxes the year before and garnished 25% of my wages. So I was getting about $850 a month at that time. We were sinking fast! I wasn’t fully recovered enough to have strenuous work and I only get paid once a month at my regular job.
I was at my breaking point. Then, my only vehicle broke down, again! I am not super religious, but I do pray and I was definitely b my knees at that point. I didn’t know what I was gonna do. My credit was shot, I was SOL. One day I get the mail. There was a ton of bills in there. I left them sitting on the table for 2 days, because I cannot pay them anyway.
Finally, I sat down to figure it how bad this was gonna be and I noticed that one of the letters is a greeting card with no return address, but addressed to me.
I open it up and there is a beautiful card that says, “I see you struggling and I see you keep going. You are so loved and you will overcome this. Signed Jesus Christ.”
Inside the card was $2,000 in cash! I couldn’t speak for a few minutes! I still have no idea who sent that card, but it was definitely a game changer for us! To whoever sent that card and money, they definitely changed our lives.
“The United States has consistently claimed to comply with ‘the rules-based international order’, but the most significant rules are the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, including international legal norms such as UN Security Council resolutions.
The Security Council, as the core of the world’s collective security mechanism, should by no means be a tool manipulated by individual countries for geopolitical purposes, nor should it serve as a stage to pursue hegemony or power politics.
There is no exception in the United Nations in complying with international laws including Security Council resolutions, and the United States holds no privileges in this regard.”
Excerpt from remarks by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during a joint press conference with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi after their talks in Jakarta, April 18, 2024.
INCREDIBLE SCENES (this is why I came to LAOS) 🇱🇦 LOST in LAOS Ep:2
I know Thailand is the land of smiles but in my own experience I found the people of Laos and Cambodia to be even friendlier than the amazing Thai people. Really miss that whole beautiful area of the world. Happy Travels
A real adventure…
What factors have contributed to the growing demand for fast food among Indian consumers?
Ah India
One aspect of the Nation I am proud of
Fast Food in India has been INDIANIZED better than in any other nation
After all these years of McDonalds and KFC and Burger King’s and Taco Bell – the leading fast food is still Vada Pav
When KFC was forced to launch Biryani among in its Indian menu when it was evident that the 2 Pc and 3 Pc and the famous Zinger was not doing it for the Indian people
When India is the only country in the world where the top selling burger McAloo Tikki is a vegetarian one and the top 3 selling dishes – McAloo Tikki, McSpicy Paneer and Big Spicy Wrap (Paneer) are all vegetarian pushing the Filet O Fish to fourth sport and Mac Maharajah to the fifth spot
We may be utterly beholden to the West for their technology and core software in every sphere
Yet our Fast food growth is mainly due to our own foods
The leading fast foods of today include :-
#1 Vada Pav
#2 Pav Bhaji
#3 Momos
#4 Pani Poori
#5 Bhel Poori
#6 Aloo Tikki
#7 Samosa
#8 Kachauri
#9 Pizza
#10 Sev Puri & Samosa Chat & Aloo Chaat
(Zomato most ordered foods between 3 PM and 7 PM 2023)
Only Pizza stars in the top 10 popularly eaten fast foods of 2023
And guess which is Dominos most popular Pizza?
Indian Tandoori Pizza & Achari Do Pyaza Pizza
Pepperoni or Hawaiian are the least selling while Tandoori Chicken sells far more
So it’s not just Mcdonalds outlets or KFC outlets that have spurred the taste of fast foods in India like it did in other nations
The three top reasons include
Availability
Fast Food is available everywhere today
You go to a street and you have a Pani Puri wallah or a Chat seller or a Pav Bhaji stall or a Bakery selling Puffs or a High End Pizza store
You are served in 3–4 minutes and finish in 10 minutes
Far more convenient for office culture and working culture
Price
Fast Food is not too expensive especially Indian Fast Food
You can get Pav Bhaji for 40–60 Bucks a plate which is way lower in cost and better in taste compared to a ₹ 378/- meal in KFC
Taste
Fast Food may or may not be unhealthy but it’s tasty
It’s spicy and Indians like spicy and tangy food
Chili Verde
This authentic Chile Verde recipe made with fresh tomatillos, poblano peppers, jalapenos, onion, garlic, and cilantro takes a little more work than the typical “salsa dump” recipes but is absolutely worth it! Serve it with these Slow Cooker Pinto Beans, corn tortillas, or with some Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice.
There are so many different recipes out there for chile verde but unfortunately, most of them involve grabbing a jar of store bought salsa verde and dumping it into the slow cooker with either chicken or pork.
While this can be really delicious (case in point: Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken), it will never be as good as making green salsa from scratch. While making salsa from scratch may sound intimidating, it’s actually really easy and only takes about 5 minutes of active prep.
Let’s start with the salsa. Chile Verde is made with a tomatillo salsa verde made with fresh tomatillos, chile peppers, onion, and garlic. The first step to creating this flavor is roasting the tomatillos and peppers. Roasting everything deepens the flavor, adds smokiness to the salsa, and also mellows out some of the sour flavor in the tomatillos. Next, it is important to brighten up the salsa and that is where the cilantro comes in.
How to Serve Chile Verde
Traditionally this dish is served with rice, beans, and tortillas with fresh limes but there are all kinds of ways you can use this. Here are some of my favorites:
Tacos: This is a no brainer, but clearly this stuff is delicious in tacos. Warm the tortillas and serve the chicken with fresh cilantro, limes, and queso fresco or avocado.
Burritos and Burrito Bowls: Build your own burritos or burrito bowls with rice and beans. Personally, I like to make burrito bowls since the chicken is moist and sometimes I find the burrito begins to fall apart before I finish eating it.
Quesadillas: While it may be tempting to stuff this inside a quesadilla, I actually prefer to serve it on top so the quesadilla gets nice and crispy on the outside. Simply make a cheese quesadilla and then top it with Chile Verde.
Scrambled eggs: This is so good for breakfast with some scrambled eggs and pinto or black beans. Trust me.
Baked potatoes: This is a great stuffing for baked potatoes or sweet potatoes topped with some melted cheese.
Chilaquiles: Chilaquiles are one of my favorite breakfast recipes and this Chili Verde is so good on a pile of chiliquiles. If you think you might make chilaquiles, I recommend doubling the salsa so you can cook the chips in the extra tomatillo salsa.
What is Chile Verde?
Many people wonder about the origins of Chile Verde and there is some debate whether chile verde is from Mexico or New Mexico. Most people agree that it is a dish that hails from Northern Mexico, and possible areas in New Mexico as well.
In Mexico, it is traditionally made with pork that is slow cooked in a spicy roasted tomatillo salsa that uses a variety of chile peppers. In New Mexico, it is made in a similar manner but traditionally uses Hatch chile peppers or other native New Mexico green chiles.
1Preheat the oven to broil or your oven’s highest temperature setting, like 500 degrees.
2Place the tomatillos, poblano pepper, jalapeno pepper, serrano pepper, onion, and whole unpeeled garlic cloves on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Broil for 10 minutes, flipping everything halfway through. If the garlic looks like it is beginning to burn, remove it when you flip everything else.
3Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven. Place the peppers in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a lid. After ten minutes, carefully pull the skin of the peppers off, removing as much as possible. You can also remove the seeds, depending on how spicy you like things. Peel the garlic.
4Add the tomatillos, peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro. and chicken broth to a blender along with any juices from the pan. Blend until it reaches your desired consistency. Some people like a chunkier sauce and some prefer a smoother sauce.
5Stovetop: Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a Dutch oven or heavy pot. Add the chicken (or pork), season with salt and pepper, and brown for 2-3 on both sides. Add the sauce and bring to a simmer. For chicken, let simmer on low heat for 25-30 minutes until the chicken easily shreds with a fork. For pork, simmer for 2.5-3 hours until pork easily pulls apart.
6Slow Cooker: Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a Dutch oven or heavy pot. Add the chicken (or pork), season with salt and pepper, and brown for 2-3 on both sides. (You can skip this step but it adds more flavor if you sear the protein first.) Add to the slow cooker with the sauce. For chicken, cook on low for 4 hours. For pork, cook on low for 8 hours or until the pork is fork tender.
7Instant Pot: Use the instant pot saute setting. Add the chicken (or pork), season with salt and pepper, and brown for 2-3 on both sides. Add the chile verde salsa and cover. For chicken thighs, use the manual (Pressure Cooker) setting and cook for 8 minutes. Let naturally release for at least 2-3 minutes before using the steam valve. For pork, use the manual (Pressure Cooker) setting and cook for 45 minutes. Let naturally release for at least 2-3 minutes before using the steam valve.
When it comes to the heat in this recipe, it comes from using three different types of chile peppers that vary in strength and flavor. The poblano has the least amount of heat but adds a lot of flavor similar to a slightly spicy bell pepper.
The jalapeno is in the middle when it comes to spice and the serrano is the spiciest. You can vary the heat in the salsa by using different amounts of each pepper to find the right combination for you. You can also remove the seeds for less heat or leave them in for more.
Whenever making salsa, start slowly and taste along the way until it is as spicy as you like. Generally, I recommend making it slightly spicier than you want your final product since it will mellow out when cooked when it is cooked with protein.
If you have kids who don’t like spicy, make the salsa using just one seeded poblano pepper for flavor. Cook the protein in this mild salsa. Then puree the remaining peppers with a little chicken broth. Stir this spicy salsa into your dish individually so you can have a spicy version. I always make it this way and my toddler devours the milder chicken while I make mine super spicy.
The next decision when making Chile Verde is what kind of protein you would like to use. Traditionally Chile Verde recipes are made with pork but it is often made with dark meat chicken as well. Both options are delicious.
Normally I like to make it with chicken for a quick meal and I use pork when I will have more time since the pork takes much longer to cook. To keep things lighter, I like to use boneless skinless chicken thighs or a lean pork shoulder roast, but any protein would work.
When I was a boy in middle school, perhaps 12 to 14 years old, I needed a new pair of boots for winter time. Well, it seemed that my father has an old pair of work boots that he never used. And so he gave them to me to wear during Winter.
These were “Engineer’s boots”, and are typical boots that you see bikers wear or the Terminator, dressed in biker garb, wear. I thought that they looked cool.
Only one thing though.
They were steel toed, meaning that the front of them were steel. Great to protect your feet. But, terrible in the Winter.
My father knew that this was a problem, and told me so. But I refused to listen to him, and so I wore those things for maybe four or five years until I went and got myself a real genuine pair of hiking boots.
Never the less, it was a true and real miracle that I never got frost-bite while wearing them. My feet were constantly frozen each and every time I stepped outside in the frozen woods around my home.
Was I bad and wrong for wearing them? Yes I was.
Should my father thrown those boots away and got me a replacement pair without the steel toe up front? Yes he should of.
But time is the teacher, and what I know know is only through the prism of experience. What experiences have you had that would have avoided mistakes in your past? I’ll bet you have many.
Don’t you?
As a side note, when I lived in Boston, Massachusetts, I needed a good pair of Winter Boots. This of course, was decades after the boot adventure. So I went to a local store and got me a proper pair of New England Winter boots, and I’ll tell you, I was never happier.
Easy to put on and take off. Easy to clean and dry: the inserts came out and were washable. Comfortable, warm… always. And my feet were never cold, wet or frozen.
And NO, this is not a paid advertisement. Get them HERE.
These were the shit! I’ll tell you what.
Today…
Generate you own music
Free application, and this makes actual music. Of course, I have been playing around with it.
[Verse]In Jamaica, sunny days Irie vibes, and feelin' irie ways (irie ways) But when me hungry, I know what's good Peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, that's what's understood (oh yeah)
[Chorus]Spread the peanut-butter, spread the jelly (ooh-yeah) Put 'em together, it's a reggae melody Spread the peanut-butter, spread the jelly (ooh-yeah) Dance along, feel the rhythm, it's so jellylicious (jellylicious)
[Verse]In the morning, when I rise I got a craving, I can't disguise I need some sweetness to start my day Spinnin' around, like a reggae DJ (yeah, yeah)
[Chorus]Peanut-butter and jelly, it's the perfect blend (ooh-yeah) Spread it on thick, let the flavors transcend With every bite, feelin' oh so fine (oh so fine) Groovin' with PB&J, it's a reggae rhyme (yeah, yeah)
Here’s two Country & Western songs about Peanut-butter pies…
[Verse]Sitting on the front porch, gettin' lost in the sun Got a jar of peanut butter, it's my kind of fun Mix it up with some sugar, creamy and sweet Spread it on a crust, can't be beat, can't be beat (ooh-yeah)
[Chorus]Peanut butter pies, oh they make me smile With every bite, it's like a little slice of sky Peanut butter pies, oh they're pure delight They keep me comin' back, every single night (ooh, ooh)
[Verse]Well, I was sittin' on my porch in the sunny afternoon When my mama brought me a treat, it was comin' to bloom She said, "Darlin', I made your favorite, just for you" I took a bite and knew I had to share the news
[Chorus]Peanut-butter pies, sweet as a southern sunrise Meltin' in your mouth, takin' you to paradise With each bite, my heart takes flight, oh my-oh my Peanut-butter pies, can't get enough, oh, I can't deny
AI is a major force, and will slam-dunk our society. Today…
Have you ever met your school bully as an adult?
I was terrorised as a child by the older kids in my neighbourhood. We were poor but I was quite popular with other kids my age. For some reason this made me a target with the popular older kids. They would take great pleasure in chasing me and if they caught me they would beat me to a pulp. It was the 80s and this kind of thing was just accepted.
Fast forward 10 years. I’ve done an apprenticeship as a scaffolder, put on a lot of weight. Bulked so much I’ve earned the name Tank at work. I bump into the ring leader of the older kids in a night club.
I get we were kids when the bullying happened and think that as he’s now grown up he’s probably grown up. As I pass him I smile and say “Alright, mate?” He replies with “Don’t fucking speak to me”. This stops me in my tracks. I look him dead in the eye. The club feels like it’s gone silent as I contemplate knocking his head clean off of his shoulders. I said to him:
“Listen Julian, we’re not 10 any more and this isn’t the estate, now, turn back around and walk out of here before you get hurt.”
He froze. There was a look of sheer confusion on his face. He turned on his heels and walked out the door without another word.
The simple answer: Me. On September 3, 2012, when I was 35, I had the first of 4 sudden cardiac arrests and clinically died. I was anoxic, or without breath for somewhere under 10 minutes. I was diagnosed with a heart condition called Brugada Syndrome, which is a gene mutation that largely goes undiagnosed because the first symptom is death. In that time, I suffered mild traumatic brain injury or tbi. Before that I was a lively, smart woman, mom, fluent Spanish speaker with a great job of 6 years. After I came home, I couldn’t recall that thing the kids played with in the backyard. I just pointed and cried. Their swingset. My doctors couldn’t agree on when, or if I should return to work. Subsequently I was terminated as was denied short term disability because their physicians didn’t agree with mine and my time off wasn’t covered. I had never been fired before, and it’s never gotten easier since. I’ve been fired 4 times. I have worked at Walmart, and as a receptionist at a small nursing home. My doctors told me to try Disability(SSDI). I tried and was denied, saying I was too young and able to be a mail sorter. I kid you not. I struggle. Then 5 ‘events’ with my ICD(internal defibrillators) and 2 unsuccessful cardiac ablations left me with anxiety, panic attacks and PTSD. I have lost so much of my memory, including most of my Spanish skills, my confidence, my ability to learn new things much less recall previous things. My short term memory is appalling and I reach for words often. 3 weeks ago I was let go from yet another job, despite telling them of my ADA status. At least I got excellent counseling which all but erased the mental anguish.
So yes, I miss the person who I was.
I can relate to this
Chicken and Vegetable Stew (Saucochi di Gallinja)
Yield: 8 or 9 servings
Ingredients
1 (2 1/2 to 3 pound) broiler-fryer chicken, cut up
6 cups water
2 tablespoons instant beef bouillon
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
2 medium potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch slices
2 medium sweet potatoes or yams, cut into 1/2 inch slices
3 ears sweet corn, cut into 3 pieces
1/4 pound winter squash, pared and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (1 cup)
1/2 cup fresh or frozen green peas
1 small hot chile pepper, stemmed, seeded and sliced
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Chopped chives
Instructions
Heat chicken, water and bouillon to boiling in Dutch oven; reduce heat. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.
Skim off fat. Add remaining ingredients except chives. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer until thickest pieces of chicken are done and vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes.
Garnish each serving with chives.
What China Just Did Changes The Entire Space Industry And America Is Terrified!
Once again as a racist you cannot see beyond wages. As a spremacist you miss the point all together about the education, the trainings , the willingness to learn, the feebleness, the ability to adapt and change, the characteristics of Chinese language that is superior in retaining knowledge and the unique discipline, and hard work of the Chinese workers and a whole host of the Confucian and Taoist edicts that groomed a Chinese worker from birth that so much affect the immense productivity and efficiency of Chinese workers.
So white Caucasians analyst are simply unaware of these characteristics and they think simply and blindly thinks that Chinese makes things cheaper because of wages and government support and taxes means absolutely nothing compared to a perfectly well trained and highly disciplined worker.
My first job as a Town Manager in the early 80’s was in a small town in Kentucky along the Mississippi River. Some interesting tid-bits….
The Chief of Police was driving me around my first week there. We were in a residential area and he stopped and opened his door. He got out his shotgun and shot a dog in the street. He got back in the car, called Public Works and told them to pick up the dead dog on Maple Street. When I asked him why he shot the dog he said it didn’t have a dog tag.
Town Hall was located in downtown. I’m working in my office on the second floor and when I hear a gun shot blast. I looked out the window and there’s a half dozen people waking down the middle of the street with shotguns. I called the police dispatcher and said there’s people with shotguns walking downtown and shooting, please let the Chief know. The dispatcher said “yeah, it’s pigeon day. All the duck hunters get together and shoot the pigeons. It’s a warm up to duck season which starts this weekend. I believe the Chief is with them.”
The local doctor died a few months before I got there. He had been the only doctor in town for 30+ years. He willed his medical office building to the Town. One of my jobs would be to modernize the office and find a new doctor. When I went in the office to see what needed to be done I noted he had two waiting rooms. I assumed that was “well” patients and “sick” patients. It wasn’t. It was blacks and whites.
The nearest TV stations was Memphis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri. They were too far away for ‘over the air’ reception so people in town didn’t own television sets. I called a cable company and had them built a cable system in town.
We operated the local utilities, which included water, sewer and natural gas. We had a separate building for the electric system. Two women worked inside the office and a crew of men did the outside electric work. One of the women went to Disney World on vacation. While she was gone the other woman had an emergency operation. This was the first time both had been gone at the same time in years. I called my wife and asked her to cover for them until one or the other got back. My wife was a CPA and home along (without TV) with our toddler son. She jumped at the chance to do something. She opened the office and before lunch she called and told me the woman were taking cash out of the cash drawer and covering the missing money with their own personal checks, which they never deposited. More than $3,000. I told her to deposit their checks. I hired an auditor to come investigate, had the locks on the doors changed, filed a police report and informed the Mayor & Council. I fired the women. The checks bounced. The Town Council told me to not press charges against the women. The women filed for unemployment, which I appealed and won.
There was a giant flood wall to keep the river from flooding downtown. We had a number of large pump stations to pump water over the dikes and flood wall. Beavers was the bane of the town. There was a “bounty” on beaver ears and there was a local guy who bought beaver fur.
The volunteer Fire Chief invited me to a monthly last Friday cookout which I accepted of course. As it turns out that was men only, no wives. Just as well, my wife would never had eaten the beaver stew.
I was the Town Manager for 365 days and took a job in Tennessee in a very interesting town.
The Ukraine War taught the Taiwanese a lesson. The so-called protection of Taiwan by the West is to make Taiwan the battlefield and let the Taiwanese suffer the consequences of the war. Taiwan is part of China at present International laws so China has sovereignty over Taiwan. China has an Anti-Seperation Law. if Taiwan pushes for independence, it will get into war. Now they understand the so-called Western protection for them is a trap. Their youths will die. Their seniors and children will become refugees that already saturated the developed countries so that they may have no place to escape the war.
The West will supply weapons to Taiwan to fight till the last Taiwanese, just as now Ukraine has to fight the last Ukrainians.
Ukraine War is evident. The US wants Taiwan to claim independence as soon as possible. So the US makes a big arms sale to Taiwan, giving them the false perception of “safe”. The US needs the Ukraine War to weaken Russia. The US wants to weaken China more than Russia. So the US wants Taiwan to provoke a proxy war for the US.
The US is a very smart businessman. If the US wages war on China, the US soldiers will die and the US has to commit many resources such as arsenals. Now it can let the Taiwanese replace the US soldiers in the war, and Taiwan even has to purchase the weapons, to fight the war for the US geopolitical objective. The US wants to fight a war against China without cost a penny and a single soldier. The US wants a war it can profit from while Taiwan bears all the costs, including lives and weapons. The US already profited from the perception of war because it made a big sale of weapons to Taiwan.
You see this face and you don’t really get awed by these warnings
Your first thought is STUPID MORON
This guy doesn’t have the ability to put that voice of steel that some US Leaders had in the past
It’s why everybody has openly mocked him, from MBS blatantly ignoring him for 24 hours to Jordan openly telling him to go f*** himself to Qatar to Iraq all snubbing him including our EAM Jaishankar
Someone like James Baker would be different
His voice would have that steel warning
You would think twice before acting against the man
Not Blinken
Not Biden
Not Austin
Not Sunak
Not Ursula
These are Circus Clowns and if they warn, you can laugh and ignore them safely
What comes to mind as I move through a dining experience?
When you arrive, you’re greeted by a doorman, who opens the car door, ladies first. If it’s raining, they escort you to the door under a large umbrella.
The door is opened for you, and the host(s) say hello immediately rather than looking down at a floor chart. Maybe greeting you by name.
There is either someplace to check your coat, or the host helps you off with yours and checks it for you. The host would return it to you when you’re ready to go.
The music is subtle, whatever kind it is.
Lighting is appropriate. There are fresh flowers and in the evenings, candlelight (with real candles). People look better in candlelight, and a lady feeling pretty creates another luxurious atmosphere.
If, God forbid, your table wasn’t ready you’re escorted to the bar for a cocktail. There are no buzzing pagers (nor inappropriate jokes about stuffing it down their pants), no name screaming when your table was finally ready. The host carries the drinks for you to your table. If more than two, the ladies’ drinks are carried. Checks are seamlessly transferred from the bar to the table. You TIP the bartender very subtly.
Chairs are pulled out for you, ladies first. When all are seated, then the menus are handed out.
Menus might be printed daily, but there is no stickiness, crumbs, or fingerprints on menus that are reused. No pictures on the menu, nor vendor logos. Probably no prices. They probably don’t offer wings.
There are utensils for each basic course. The waiter (and they’re waiters, not servers) replaces silverware with each course if the meal choices require a different utensil, usually with a mise en place. Proper underliners are used under soup or dessert bowls, ramekins come on a plate, too. (Ben Maurer) Crumbers are used. There are chargers.
No water spots on the silver or glassware. Or windows! (Leroy Binx) God forbid, no crumbs on the floor or seats.
Having someone walk you to the restroom rather than pointing across the room.
There isn’t a “no problem” to be heard.
There is no He or She when addressing someone about someone else. For example, not “She ordered the salmon” but rather “The lady ordered the salmon”. The word “food” is a 4-letter “f” word. (So is “free” and “fair”) It’s “your meal”, “your dinner”, etc. Not “your food”. One doesn’t eat, one dines. You’re not eating with us tonight, you’re dining with us tonight. (Sorry – I don’t know the answer to the pronoun issues people are having these days.)
Water glasses are never low, and you didn’t have to ask for water in the first place. Water is poured after you’re seated, without a drop being spilled on the tablecloth. Although, the waiter might still ask you if you prefer sparkling or still bottled water.
The meal looks beautiful, i.e. no broccoli stems pointing up. (People eat with their eyes) No finger prints on the plates. Protein (main course) is always served at 6:00 on the plate. Ladies first. Period. Meal delivery as well: “And the lady ordered the salmon” as the dish is placed in front of her, coming in from the left. Plates are not handed to the guests. Served from the left, removed from the right. Sometimes, every person is served at the very same time by a group of waiters. It’s called a “drop” (A group of waiters? A “gaggle”? Just kidding!)
Black or white napkins, which, if you get up are refolded neatly on your chair.
Every time a table is bussed, which is immediately, it looks like it’s never been seated before. Condiments (salt & pepper) full and clean, perfectly placed. Freshly ground pepper is always offered, along with grated cheese where appropriate. The latter either freshly grated into a bowl, served by spoon (rare) or by a little grinder that is silver, not plastic. No one says, “Say when”. Holding up your hand a little, palm down says it all.
No catsup or mustard bottles in sight. Ever. (Andre Serafin and Kristin A) Mustard, catsup, mayonnaise, and horseradish are served in ramekins or tiny bowls with small spoons. They probably don’t have steak sauce, although accommodating a guest is paramount, so these days it will probably come in a ramekin, too.
Edited 12/10/19 to add: I’ve often enjoyed and taken for granted the service of a Sommelier, whose job it is to create wine lists, pair wine, and make recommendations of wine on or off the written wine list. What I didn’t know, was the rigorous training and testing it takes to become a Sommelier! There are only a few over 200 in the world, so they are a Big Deal. That said, I’ve never known if the Sommelier just came to our table because we were looking at wine, or if their expertise needed to be requested. A glaring hole in my experience, I must say. Any thoughts or “subtle differences” to contribute?
A red wine glass for red, a white wine glass for white. Red wine is never oxidized. When a bottle of wine is served, it’s (Steven Michael) decanted or chilled appropriately. The restaurant doesn’t even ask, and they know what and when wine should be decanted. The wine tasting is handled with grace and silence, in the appropriate order. The cork should be placed next to the host (Liam MacDonald) so the host can make certain the cork is moist and there aren’t any telltale signs the wine has turned. If the table isn’t already set with glasses for that wine selection, the appropriate glasses are set once the wine is approved. (Rachel Bateman) The invisible waiter tops off the wine. The guest never touches the bottle.
The port doesn’t have pour spouts in them, nor does good scotch or whiskey. White Zinfandel isn’t a featured wine type. There’s a good chance there is no happy hour.
There are no dirty aprons nor shirts on the waiters. No shabby shoes. No crazy hair styles, piercings or tattoos. (Sorry all. That’s life.)
When its a mixed gender couple or table, males’ plates are never removed until the females are finished dining.
Dessert menus are handed out without asking, coffee, tea, espresso or an after dinner brandy or port is always offered.
There are no bus tubs, no stacks of dishes through the dining room, and empty plates are removed IMMEDIATELY directly to the kitchen. Oh. Plates are removed to the kitchen to be boxed. A guest is never, ever, handed a box with a cheery, “Here you go!” The package is always in a nice bag.
There is some controversy in the comments over leftovers. Since I am writing this, I’ll say my own feelings agree with Tim Chisell and Umair about waste, portion control and not being served troughs of food, so there really shouldn’t be leftovers. People do take food home (have you never seen a little tin foil swan?) so I added what a restaurant would not do: hand you a big box.
When you get your leftovers home, the contents look like a beautiful meal. After all, those are the very last impression of you as a waiter and the restaurant.
The check. Reminded to me by my mother. One signs on one’s account. If one must handle a form of payment, it’s normally a card, very subtly put into a check presenter. Not stuck out the top for all to view.
Believe it or not, it’s not just bread or rolls before a meal. It’s not valet parking, or sorbet between courses. Those would be obvious attempts, but if other items such as those which come to mind for me aren’t present, it’s nice, but maybe — not always — a wannabe. It could just be a nicer restaurant not trying to be more than a comfortable, more upscale place to dine. But high-end? Add in details such as these and it will elevate a restaurant.
So there are a lot more obvious indicators, but what really makes or breaks the difference is quality of the food, the service and presentation. Anticipation of the guest’s needs. Sauces, condiments, appropriate suggestions that might enhance the meal for some, but not for others — just to be sure. The appreciation of the guest.
Edited to add: I’ve received so much fun feedback to this answer, I thought I’d incorporate suggestions from commenters. Quora is acting funny (maybe) and not letting me see all the comments, but I’ll be adding them in. Thank you!
And, now I read that I, or this answer, is the highest read in the restaurant category. Interesting to me that something I began almost wistfully others have enjoyed. So thank you and thanks for participating!
If I could change one thing about American schooling — mostly at the high school and college level — I would make it mandatory to teach financial literacy. And I don’t mean basic stuff like how to write a check — that was what passed for “financial literacy” when I was in high school in the 1980s.
I mean we turn out college and high school graduates who have never learned about things like credit scores, how loans work, how taxes work, the value of retirement accounts, how the stock market really works, etc.
My two kids are ages 25 and 23, and anything they know on those subjects, they mostly learned from my wife and me. For the most part, we don’t teach kids how to stay out of financial trouble.
So we have full-grown adults walking into a car dealership, and the salesman steers the question to, “How much car payment can you afford?” The salesman is hoping that the customer is financially illiterate and doesn’t understand what a terrible question that is — for the customer. The salesman will hear that you can afford $600 per month and come back with, “Hmm, we can work with that.” The customer ends up leaving in their $40,000 car, pleased as punch that they can actually afford it, and they think the salesman did them a favor. Maybe down the road they figure out that they’re paying 12% interest on an 84 month car loan, and that they only got half of what their trade-in should have been worth.
Same thing happens on the mortgage front, by the way. Some loan officer runs a preapproval on a young couple and tells them they can afford a $300,000 house. I guarantee you that the couple zooms in on that price point. If they slowed down and asked, they might find out that they can qualify for a $225,000 house with a 15 year mortgage at a substantially lower interest rate, meaning that they build equity faster, pay less in interest, and should they choose to do so, own the house free and clear after 15 years, as opposed to still owing 15 more years of payments if they’d taken the 30 year mortgage. And all they had to do was ask, and reset their expectation to a slightly less expensive house.
So in summary, why are people struggling and over-spending? Because they’re financially illiterate, and we as a society don’t seem to think that’s a problem.
The only time it really happened was when I sprained my ankle.
I was working in retail management and we had inventory coming up on a Sunday.
Friday I sprained my ankle bad. But because of how US healthcare is, I tried to put off having it seen by a doctor because, ugh horrible health insurance and bills. But that Saturday, since I could barely walk, I saw a doctor. And after x-rays to confirm it wasn’t actually broken, given an air-cast boot and doctor’s note for my employer with work restrictions.
I was scheduled that Sunday for inventory plus 2 hours in the store prior to closing. I showed up, air-cast and all, to try to explain that I didn’t think I’d be able to work the inventory. I mean, seems obvious right? Air-cast, doctor’s note, work restrictions, etc.?
The other store management had zero issue with me not working the inventory, they understood I was actually injured and not faking it. They also knew how rarely I called in.
Not to my district manager. Who threatened me with termination. 4 years of work, almost never calling in sick, working every Helliday shit shift, and because I was only one of 5 members of management there that day who was actually injured, I could be fired.
So, malicious compliance it is.
My work restrictions were very detailed and explicit. No climbing, no squatting, no standing for more than 15 minutes at a time, must elevate my ankle every 30 minutes, must be allowed to sit for any tasks that don’t need to be done standing, etc. I also, per company policy, faxed (yes, that long ago) copies of my doctor’s note, etc. to the HR office with a follow-up email.
And I followed the work restrictions to the letter for the whole shift. Despite the fact they had external inventory counters, it still took longer than scheduled, which meant, by law, every member of the store management staff other than the district manager(salary position) had to be paid overtime, since it put us all over 40 hours for the week.
On Monday, the district manager got chewed out by HR and his boss, the area manager.
For having so much overtime (for 5 people, about 2 hours each), for ignoring my doctor’s note, for not excusing me from inventory, for erroneously threatening me with termination (my email mentioned I understood termination of my employment was a possibility due to my injury), and a few other things.
I received 2 days off with pay, apologies from the area manager, HR and the district manager (begrudgingly from him), and wasn’t written up.
And while the district manager bore a grudge against me for his ass chewing, he was also incredibly hesitant to pull any similar stunts against me. It took him about 8 months to do so, and when he did, I left the company, after explaining why to HR, the area and regional manager.
My quitting also left not one, but 2 stores short staffed as he had expected me to cover another store’s shifts after writing me up, denying me a transfer promotion, and rescinding pre-approved vacation time off.
His actions also led to another ass chewing by his superiors after I left. And two of the top performing employees to quit shortly after.
I’ve been to more suicides and sudden deaths than I can remember, but one has always stood out. It was a lady who had hanged herself. It wasn’t particularly gruesome, she was discovered very quickly, and she had obviously done her homework as it appeared to have been effective and quick. The reason it was so memorable was because of WHERE she did it…
As I say, she had done her homework, and had made a proper noose which she had firmly secured to the rafters in the attic of her home. She had stepped through the attic hatch, which had the effect of acting as a ‘gallows drop’. The hatch to the attic was situated at the top of a flight of stairs, so for us as the attending officers the only way to get to her was to walk up the (fairly narrow and dark) stairs to the top where she was effectively ‘standing’ over us, where we had to gently move her to one side in order to get onto the landing. The power to the dwelling was cut, so the only light available to us was via a bedroom window which was situated directly behind her with the door open, such that she was silhouetted to us, and seemingly looking down with glazed eyes.
I’ve been to deaths over the years which were far more gruesome, but there was something psychologically unnerving on a primeval level about having to climb your way up restricted access to a deceased person who is ‘stood’ in a dominant position over you.
Rationally, the apprehension was purely down to perception. Nonetheless, everyone there physically relaxed once we were able to cut her down and rest her on the ground.
One of my juniors in college was a very chirpy girl. She was an only child. A helpful and polite soul, she was liked by nearly all the students and faculty members.
Her home was situated across our college. We used to often drop by her place while heading back home.
One day, we reached college and were greeted with a heart-wrenching news. Our beloved junior had expired. She was lighting a stove while her parents were out. The stove burst and she met a tragic untimely end. No words can describe the sadness that permeated all our lives. It was difficult to accept that someone so dear was suddenly snatched away from us.
We went to her place to meet uncle and aunty and offer our condolences. They sat silently. Absolutely silent and lost. Their vacant eyes told a story that was gut-wrenching.
The couple had lost the joy of their lives. Their only offspring was gone. While she could never be brought back, our college girls tried to make an effort to mitigate the pain.
From the time she was put to rest, not a single day passed when uncle and aunty were left alone. Every day, some girls used to go over to their place and spend time with the couple. We had even decided on the schedule so as to ensure that we did not miss out on any day.
We used to talk to them, take them out sometimes, run errands for them, regale them with our antics in college and generally try to be there for them.
The process was slow. But eventually uncle and aunty were able to come to terms with their loss and move on with their lives. Their smiles and blessings said it all.
A majority of students came together to show the couple that they were not alone… that they had daughters, just not born in their family. This collective effort was one of the most humane, compassionate and loving gestures I’ve ever witnessed.
“NO WAY” Videos That Are Glitching The Entire Internet Out
Terrifying. This Changes EVERYTHING. MY REACTION to What They’re Planning.
The sound still haunts me. I still think of it, and it happened in 1987 and here we are in 2024 and the sound of that night will be with me until the Lord calls me home.
There I will probably meet the 18-year-old senior in high school who didn’t wear his seatbelt as the car rolled over end to end 11 times after exiting the roadway. He was a back seat passenger with no seatbelt and that resulted in his high-speed ejection thru the rear window. He laid in a field and his body appeared pristine, even though his skull was fractured which killed him instantly. I was the patrolman who responded to handle the accident scene.
The noise was his mother’s scream at 1:17AM in the morning as I stood on the porch after giving her the death notification.
It was primal, it was guttural, and it is forever.
It will never leave my mind or my soul. I will think of that kid forever.
Girls are more attached to their parents emotionally.
Girls who talk less are more romantic and loyal to any kind of relationships .
Girls who talks more are over friendly and confused in their relationships .
If a girl sends you first, good morning messages then more likely she likes you and want you to be her friend .
If a boy continuously calls in every two, three hours then the girl gets irritated. This is the main reason of break ups.
All girls don’t love flowers. Before giving flowers think twice .
Do not gift too early in your relationships. You will lose your dignity. Most of the girls find it awkward.
Girls like boys who visit their house confidently and pass some time with her family.
Girls prefer friendship before any serious relationships. Most girl friends become very good wives except for few.
Girls are experts in reading eyes and body gestures. A decent girl will never fall prey.
Some girls deliberately flirts with boys to get popularity in their friend circle. You can make out from their dressing sense. If you are also a flirty then enjoy.
Girls like the boys who likes to share the money during a date or in group party. They love gifting more than receiving .
Girls mostly respect the boys who help in studies and clearing the doubts. They remain genuine as friends all the time.
Girl can never go to restaurant or cinema hall alone with you if she is not in love with you. If you are flirting, take a note.
Girls like if you talk straight looking into the eyes. If you are really interested, you can try this. If you can talk straight looking into her for five minutes then you are in love .
Girls love to be praised in front of others not in one corner. This shows your lack of confidence. There is nothing wrong in praising in public.
Girls love to be pampered. This is the main reason they get cheated. They trust easily.
Girls like to be independent. They don’t like questioning and blaming always.
Girls don’t love easily and once they love they can go to any extent to own their love. Note this
If a girl easily accepts your expensive gifts then, think twice before dating her .
Girls can sustain unbearable pain emotionally as well as physically. Mother Earth 🙂
I compared Moscow to New York, and indeed, Moscow is nicer, which confirms Tucker Carlson’s claim
China’s trade with the rest of the world increased and improves substantially contrary to your intentional doubt casting. Fact is UK declined by 3.0% GDP Germany too had a negative growth and the uS has barely any real growth! Needless to say China’s trade with them deteriorated significantly in 2023!
Please stop fooling your own people. The problem is that the war which the U.S. and UK and NATO stupidly and barbarically goaded Russia into and highly provoked boomerang back at them hard and is now destroying the western economy. Stop fooling your people it is not hurting you. It is. And in a very big way.
My daughter was around the age of ten and I had given her a box of lolly pops that whistled. I had purchased them in a bulk buy but none of my children liked the flavour. So I sent my daughter to school to share them with the other students. Some time after lunch I got a call from the headmaster to come to the school, as she was in trouble and was being sent home as punishment. He did not go into details over the phone and I was left completely shocked as she was a straight A student and had never been in trouble before.
I arrive at the principal’s office and was seated next to my daughter when he pulled out a plastic bag full of coins and placed it on the desk. He went on to tell me that she had stood outside of the canteen line of students, during lunch hour spruiking “lolly pops for sale only fifty cents”. She had managed to sell every lolly pop I had sent her to school with. The canteen staff complained that they had a contract and that they had lost sales due to her lolly pop sales, so the principal had no other option but to confiscate the money and call me in to address the issue. My daughter sat next to me with tears streaming down her face.
After we discussed why she had that many lolly pops and what was said to her in the morning before she left for school, he realised that this was not something that her parents or any adult had encouraged her to do. He went on to say “ I cannot punish a child that shows entrepreneurial skills that someday could lead to great things”. He applauded her efforts and explained what a contract with the canteen owner meant and why she could not do this again. He handed over the bag of money to her and we happily left his office.
She gleamed all the way home. She not only had lots of cash but she had been given the afternoon off school. I thanked that principal for his honesty and for not punishing her unnecessarily.
Had a slow refrigerant leak in my WRX. I actually heard it hiss slightly at the compressor while topping it off once, so I knew where at least one leak was. Took it to the dealer for a timing belt and asked them to look at the AC. I picked up the car and they said they couldn’t find the leak where I showed them it was, but that I needed a new condenser, the AC tech could smell the refrigerant in the cabin of my car. $3200 to fix.
Said no thanks, I’ll keep topping it off.
Got into the car and it did have an odd odor, which I attributed to it sitting near the body shop. I was smelling lacquer thinner.
A few months later, I was in Advanced and the kid working the the counter had a same year STI, so we were BS’ing about what we liked and disliked about the cars and I mentioned the AC experience. He walked over to the AC isle and handed me a package of assorted green O-rings. He said he had the same issue and to try one of these where I heard the leak.
Next day, I popped the line off, replaced the O-ring, charged the system and once I got the pressure right, I was good to go. $4.95 plus $19.95 for a bottle of refrigerant.
Many of you will say that I should have evacuated the system and you’re right, but I didn’t have a vacuum pump. This was as much a test as anything. Still driving the car 8 years and easily 100k miles later and I haven’t touched the AC since that day. In fact, the compressor clutch is on it’s last legs, but at 282k miles, the entire car is feeling it’s age. Saved $3175, too.
New factory Subaru condenser: ~$280 online Amateur labor estimated: 4 hours (estimated $400 shop labor cost, no way they would take as long as me to replace) Other supplies: $30
They were looking at making ~$2500 profit and still not fix my problem. I am fighting the urge to name them, especially since I had a run in with their service manager the next (and final) time I was there. In for an airbag recall and he’s trying to replace my power steering pump for $600+.
Never be afraid to walk away and get another opinion if you can.
I had a friend of mine who had this happen. He did not take it sitting down. He was rather excitable.
The women who made the allegation was one of the most narcissistic people I had ever seen.
when HR went to him with the allegations of sexual harassment he, went ballistic on the HR PERSON. This is what I was told.
He said that he told the HR PERSON, the woman accusing him was a lesbian, shinny, ugly, had scabs all over her body, had a personality of a stone fence post. Nothing he would be interested in.
in a later meeting with the HR Person, he threatened to sue the company for false reporting. His theory was the office was so busy there was someone around the both of them all the time, there was no time for a possible sexual assault of the nature she was claiming to happen. and he will sue the person making the allegations also
He said his coworkers will back him up in this.
that was the last time I heard of that allegation.
Personally if I was this person being hassled by this woman I would drag her into the HR OFFICE,
say, “you have a reputation of doing this with other people. I have tried to avoid you for two years, and have lots of people to support my claims. I Want this settled right here and now. i will not live with hanging over my head.
I will fight back, this is my reputation and my livelihood you are messing with, and I have had enough.
I would say if you meet here head on in front of her and the HR PEOPLE THAT THIS WILL STOP.
if it doesn’t I suggest you contact a good lawyer.
just make sure you have not done what she is saying .
How has your appearance affected your life?
This is something I’ve pondered a lot since my early 20s, when it became obvious to everyone that my sister and I had gone down two totally different paths in life.
She was a high school dropout, mother at 16, drug addict who couldn’t hold a job and was either living with an abusive boyfriend or with our parents. She never really made it on her own. But she was nice. Always nice to everyone.
I was in advanced classes in high school, went to a university several states away, and was doing very well there. I’d also had a part-time job since I was 16, and a full-time job since I was 19.
I think our appearances had a lot to do with our different life paths. She was a gorgeous blonde bombshell in our small Southern hometown. Boys were constantly trying to date her/get her drunk/give her drugs.
I was the fat kid in school. No girlfriends. No parties. I didn’t mind working after school and on the weekends, because it’s not like I had anything better to do. Doing homework and studying isn’t hard when it doesn’t get in the way of your nonexistent social life.
Eventually, I lost a lot of weight in college (put it back on after getting married, now trying weight loss round two), gained enough confidence to ask out a woman I liked, and dated her for five years before marrying her. Now, in my late 30s, I have a happy marriage, three happy and healthy kids, a career I love, a house, a minivan, etc…
My sister got married two or three times, I honestly don’t know. She continued doing drugs and “shacking up” with abusive guys throughout her 20s and early 30s. She eventually died of a drug overdose at age 34.
That’s why a part of me pities the really beautiful young women… constant attention from guys when you’re trying to build your life can be a major distraction and help push you down a bad path in life.
So, how has my appearance affected my life? It kept me out of trouble and helped make me the very happy adult I am today.
Last time I flew in an airline -I won’t name,the flight attendant forgot to get me my meal. By the time the trolley reached me, the non-vegetarian meal rack was empty. I was told that they will get me the meal in 5 minutes, I told them even if it’s a vegetarian meal it’s fine. It wasn’t really an issue for me as I don’t like troubling them but they insisted that they have more fish packs and they will get me one.
My wait was for half an hour, with them avoiding me,avoiding my call and not even looking at me. They didn’t even get me water. I got pissed. I literally raised my voice the next time with an “Excuse me, are you deaf?” and the flight attendant was like, “yes,mam can I get you something?” and my soft reply was,”YES! Your complaint book and it should not take half an hour, I want it right now.”
That led to some prompt working and them apologizing for some 15 times in next 15 minutes, they offered me meals (which I refused) and goodies (I refused them as well) and as I didn’t accept their peace offering or apology, in the end, after our landing the ground staff met me and after another series of apologies they refunded a portion of my ticket with vouchers.
It’s not about the food,it’s about their non-caring attitude. I have paid for that seat and that meal with hard earned money. If one form of meal is not there, I understand it’s not their fault but if they refuse to get me any meal then I can get nasty as well.
So, asking for the complaint book work wonders, do it the next time they harass you.
PS I am not proud of what I did but it was needed.
I was administering the Anesthesia for a Neurosurgeon friend. He was removing a Cervical spinal cord tumor of a woman in her late 40’s. She was prone (on her stomach) on the table. He had just spent nearly 45 mins denuding the Cervical Lamina (flat bone on each vertebrae that protects the Spinal Cord by creating a bit of a Canal the bone was in intimate contact with the tumor. He is an excellent Surgeon and fun to watch work, no wasted motions. I had just turned my back to the field and doing a routine check of endotracheal tube placement to make sure it had not migrated (a routine thing to do especially in the prone position).
With the tumor now completely exposed, he asked for the Bard-Parker (scalpel), with my back still turned I quickly called out “Stop.” Everyone turned and looked at me. He asked my why… I looked at the tumor one more time and asked him if he would mind using a tuberculin syringe and aspirate the tumor. He said, all of the X-Ray reports had confirmed it was a solid mass tumor. But, because of our long history, he said he would humor me.
The nurse gave him the syringe. He pulled back on the plunger and blood returned. He asked the nurse to give him the closure suture on a needle driver and a pair of Adson’s forceps and said we are closing. Only he and I realized what had just happened. It was a very large Arterio-venous malformation with thicker than normal walls of the middle muscular coat (tunica media), and an external or connective tissue coat (tunica adventitia). Which had made the almost 2 inch AVF look solid on X-Ray. While closing he explained to the nurses that there would have been almost no way to have stopped the bleeding if he had made the incision and we may have very well have lost the patient.
I have no explanation as to why I told him to stop. It was just this internal feeling.
He sent the patient to a University Med. Center to have the defect repaired. They sent him a letter thanking him for his excellent job in dissecting away the Spinous Processes, the Lamina, and the surrounding tissue. They said this made their surgery so much easier and because of his excellent dissection the AVF walls had not been disturbed which they also felt would have caused her death from hemorrhage. He had done the hardest part of the surg. He also was on the Neurosurg teaching staff at the U.
Two hours in the gym
Puerto Rican Chicken and Rice Stew (Asopao)
This chicken and rice soup is Christmas for me. Not the Christmas meal by any means but the Christmas season. In Puerto Rico, this is the soup that was traditionally served at parrandas. And it continues to be a staple at parties and get togethers.
What is a parranda? You well may ask. The short answer is that a parranda is a party. It’s a Puerto Rican tradition that probably wouldn’t go over too well in most American suburban neighborhoods. It involves late night singing and ritualized kidnapping. And eating. And drinking.
A group of singers, parranderos, start the party late in the evening well after dinner. They assemble at the front door of a friend or neighbor’s house and make music until the family wakes up and lets them in. After some more singing, everyone gathers in the kitchen for refreshments. Usually chicken and rice soup.
After they eat, the parranderos hustle the family off to the next house where the singing, eating, and kidnapping is repeated through the night. This PR holiday tradition is kind of like Christmas caroling, but not.
The beauty of the Puerto Rican chicken and rice soup is that it was easy to heat up when the parranderos arrived. And by adding more stock, it could be stretched to feed everyone. You can imagine that by the last house, there would be quite a crowd. These parties would break up by dawn, with all of the parranderos going back to their beds.
Guess what heats up nicely the next day when nobody feels like cooking? You’ve got it. Asopao de Pollo.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings; makes enough Adobo to season 3 to 4 pounds of meat
Ingredients
Chicken and Rice
3 pounds chicken, cut into pieces
1 recipe Adobo
9 cups water
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 ounces lean cured ham, diced
2 green bell peppers, seeded and chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 large tomatoes, chopped
12 pimiento-stuffed olives
1 chorizo (Spanish sausage), cut into 1/2 inch rounds
2 tablespoons capers
1 (4 ounce) can chopped pimientos, drained
3 cups long-grain rice
1 cup fresh or frozen peas, thawed
Additional chopped fresh cilantro (for garnish)
Adobo
4 whole black peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons vinegar
1/4 teaspoon paprika
How to Make Asopao de Pollo
The homemade Puerto Rican chicken and rice soup recipe I’m going to show you develops flavor by sautéing most of the ingredients in a large caldero or dutch oven.
After cutting up the chicken and seasoning thoroughly, go ahead and heat up the olive oil in your pot.
First you’ll brown the raw chicken pieces in batches and set them aside. Next sauté the sofrito, it will smell fantastic as it cooks. Scrape up those browned bits.
Now add the ham, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, capers, pimentos, olives, boullion and rice. Stir all of that right into the sofrito before adding the chicken back. Make sure you pour in any juices the chicken might have accumulated while it was waiting. That’s the good stuff!
Finally, when all of the ingredients are in the pot, pour as much of the water as you can fit into the caldero. Add your salt and pepper and mix it all up thoroughly. Over the cooking time, you can add more water as the rice cooks and absorbs the liquids.
Bring the soup to a boil and then turn down the heat. Allow it to simmer for up to 30 minutes. Keep an eye on your pot, stirring frequently as the rice can burn to the bottom.
When the rice is tender and the chicken is cooked, it’s done. Now you’re ready to feed any late night parranderos that come to your door.
Guests that come at more reasonable hours will love this soup too!
Instructions
Chicken and Rice
Rub the chicken pieces thoroughly with the adobo. Place the chicken pieces in a large pot and add the water and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a skillet. Add the ham, bell peppers, onion, and cilantro. Sauté over moderate heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the tomatoes, olives, chorizo, capers, and pimientos. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Add the vegetable mixture to the pot with the chicken and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the rice and peas and simmer covered over very low heat for 15 to 25 minutes, until the stew reaches the desired consistency. It is traditionally served runny, almost like a soup.
Serve in soup bowls garnished with chopped cilantro.
Adobo
Combine all ingredients in a mortar and pestle and grind to a paste. Alternately, combine in an electric blender or food processor and process until smooth.
I know this question is a month old, but I just have to answer it. Unfortunately, the nastiest thing that happened at my school was done by me.
It was my freshman year. I desperately had a crush on my best friend, Rob. He had this dark, black, hair and deep hazel eyes that made me melt every time I caught him staring at me in Math. You know, teenage hormones and the like.
Our lockers were right next to each other; we were in the same homeroom. Sometime around October, being the ever awkward and weird kid I was, thought that the best way to show Rob I liked him was by teasing him.
I left the cafeteria one day with a nearly full milk carton in hand. I held onto it throughout my last class of the day and waited for Rob at my locker. Once he had gotten his things and we said our goodbyes, I pulled out the milk and placed the carton at the bottom of his locker (he carried a lock with him but never put it on), spout open and covered slightly by a hoodie he had left in there.
Hilarious I thought, he’ll come in on Monday and have to find a chunky carton of milk in his locker. Gross, yet harmless. I was so, so wrong.
Rob found the milk carton on Monday. What I had underestimated about him though, was his capacity to simply not care. He shrugged it off, took the hoodie out of his locker and placed the lock he had never used on it. Then he left it.
A month went by, and I could smell the milk every time I opened my locker next to his. After two months and the Christmas holiday and I forwent my locker, too, instead carrying my entire bag from class to class just so I didn’t have to open my locker.
By April, the entire hallway reeked of sour milk, so strongly that the students curved around the affected area when passing through. Everyone smelled it, no one could figure out where it came from or what it was. It was deadly; so much so that people whispered about what could possibly be making THAT smell. It was the mystery everyone talked about. You could feel the thickness of the stench in the air.
The last day of school came, and we were instructed to take the locks off of our lockers and clean them out at last period. Rob tried to make a getaway – grab his lock and run for the doors before someone asked him to open it and show it had been cleaned out, but he just wasn’t quick enough. “Open it”, our home room teacher demanded, as if he knew what that locker held inside it.
With shaking hands, Rob opened the metal door, and it was if you could see a green puff of foul odor release like a bomb from inside. “Close it!” Our teacher screamed, and Rob did, both of us gagging. The teacher ran for the safety of his classroom and we left.
The first day of sophomore year we came back to a clean hallway – no smell, bare lockers. Though, our former home room teacher never looked at Rob the same. As an adult, I feel TERRIBLE for the poor custodian who had to clean that putrid milk.
However, as I lay next to my husband in bed, I can’t help but be just a little bit nostalgic for that stupid prank. Fourteen years later and Rob and I have been together ever since; inseparable.
Asia’s Top Economist Reveals Shocking SECRET About China In 2024
Yes, my wife of 46 years died suddenly from heart failure. I got her to the hospital and was able to spend some time with her before she passed.
After she was gone, the medical staff insisted that I spend the night in the hospital due to my medical issues. I was given a mild sedative to help me relax. I fell asleep and at some point I woke and was unsure of where I was. When I realized what had happened, I was leaning against the safety rail on the hospital bed. I saw what appeared to be a room full of people below me, they were all in ‘shadow’ except for one woman in a white light dancing. My wife loved to dance and as I watched, the woman waved at me and everything vanished when the nurse came to check on me.
The second time was at her funeral service. It was freezing that day and I got to the service early to bring some mementos for the service. I, somehow, lost my phone and the facility was locked and no one was around. As I was starting to panic, I ‘heard’ my wife say “calm down.’
As I looked around I saw a perfect rose bloom in the garden area in front of my car. I couldn’t believe that a rose had bloomed in freezing conditions. Roses were her favorite flower, I went to pick the rose and found my phone on the ground. I immediately calmed down and told my wife “thank you.”
The Man Who Built UFOs For The CIA [Not Bob Lazar…]
Battery life continues to be one of the biggest complaints of laptop users, so understanding what you can do to help prolong the life is important. Technically speaking, keeping any relatively current laptop plugged in and charged at 100% for extended periods of time shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s best not to do so for a number of reasons.
This is a question that comes up a lot with laptop owners. And the answer is a quite simple “No.” For optimum battery use, and to get the most life out of your laptop battery, keeping it charged between 40% and 80% has been seen as optimum.
Most late-generation laptop batteries are either lithium-ion or lithium polymer, and as such, they are designed to be able to withstand many charge cycles. When you keep it charged at 100%, the charging circuit continuously checks the battery charging process and, so it stops charging once it is at its optimum point and goes into trickle mode, in which it only supplies what is necessary to prevent the charge level from failing.
Also to note: overcharging can lead to overheating, which can lead to catastrophic chemical reactions inside the battery.
Allowing your battery to completely discharge will take away from its originally-intended lifespan. You should ideally keep its battery between 40% and 60%. Don’t let the battery discharge completely to increase its life.
Here are some tips to extend your laptop battery life:
Avoid discharging your laptop completely after charging it.
Make sure that your laptop doesn’t get too hot and your cooling fan is working properly.
Overheating can reduce battery life, check the laptop’s cooling system is functioning correctly and use it on a flat surface to allow for proper airflow.
Customize your laptop’s power plan settings to favor battery life over performance when running on battery.
If you’re not using your laptop on battery power for an extended period, store it with the battery at around 50-80% charge to reduce long-term stress on the battery.
I suggest maintaining your laptop’s battery level within the range of 40% to 80% charge. By doing so, you can effectively double the number of recharge cycles, increasing them from 300-500 to a substantial 1,000-2,000, ultimately extending the overall lifespan of your laptop.
Today I have a real treat for you all. It is the movie “Fail Safe” which is a 1962 depiction of the build up to world war 3. And it stars Henry Fonda, so you know it’s a great movie.
Please take the time to watch it. It was 60 years ahead of its time.
Meanwhile, my post on Quora…
Why is the USA so eager for a war with China
Any one who wants war has a mental disorder.
Obviously they have never experienced war, and has no idea or concept of what it entails. Pain is real. The loss of everyone you ever knew is real. The lost of your money, your homes, your jobs, and your friends is real. The loss of your culture and your society is real.
The loss of your innocence is permanent.
…
So why do so many American “leaders” want to engage a war with China?
I’ll repeat myself.
Anyone who wants a war has a mental disorder. They are not right in the head. They need to be seen by a doctor and treated for this disorder. If need be, well then, locked in a padded room. But they should not be permitted anywhere near the levers of power.
…
Ah. It was deleted.
I guess that stating the obvious is against the “rules” in the United States.
a young boy, puts $100 in the bank every single day. One day the boss at the bank noticed and asked, hey buddy, why do you keep dropping $100 in here everyday? The kid says, Can we talk in your office? The boss says, yes, and they go to his office. Then the kids spills the beans. Well, I make a bet everyday with someone new that I can kiss my right eye. The boss laughs and says, no way you can do that. The kid smirks. Wanna bet? The manager agrees, and quick as a wink, the kid takes out his fake eye and kisses it. The boss feels kind of silly and gives him $100. But he wants it back. So The kid says, okay, but with a twist. I’m pretty sure that you are wearing red girly panties. If I’m wrong, I’ll give you back your $100 plus another 100. Thinking he’s too smart, the boss agrees. The kid adds, but before you drop your pants, we need 10 witnesses to make it official. The boss gathers his team and after taking his pants off, he feels very proud to have won $100. Then he notices the kid is all smiles about losing money. Confused, he asks, why are you happy about losing your cash? The kid grins. Well, I had a bet with your team about how fast I could get you to drop your pants.”
Braised Pork with Green Chile Sauce
Mild green chiles season this meaty pork stew. Serve it with rice or as a burrito filling. This can also be served with tamales. This chile verde is also good served with scrambled eggs.
Ingredients
Pork
1 (3 pound) lean boneless pork butt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 large green bell peppers, seeded and chopped
1 (7 ounce) can diced green chiles
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
Garnish
Tomatoes, cut into wedges
Cooked rice
Sour cream
Lime, cut into wedges
Instructions
Trim and discard fat and cut pork into 1 inch cubes.
In a large frying pan, heat oil over medium-high heat; add meat a few cubes at a time and cook until very brown.
Push meat to side of pan and add onion, garlic and bell peppers; sauté until limp.
Stir in chiles, oregano, cumin, salt, cilantro, vinegar and water.
Cover and simmer until meat is fork tender (about 1 hour).
Skim off fat and discard.
Serve with rice or make burritos or serve in your favorite way.
For Burritos: spoon pork into warm, soft flour tortillas, add sour cream, tomato wedges, and a squeeze of lime juice and fold to enclose. Rice may also be enclosed with the filling in the burritos, if desired.
What can you do to upset your neighbors the most in a well-to-do neighborhood?
Set up a drug dealing operation.
Because I was raised poor, a lot of things DID NOT bother me once I moved into a nice neighborhood. Things that might drive other neighbors (who have always been wealthy) absolutely crazy wouldn’t faze me at all. Loud music? So what. Kids shooting off fireworks? Hey, it’s better than gunfire. Lawns that grew a little too tall? Big deal. But set up a crime syndicate in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the U.S., and you’re going to make some very influential people extremely irate!
I lived in poverty when I was younger. The shack we lived in measured 500 square feet. My bed was in the kitchen. Stabbings and shootings in the neighborhood were routine. Before I was born, my parents found a guy dead on the front porch. He had been stabbed overnight and I guess he stumbled toward the house for help, only to collapse there. Drug deals became common.
My father worked very hard to eventually escape poverty, and I applied the same work ethic to my life. I had no desire to remain in a neighborhood where I had to fear for my life every single day. Anyone who has lived in such a place can tell you that it’s a miserable way to live!
I became successful. I got married. My wife was also successful. It took me 42 years, but we finally bought one of the more modest homes in one of the wealthiest towns in America. Celebrities became my neighbors. I didn’t hear gunfire. There was no crime. Kids left their toys on the lawn overnight and nobody stole them. People left their car doors unlocked at night. This is why I had worked so hard, for this level of safety and peace of mind. I had finally arrived!
About a year after moving in, our very quiet neighbor (an older lady who lived alone) moved out. A lady who had just divorced her multimillionaire husband moved in. She had triplets who were 17 at the time, two boys and one girl. She apparently had no control over them. Among many infractions, the girl once drove through our lawn, tearing up the grass and the driveway. Who drives through your neighbor’s lawn? One of the sons was driving drunk when he plowed through a neighbor’s fancy brick driveway entrance. But worst of all was the other son, who apparently had a large drug dealing operation.
Sketchy-looking cars would pull up at all hours of the day. The kid would come out of his house, sit in the back seat, make some sort of exchange, and then go back inside. Cars and houses throughout the neighborhood began to be broken into, probably linked to the people showing up to buy drugs.
This is what I had escaped. When you’ve worked so hard to live in a place with no crime, and you’re suddenly faced with drug dealing, people breaking into cars and houses, vandalism, and all that stuff you escaped, you become pretty ticked off. We didn’t pay all this money for a house only to have flashbacks of where I grew up. Other neighbors who were unfamiliar with such behavior were even more furious!
One particular neighbor, who happened to be a big time television producer, finally made the call. Police swarmed the house, found A LOT of drugs, and the kid who had now turned 18 got a pretty hefty prison sentence. The family moved out a month later.
My dad bought himself a 1973 Mercury Montego two door. Every option you could imagine, back when you could actually order a car built for you.
Really sharp car, dark blue metallic with a blue vinyl top. Had a dark blue leather interior with front bucket seats. Was his pride and joy. Biggest motor available, 460 4bbl. That car was a real sleeper. Fast as hell. Got about 8–9mpg. Every time you went around a right turn there was a metallic thump from the back somewhere. Turn left, nothing. Dad was an OCD prick. Drove him nuts. Was to the dealership for service multiple times. They replaced all kinds of stuff, even the rear axle. Finally he had me lay in the back seat and listen as he drove around. I isolated the sound as coming from the area of the drivers side rear quarter panel. Dad and I took out the rear seat and removed the interior panel. We found heavy nut and bolt hanging from a string. Taped to the sheet metal was a note, “How long did it take you to find this?”
Coconut Corn Bread (Dominican Republic)
Ingredients
1/2 cup diced mixed candied fruit
2 tablespoons dark rum
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 cup coconut cream
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup shredded fresh coconut
Instructions
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix candied fruit and rum in small bowl; reserve.
Beat sugar and butter in a large bowl; add eggs, one at a time, beating until well blended. Stir in remaining ingredients except candied fruit mixture and coconut; beat until smooth, about 30 strokes by hand. Fold in candied fruit mixture and coconut. Pour into greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
Bake until top is golden brown and wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.
Cool for 20 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely before slicing.
In the 17th century, a priest in Venezuela was particularly fond of meat. Yet during the Catholic holiday of Lent, eating meat is not permissible — only fish may be consumed. So he wrote a letter to the Vatican.
He had found an animal, he said, which “lived in the water, had webbed feet” and “it even kind of tastes like fish when you cook it”. Would it be allowed to consume this creature during Lent? The Vatican replied, also by letter — it was allowed to eat the creature, provided they classify it a fish. So they did. And Venezuelans have been eating this animal ever since.
What species do I speak of? The capybara. World’s largest rodent, a largely aquatic species that loves to dwell in water. A meatlover’s delight — from giant hamster, to conveniently reclassified “fish”. One hell of a good loophole, if you ask me.
I worked for a food establishment that keeps all of its food on a “line”. One day I was sicker than I’ve ever been and needed to call out. I figured this wouldn’t be a problem since I never called out, but I was wrong.
So they force me to come in under threat of termination.
So i come in. I’m making food on that line, and I have a very specific urge everyone knows well. But, oh my oh me! I can’t leave the line! I have a lot of food to make! So I threw up. On the food in the line.
The company had to close for a short time to have the line professionally cleaned and sanitized.
When they finally reopen, I get called into the office. They ask me what happened. I tell them quite plainly that I tried to call out sick and was forced to report to work. Their genius response was ”you were scheduled to work so you had to come in.“
So I simply asked them how much it had cost to have the line cleaned. They give me a rough figure. I tell them they forgot about the money they lost out on by being forced to be closed during that time. Lastly, I tell them, straight to their face, that if I call out, it’s for a reason. If they force me to come in while I’m sick and throwing up, I will purposely throw up on the line again and they can pay that price again. And if they try to saddle me with the bill of cleaning the line, reduce my hours, or fire me for any reason, I would be more than happy to report them to the number that’s literally above their head about us not being allowed to come in sick. The next week my hours were reduced. I pulled out my phone, looked at the sign I referenced the week prior, and started typing in numbers in front of the manager. My hours were immediately reinstated.
After that, anytime I called out sick, I was told to feel better and call when I wasn’t sick anymore.
I feel like I’m a good fit to answer this question because I used to own a Chevy Volt, which is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV). In the summer, the Volt would drive 50–60 miles using only the battery, before switching to the 4-cylinder engine and acting like a normal hybrid, alternating between gas and battery.
Most days I did not drive anywhere near 50 miles. So I would come home, plug in to 120V, and the car was fully charged in the morning.
Why not a PHEV, then?
Well, it’s got an engine I rarely used, and some complicated electronics and wizardry to switch back and forth between the battery and the engine. It was something else that could go wrong on top of a straight EV propulsion system.
Some people like PHEVs because once they exceed range of the small battery pack, the car switches to gas and then you can just drive it like a gas car. Fillups are quick, and you’re back on the road. When you get to your destination, you can charge if you like, and your next 50 or so miles are all electric.
I loved the Volt. But I always felt it would grow up to be a Tesla, and last year, it did.
I much prefer having an EV. It’ll handle that 50–60 miles of daily driving you ask about with aplomb. Since the range of my EV is 318 miles, I could do that much driving for 4 days easily, without recharging if I didn’t want to.
Or I could charge at 120V/15A, as I typically do, and in the 12 hours or so that I’m sleeping and doing other things at home, I can add 36 or miles of range. Yes, eventually I’ll have a deficit, if I really do drive 50–60 miles per day, but I don’t. And for those that do, you can easily install a 240V outlet and charge quicker if you need it. So it’s a non-issue.
My in-laws are Chinese. I am a white American with mixed West-European ancestry. When I sit down to a meal with them, I have learned to practice strategic food placement on my plate so that it is never actually empty.
In the US, we have drummed into our heads as small children that it is incredibly rude to leave uneaten food on your plate, especially if you are a guest at someone else’s table. It is an insult to the chef. “There are starving children in Africa!” was the exhortation when I was a child. “Eat your vegetables and be grateful you have them!”
In Chinese culture, it is the obligation of the elder generation to make sure that the younger generation(s) are fed. If your plate is clean, that means you must still be hungry, but are too polite to ask for more. So they give you more, whether or not you actually have the capacity to eat it, whenever they observe sufficient empty space on your plate. Furthermore, it is extremely impolite to refuse to eat food given to you by a parent, auntie/uncle, or grandparent.
Therefore, I have learned to eat an amount sufficient for myself at meals while leaving enough on my plate to spread out and take up all of the large bits of contiguous space that might accommodate an additional serving.
I still feel guilty about the starving children who might like to have my leftovers, though.
My first boss told me that when she realized that several of us-all teenagers-were trying to coordinate our schedules so we all got off on the same day, so we could hang out outside of work. I didn’t understand it then. I thought she was just being a bitch.
But, ten years later, when I was in management, it made more sense. Coworkers are one group. Friends are another. Mixing those groups can cause problems, especially when one friend is put in charge of another.
It’s fine to be friendly with your coworkers. You should be friendly with them. But being friendly, and being their friend, are two different things.
I’m anti-social anyway, so it was easy for me to avoid making friends with the people I’ve worked with over the years. I’ll chat with them at work. I’ll ask them about their families, and they’ll do the same for me. But when work is over, I don’t hang out with them.
I suppose a lot depends on the type of job, though. Not every job is about making money. What I do now, for example: teaching. It’s not-for-profit. But I also don’t see my coworkers very often. Just in the halls during passing periods and during our weekly staff meeting. Other than that, I’m usually the only adult in the room. If adult interaction is your thing, teaching probably isn’t the best career choice.
This image was uploaded on an Internet forum with the caption:
“This is the lettuce you eat in your burger when you go to Burger King, enjoy it“
The netizens were shocked and horrified. They were angry to learn someone working in the kitchen has been messing up with their food.
Soon people got down to tracking the person; ‘where done and who doing this’! The image was posted anonymously, on the 4Chan forum. 4Chan users got down to work to discover the person behind it.
In the picture you can only see the shoes and pants of the uniform of the hamburger chain and that does not reveal anything since they are all dressed the same.
The image was tracked to its location. They found out where came from.
It came from an area where there was only one Burger King for many miles around.
Thereafter the netizens wrote and posted many mails to the Chain manager of Burger King, Mayfield Rd.
Then the Manager got into action and in a short time, the manager was able to find who had done it Two people who were on that shift were fired on the spot, they lost their jobs, and faced a fine of thousands of dollars.
So now you know, never make people angry on the internet, you could end up paying dearly.
I remember a guy who worked at a company with me. He was a professional who loved his job. He was 83, when the company forcibly retired him.
He made good money, and took fabulous vacations, had his house paid off 30 years before. He died 3 weeks after they forced him out. He lost the will to live, when he stopped doing what he loved.
I knew this lady that I worked with, who hated her job, she was depressed about having to go into work every morning. The happiest day of her life was when she retired early, with an early retirement package.
I think the benefits of working longer or retiring early very much depend on how you feel about your job.
It also depends on your health. If you think you will die early, then there is really not much point in working late. Unless you really love your job.
If you think you will die late, then working later, getting a bigger pension, and more savings, and using your wages for vacations and toys, now that your house is paid for, is the way to go.
I think it also depends on the country you live in. I live in Canada, I loved my job, I got 30 vacation days, 12 flex days, plus 3 golf days a year. I don’t know how many sick days and compassionate leave days I was entitled to because I never used them all up. So I got the equivalent of 9 weeks vacation. With weekends and statutory holidays I got 162 days off a year. Which is almost exactly half a year, so work wasn’t the same to me as an American who worked weekends, and only got 2 weeks vacation.
I could take fabulous exotic vacations, or just relax at the cabin while working.
Jamaican Rum Punch
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
4 cups water
1 cup lime or lemon juice
6 cloves or allspice berries
3 cups strawberry-flavored syrup
2 cups Jamaican white rum
Instructions
Mix all ingredients together in a punch bowl, and let the mixture settle for 1 hour before removing the cloves or allspice.
Stir and serve over ice cubes in old fashioned glasses.
Water and rum may be added to weaken or strengthen as needed.
One reason I wanted to shake hands with Oskar Groening is because our first meeting did not go so well. On the first day of the trial, I introduced myself and reached out to shake his hand. The strangest thing happened. He was trying to say something as he was sitting sideways in his chair. He turned white and fell backwards, not saying a word. He was holding onto my arm so he did not hit the floor. At that moment he was not a Nazi but an old man who fainted and I was trying to save him from falling. I screamed, “He is falling and I can’t hold onto him – he is a big old guy!” This was not the interaction I was hoping for. I knocked out an old Nazi.
The second reason is because I am interested in what will happen when someone from the victims’ side meets with someone from the perpetrators’ side. You cannot predict it. So today after the trial session concluded, I went up to Oskar Groening. He wanted to stand up but I said, “Please don’t, we do not want a repetition of last time.” I just shook his hand and said, “I appreciate the fact that you are willing to come here and face us. But I would like you to appeal to the old Nazis who are still alive to come forward and address the problem of neo-Nazis in Germany today. Because these young misguided Germans who want Hitler and fascism to come back — they will not listen to Eva Kor or any other survivor. You can tell them you were in Auschwitz, you were involved with the Nazi party, and it was a terrible thing.”
As I was talking to him, he grabbed me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Well I probably wouldn’t have gone that far, but I guess it is better than what he would have done to me 70 years ago.
Everything he is accused of — I am saying he did all that. I have forgiven the Nazis and everyone who has hurt me, but I told him that my forgiveness did not prevent me from accusing him nor from him taking responsibility for his actions. And I told the media that he was a small screw in a big killing machine, and the machine cannot function without the small screws. But obviously he is a human being. His response to me is exactly what I was talking about when I said you cannot predict what will happen when someone from the victims’ side and someone from the perpetrators’ side meet in a spirit of humanity.
I know many people will criticize me for this photo, but so be it. It was two human beings seventy years after it happened. For the life of me I will never understand why anger is preferable to a goodwill gesture. Nothing good ever comes from anger. Any goodwill gesture in my book will win over anger any time. The energy that anger creates is a violent energy.
I am asking a question: What do we want in the future? Do we want to keep pointing fingers and the accused stay in one corner and the accuser stay in the other corner and they never connect? How will that work out? Look at the world – it doesn’t work out. All we have is people who are feeling angry, people who are running around doing crazy things.
When tragic things happen, we have to sit down and discuss, what are the options for the victims and for the perpetrators? Most people are only here in court to accuse him of things he has already admitted. So now what? I don’t think we should raise a statue in his honor, but he can serve as a good example to young people that what he participated in was terrible, that it was wrong, and that he is sorry that he was part of it. Now there is a message that has some usefulness for society.
If I had it my way, the dialogue between the survivors and perpetrators would have started a long time ago. And it would have helped the survivors cope and maybe heal themselves, but even more so not to pass the pain on to their children.
My ideas in life are very different, I know. I am in the minority — maybe a minority of one. I know how society looks at it, but as I look at society, I do not think it is working very well. So what I am saying is, maybe we ought to try something else. And my idea is for people from the victims’ side and people from the perpetrators’ side to come together, face the truth, try to heal, and work together to prevent it from ever happening again.
Back some 30 years ago, fresh out of college, I worked at a real estate company owned by a Greek immigrant.
The company did everything involving real estate, loans, brokerage, management, home flipping…. It was a good place to get all around experience.
About 3 months into the job, the owner approached me and asked if I was ready to purchase my first house. Told him I was not ready, I was living with my parents and saving money. Then he told me a real gem.
He said to not purchase a condo or house for my first home. Huh? I said. He told me to purchase a four unit apartment. I told him I did not have that kind of money. Then he gave me the whole spill.
A single family home cost $150,000 and I would need $10,000 deposit plus pay $1000 per month for loan payment plus upkeep.
A four unit apartment cost $250,000 and I would need $15,000 deposit plus pay $2,000 per month for loan payment plus upkeep.
Here is the real kicker. If I bought the house, I would not have anything left over after I paid for all my expense.
If I bought the apartment, I can rent 3 other units at $700 each and the rents will actually pay all my cost.
WOW!
Here is the second kicker!
He said I can save that $1,000 a month and after two years, purchase another 4 unit apartment. Then I can move to my second apartment and rent the original place for extra $700. Now I will be saving $1,700 per month! My head was spinning. I realized how he made his fortune. He had multiple apartments collecting rents.
I went home and told my parents about what the owner told me. My Dad was bit skeptical but said he will help me to get the loan if needed.
Fast forward 30 years…my wife and I are making retirement plans. Thanks to the advise from my boss early in my career, things look good.
Back when homeless people were Hobos, Drunks were Winos, and “substance abusers” were Hypes, I pounded a classic foot patrol beat on San Francisco’s Mission Street. After 3 or four years, I literally knew everyone on my beat, bad, good, or wack-a-doo.
We’d periodically get some merchants complaining about this or that, so the Captain would tell the Lieutenant, and he would lean on the street Sergeant, who in turn would tell us: “ Its the weekly sweep time boys”.
Mitch would grab the BIG paddy wagon, and the six beat cops would ride its rear bumper while picking up the usual miscreants more or less at random.
We’d do a decent job of disarming them before tossing them in the wagon, and in that the prisoners and the cops knew how to play the game, we didn’t get any big surprises.
Untill:
I forget his real name, but if I called him “stinky” , and mentioned that he NEVER took off any of the 3 pairs of pants, or five overcoats he wore, everyone knew who he was.
Stinky was face down on the pavement across the street from the food market at 22nd when we grabbed him. Mitch did a cursory high risk pat search for weapons, or bottles of cheap wine, and finding none, cuffed him up and put him in with the other 15 bums in the back of the wagon.
At the Station, we had a regular assembly line thing going where the arrestees would line up, get a photo taken, have their meager belongings tossed into a brown grocery bag, and then shamble into the drunk tank.
Stinky shuffles up, and is so out of it, he can’t empty any of his 11 coat pockets. Mitch leans him against the booking counter, and begins taking handfuls of God know what out of the pockets.
Suddenly Mitch jumps in the air, yelling all sorts of Germanic based profanity, and is yelling “ Something bit me..something M….F….g BIT ME !!!”
Stinky has a semi-blank look on his face, but says; “ Oh, that’s just my lunch”
I grabbed the offending coat, ( while wearing gloves!) , turned it up-side down, and shook it.
About 7 or 10 half-dollar sized LIVE soft shell crabs fell out, and began scuttling around the booking room.
Stinky had apparently stolen them out of the fresh sea-food bin at the fish market up the street before we nabbed him.
To say that hilarity ensued would be vastly understating the commotion that followed, but suffice to say Stinky didn’t get his lunch, and Mitch never lived it down.
The Lieutenant had Mitch prepare a Line Up Briefing presentation on the “importance of proper searches during custody” later that week. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he finished
Avdiivka, Ukraine FALLS to Russian Army – “Complete Rout”
Once considered impregnable, the KEY city for Ukraine defense, Avdiivka, the most heavily fortified city on the entire planet, has fallen to the Russian Army.
Within hours, the bloodiest battle of the 21st century (so far) will be over.
For those who have not kept up on developments in the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO), Avdiivka is the place from which the Ukrainian Army has shelled the civilians of Donetsk City for TEN YEARS!
There are going to be lots of tactical, strategic, and political implications from this that we will see over the next days and weeks.
There are reportedly very FEW Ukrainian defenses behind Avdiivka; the Ukrainians put all their eggs into one basket, counting on the deep Soviet-era nuclear bunker system, and defenses built since the end of the civil war to make it “impregnable.”
ALL of those defenses have failed and the Russian Army now controls the city.
(HT Remark:Remember how CNN and Bloomberg crowed endlessly that cutting Russia off from SWIFT was like using a Nuclear Weapon, and that there was no way Russia could survive that? Here we are, two years later, and now, there is no way for UKRAINE to survive!)
This is a developing story . . . check back for updates.
2023.02.22 China Declares War On The United States
Gonzalo was correct.
Be the Rufus
“Today I went to Dunkin and saw a clearly homeless guy singing on the side of the road and picking up change. Eventually I saw him stroll into Dunkin, as he was counting his change to buy something I began to get super annoying and talk to him over and over again even when he didn’t really want to talk. Since he had maybe $1 in change I bought him a coffee and bagel and asked him to sit down with me. He told me a lot about how people are usually very mean to him because he’s homeless, how drugs turned him into the person he hated, he lost his mom to cancer, he never knew his dad and he just wants to be someone his mom would be proud of (along with another hours worth of conversation.) this lovely mans name was Chris and Chris was one of the most honest & sincere people I’ve ever met. After realizing I really need to get back to class Chris asked me to wait so he can write something down for me. Handing me a crumpled up receipt he apologizes for having shaky hand writing, smiled, and left. I opened his note and this was it. “I wanted to kill myself today because of u I now do not. Thank u, beautiful person.”
The most important thing that drug rehabs understand that soon to be patients don’t, or can’t, or have forgotten, is that your being there is a matter of life or death. Plain and simple — you will die or you will get clean — that’s it.
Preparation for rehab goes like this.
You make the call to rehab and tell them you need help. Their phone intake staff will ask you a handful of questions like:
What is your drug of choice?
How long have you been using?
Are you safe?
Have you ever been to rehab?
Do you have a phone number that we can call you back if we get disconnected?
Are you on probation or parole?
Do you have an address where we can pick you up?
Those are a few of the questions the rehabs I’ve been to have asked me during the phone intake interview.
If you noticed, there is a seemingly important question that isn’t asked (or wasn’t asked of me).
That is: “Do you have insurance?”
Every rehab that I’ve been to didn’t require insurance. Once I got into rehab they helped me find funding.
Once you make the call asking for help, rehab is usually less than twenty-four hours away.
Here is a list of things that are great to have, but without resources not all of them are possible.
Your shoes and clothing.
Toothpaste, toothbrush, body wash, stick deodorant, razors. Don’t bother bringing any aerosol deodorant, mouthwash or cologne. If it has alcohol and has an outside chance it can be abused, it is contraband.
Cigarettes.
Money.
Hard candy in an unopened brand new package.
Don’t bring drugs, alcohol or weapons. That’s a crime in and out of rehab. They will call the cops. You will pay dearly.
Now you’re packed up and ready to go.
Usually, within twenty-four hours they send a van to pick you up at your doorstep. Again, it’s life or death so time is ticking and rehabs understand that.
The van is probably going to have four or five other people heading to rehab also. They’re in the same boat as you.
Once you get to rehab, you’re gonna get naked and searched. So, let’s back up. Before you get picked up, get a shower and shave. Somebody is going to be looking at your body without your clothes on.
Once you’re searched and all your belongings are searched, you’ll be assigned a bed.
You’re going to have 1–5 roommates.
You’ll go through 1–7 days of detox. This will seem difficult. You’ll be on medication. It’s gonna hurt, but it gets better.
After detox, you’ll be moved to rehab.
Now it’s official.
There are lots of people with lots of problems in rehabs.
Focus on yourself — they are not your friends. Don’t trust them, don’t believe them and don’t leave with them.
Listen to your counselor.
Pay attention.
If you have the opportunity to get into a halfway house after rehab, take it.
It’s awesome. You get to work, save money and start your life over.
In WWII, Nazi Germany was concentrating their man power toward the Eastern Front.
An ENTIRE Wehrmacht Division which consisted of 2 brigades of about 12,000 soldiers was up against a single Soviet KV Heavy tank.
The crew of the tank (5 personnel) held off the German advance for hours. The Germans simply couldn’t disable the beast. Eventually, the crew of the tank ran out of ammo and was killed by the Germans.
The Germans took the bodies of the Soviet soldiers and buried them with full military honors.
They swept through the KV and grabbed a flag of the Soviet Union. The bodies were buried with the flag, saluted, and 21 rounds were fired in their honor.
Everyone is aware of the infamous Christmas Truce of 1914 during WWI. Similar things about during WWII. Please remember that during WWII, Germany was signed under the Geneva Conventions. The SS didn’t really care for this. But the Wehrmacht did and had to abide by it.
During national holidays like Christmas, the Germans and British once again ceased fire. They all agreed to stop shooting to give themselves time to bury their fallen soldiers. This happened on multiple occasions but was looked down upon, especially by Adolf Hitler.
During Operation Barbarossa (Invasion of the USSR), German was winning in the beginning. They were sweeping through the Soviet Union fast and capturing millions of Soviets. With the unforgivable Einsatzgruppen killing off Soviet Jews in the rear.
There are many pictures out there of Wehrmacht and even SS soldiers helping their enemies (Soviets). With the increasing victories of the Germans, thousands of Soviets were being injured. There are pictures and stories out there of SS soldiers caring for those victims. I know, it’s really hard to believe. (I’ll add the pictures in once I find them).
The Geneva Conventions state that once the enemy is disarmed, they’re no longer an enemy but a POW. And POWs must be treated humanely and taken care of.
During WWII, the Wehrmacht captured American POWs. They were separated (officers from enlisted). They were given jobs (mostly for junior ranks). They were given 2 full meals a day, and were able to receive care packages from the Americans Red Cross.
This was different with the SS most of the time.
Americans were captured by the 1st SS Panzer Division (Hitler’s Honor/Body Guard Division, Leibstandarte SS) after the Battle of the Bulge.
This image completely breaks my heart, as I’m an American soldier and have massive respect to my veterans, especially WWII veterans.
Instead of taking prisoners, the SS decided to shoot them dead and leave them in the snow. An MG-42 opened fire at them, killing 84. A few survived and managed to reach another American Division. After that, most divisions gave the order to kill all SS personnel on sight. In 1944, the commander of the SS Division (Joachim Peiper) was caught along with his men. They all stood trial for killing POWs. Peiper unfortunately got away with his crime. He was later killed by Nazi Hunters long after the war.
Jamaican Banana Bread
Ingredients
Bread
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons light cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons dark rum or 1/4 teaspoon rum extract
1/2 teaspoon grated lime rind
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1/4 cup flaked, sweetened coconut
Topping
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons lime juice
2 teaspoons dark rum or 1/8 teaspoon rum extract
2 tablespoons chopped pecans, toasted
2 tablespoons flaked, sweetened coconut
Instructions
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Coat an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
Bread
Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with electric mixer; add sugar, beating well. Add egg; beat well.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir well. Combine banana, milk, rum, line rind, lime juice and vanilla extract; stir well. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with banana mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix after each addition. Stir in pecans and coconut.
Pour batter into prepared pan; bake for 60 minutes.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes; remove from pan. Let cool slightly on wire rack.
Topping
Combine brown sugar, margarine, lime juice and rum in saucepan; bring to a simmer. Cook 1 minute; stir constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in pecans and coconut; spoon over loaf.
I pulled an idiot move and had the other driver follow me. New town, didn’t know my way around very well but knew I was being followed. Drove past my apartment complex and into a neighborhood, make a u-turn back out to make sure I am being tailed and yep, I am. Ended up driving to a convenience store and parking up front. See the other guy park as well, then as soon as he gets out I back up and leave. Do a few more twists and turns and catch a red light or two, make sure I lost them, then go to my apartment. Lucky for me they didn’t know which drive I was going to or even where I was going. And I left about an hour later for the airport and was gone a week plus. Thankfully they never saw me again, out of state plates would’ve been a give away for me.
– Kursk 2.0? – Moon of Alabama, Jun 09 2023 – Collapse of Operation Citadel 2.0 – TASS, Feb 24 2024 by Konstantin Sivkov – Vice President of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences for Information Policy
> Sir Tim Clark told the Financial Times he had seen a “progressive decline” in Boeing’s standards, which he put down to long-running management and governance mis-steps, including prioritising financial performance over engineering excellence. <
Use as open (not Ukraine or Palestine related) thread …
Posted by b on February 25, 2024 at 13:03 UTC | Permalink
Cheese Tortellini Crock Pot Dinner
A creamy, cheesy crock pot dinner recipe featuring cream cheese, cheese tortellini and spinach.
Ingredients
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 large bag cheese tortellini
1 (16 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 bunch fresh spinach, stems removed, or 1 bag frozen spinach
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 container vegetable or chicken broth
4 ounces grated mozzarella cheese
Instructions
Place block of cream cheese in the slow cooker.
Pour the bag of tortellini over the cream cheese.
Pour the can of diced tomatoes over all.
Add the spinach to the top.
Sprinkle garlic powder, onion powder, pepper and Italian seasoning over the top.
Pour the chicken broth into the slow cooker.
Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the top.
Cover the slow cooker, and cook on HIGH for about 2 1/2 hours.
Stir well and serve.
Fail Safe (1964) | Full Movie ft. Henry Fonda | Voyage
A U.S. plane loaded with hydrogen bombs is flying towards Moscow and because of technical difficulties, is impossible to recall. Starring Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau. Directed by Sidney Lumet.
“Dr. Strangelove” and “Fail Safe” were released the same year, 1964, and deal with the same subject. Dr. Strangelove got more attention due to its satirical, comedic approach to the subject of nuclear destruction, but Fail Safe brings home the point in a far clearer, more compelling manner. It’s just as chilling today as it was 60 years ago.
I pulled out a Paetron video for you all to enjoy. It’s the start of the Dragon Year 2024. Please enjoy it, you all. For those who already watched it, please check it out again.
Enjoy this video.
MM discusses a rebuilding of the Reality Universe substructure
A question…
I really enjoyed this but now I have so many more questions!
Didn’t know you still do missions and I wish I knew what “polishing” is…
An answer
I am retired from MAJestic. But I am still active in Domain.
As far as “polishing” is concerned…
“Polishing” is like dipping a piece of fly paper into a thick vegetable soup. Then pulling it out.
The chunky bits all cling to the paper. You then scrape the paper clean (or get a new sheet), and repeat the process.
Over time, the soup gets less “chunky” and full of stuff, and is more like really sluggish and calm water.
Hmmm. I guess it was when my parents were divorcing. My father purposefully put mom in dire financial trouble. He even somehow cancelled my credit cards and cleaned out my college fund which I hadn’t touched yet, even tho I was 21. She was suddenly behind in house payments and taxes, because even tho he said he was paying everything, he pocketed the money for months and years. So, yeah. I gave mom all my savings, dropped out of school midterm and went to work full time to get her back on track. I gave her my entire paychecks. After about a year she was ok again. And karma found the sperm donor and took him down. Story for another time tho. Secondly was quitting my job to care for my mom when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, which had spread everywhere. She became bedridden pretty quickly I was her 24/7 caregiver for over a year. I wouldn’t let her go to a place where she couldn’t get one-on-one attention. She had every complication possible. Rashes, wounds, meds, diarrhea, nausea, dizziness, everything. She would be confused and call me every 15 minutes for something. She required 3–5 full bed changes and cleanings a day at times. Hospice told me it was the worst case they’d seen in 25 years. But I stayed. Caregivers I hired at $50/hr to get a few hours relief would leave because it was “too much work.” But I stayed. I may have had no outside life, only got 3–4 hours of sleep a night, and was an emotional wreck, but I know I did everything I could have done for her. She passed a few months ago and I’m still riding all the emotions while trying to figure out my life again.
Already entitled and lazy, once she realized that I’m reliable, not stupid and could be trusted to do her work, she started dumping on me. Eventually I was doing her job and mine for four days out of five while she called in either “sick” or “working from home today” or .”out on appointments” or “cold-calling” every day except payday Fridays.
Or one or the other of her children or husband was sick, or had an appointment, or the car broke down. Like she fucking thought I was that damned stupid. Every. Single. Day.
When I complained to her brother the company owner about my overwhelming workload, I was told that I just needed to learn how to prioritize.
Eventually he was spending more and more time on the golf course and dumping on me himself. I became a de facto office manager without the salary, I was running their company for them in their absence on my secretary’s wages. Everything from invoicing, collections, and banking to sales and installation support and inventory to making coffee and vacuuming to painting walls.
Yeah, I quit without notice. And without me, they not only had to get off their asses and do their own jobs but had to figure how I’d spent 45 hours a week, because neither one of them had any idea. Clueless about customer service, answering the phone, taking and filling customer orders, shipping and receiving, reception and typing and filing and billing. Without me they didn’t even know where the vending machine keys were. I guess neither one was smart enough to figure it out, because less than a year after I quit they bankrupted the business.
My supervisor ended up giving $6 haircuts at the Hair Cuttery for tips.
Are ‘Girls Trips’ on Spring Break Okay When Married?
I’m sure there are examples more disgusting than this, but this is the one that sticks in my mind.
I was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard while getting my Ph.D. There was a student in my section who clearly had money to burn and the attitude that the world was his toy to play with. He came to me on the day a paper was due, smiled his expensive Tom Cruise smile, and said he hadn’t gotten his assignment done because he spent Spring Break in the Bahamas, so he’d get it to me when he had a chance. He seemed to think this would be absolutely fine. I told him how much his grade would drop each day it was late, and he shrugged and sauntered out.
Later, close to the end of a semester of this kind of performance from him, I explained exactly how many points he needed on the Final to pass the course.
He didn’t pass.
He then proceeded to come in with a multi-page detailed analysis explaining how I had graded his exam wrong. If he had put that much effort into studying for the test, he would have passed.
He clearly expected me to change his grade and pass him, because otherwise he wouldn’t graduate and would have to take summer school to get his diploma, and he already had a job lined up at his dad’s law firm. And to my amazement, the professor of the course wanted me to do exactly that — either he was afraid of what the powerful lawyer-dad might do if we failed his kid, or he just didn’t want the bother. I had to fight to get him to follow through with the clearly stated consequences for this kid’s actions.
I saw the kid later during the summer term. He didn’t look quite so entitled then.
I was hired by a Director at a software company, she was remote, her team was remote, I was remote, and the team was Project Management (overseeing the implementation of enterprise facility management software). BUT then the Director of the implementation team was more short-handed, so I was given that director instead. Fine. I’d done all of the roles before, I was just happy to be working there, and able to help the clients, and give articulate feedback to the dev team, which I did.
I was the only one on the Implementation team (including the Director) who’d actually been a Solutions Consultant before. Talking to the clients about their needs, importing their existing data, customizing the software to meet their needs, helping them with training, etc. The rest of my team were total noobs. It’s cool, we all had to start somewhere. So, everyone on the team would come to me with questions.
I’d started off as a CAD Manager (dealing with the drafting and design software), so when our tech support team would have a difficult issue with a client’s drawing files, they’d call me in, and I’d help them out. They were SUPER grateful. Like they knew all about their own software, but AutoCAD and Revit are a whole different company, and they weren’t experts.
About six months in, my Director told me I needed to move to a different state because the remote work wasn’t working out. Uh, really? Because my two biggest clients were actually in the same city as me, and I’d been doing this job remotely for clients all over the country for years.
Whatever. I was let go because I couldn’t relocate. (I was in the middle of a divorce, and I’m physically disabled. My kids and I needed family support, and they legally needed to remain near their Dad.)
***The wild thing was, when the head of the support team heard that I’d been let go… he quit.***
He was tired of not having anyone else in the company to turn to for help, and I’d been that person for him, and the clients were all happier with quicker, more effective resolutions, and clear documentation for the knowledgebase.
He and I are still friends. That director didn’t last much longer there either and went back into real estate.
A little background: I was a 13yo city kid. I previously joined the Boy Scouts but having made only 2nd Class, I was invited to leave by the Scoutmaster for swearing. Hey..we were city. Short time later we were snow sliding not far from the tenement and I got the bright idea to pick up a long sheet of scrap metal from a nearby mill. I found out if you pulled the end up like a toboggan you rocketed down the hill. On one run I really picked up speed and my ‘sled’ went out of control spinning and I landed at the bottom covered in snow and laughing. I looked up the hill and a line of my friends were just staring at me. I yelled “what?” and they pointed to my hand. I had gone out wearing a pair of my sisters white wool gloves. I looked at my left hand and that glove was soaked in blood and dripping fast. I stumbled up the hill to try and run home. At one point I knelt and pulled the glove off. I had severed my left thumb down to the bone along with the arteries and blood was pumping out of my body. A friend stayed with me as everyone went to get help. By this time the snow around me was crimson. I was getting dizzy. I knew I was in trouble. I told my friend to find a stick and told him to give me his bootlace. I told him how to tie a tourniquet and told him to keep winding that stick until the blood stopped. He was shaking and crying. I remember telling him it’s going to be all right. The bleeding did stop but there was blood everywhere. I looked up to see my mother running towards me. I remember saying “I’m sorry mommy” and I guess I passed out. I woke up in a rescue and the EMT asked who tied the tourniquet and I said I remembered from Boy Scouts and out again. A week in the hospital and my thumb reattached and today as good as new. One of the things I remembered before getting kicked out of Scouts was First Aid.
In 2016, Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh was a suicide bomber who had explosives in his laptop as he boarded airplane from Somalia,Daallo Airlines.
He had come in as someone who had difficulty in walking and he claimed his purpose for travelling was health related.
Twenty minutes after taking off from Mogadishu, Somalia at an altitude of 14,000ft an explosion occurred inside the aircraft. There were 74 passengers and 7 crew members on board.
The explosion created this opening.
He was sucked out of the plane from this opening.
His intention was to kill everyone on the plane, but as fate had it, He was the only one who died.
He was the only fatality and the plane’s controls were unaffected by the blast allowing the pilot able to fly the plane back to Mogadishu safely.
My boss was a prankster so I should have seen this coming.
Not sure if it was April fools but the joke was on me!
I worked for a company based very near Heathrow Airport. One year I booked a three-week holiday to the Philippines with my family.
Long-term car parking would have cost hundreds of pounds, but my boss had a secretary lived nearby. She said I could use their driveway as they would be away too. Just pop the keys in their letter box, bring a spare and drive myself home when we got back since she would be at work.
It all worked fine.
About a week after I got back I had a meeting with my boss. I am a field manager so we used to meet at a local Hilton convenient to us both.
So we meet up and were having our discussion when he excuses himself to go to the loo. He’s away a while so I assume he’s just having a dump.
At the end of our meeting we say our goodbyes, I go off to my car. Its gone! I check everywhere! I’m sure I remembered where I parked it! No it’s gone! Some bastard stole it! My beautiful blue Mercedes C class!
I run back in panicking! I see my boss still packing up his lap top. I tell him what happened. He’s not surprised! He’s laughing!
What?
He waves my key at me !
The bastard had been given my key by his secretary and asked to return it to me . He’d taken the opportunity to move my car to the far corner of the car park! No wonder I couldn’t find it!
When I saw a significant theft on the job, I held off, thinking on the subject until quitting time. As my fellow employee prepared to leave I approached him, saying I knew what he wanted to take and it was in his knapsack. He gave me an innocent look and denied any such thing. I advised him what would probably happen if management “accidentally” found out about attempted theft as he exited the building. Then I explained how he would feel later, how it would probably affect his performance, and what little gain he was going to get -vs- his possible loss of employment as well as a black-mark on employment history.
He stood quite for a moment then explained the item was supposed to be a birthday gift to his son. Sympathetically, I asked him how much he could afford for a gift. He had about half the money he needed if he paid retail price. I knew the owner/manager well so I told my fellow employee to replace the item while I asked what could be arranged.
The owner seemed proud the employee’s son would receive an item his company produced and gave me a reduced figure. I paid the difference, asking the owner to accept the amount the employee had saved. We went to the production area, selected a newly inspected item, packaged it and presented it to the employee who beamed with excitement. Then he hesitated, explaining he only had half the value saved. The owner simply accepted the amount, grinned and told him not to tell other employees about today’s deep discount. The day, and a man’s dignity had been saved.
In my first two weeks after finishing in the training school I was put with Alan.
Alan was a very experienced officer and I was assured I would learn plenty from Alan.
So we are driving down the street when Alan suddenly declares “There’s Fingers Malone. He must have just been released. Sit in the back!”
Alan then pulls up alongside this criminal.
“Hi Fingers. How are you doing? Just got out have you?
“Yeah.”
“Where are you heading? Home?”
“Yeah”
“Well we’re heading that way. Why don’t you jump in and we’ll give you a lift?”
Fingers then gets in the patrol car where I had previously been seated.
“So did you have a bit of a party when you got out?”
“Yeah”
“I bet your old mates Wiry and Doggo were there eh?”
“Yeah”
“Anyone else”
“Yeah, Jacko and Freddie were there too.”
“Here we are King Street. What number was it?
“28”
“Here we are number 28. Right to your door”
“Thank very much. Sometimes I think you guys are better to me than my mates”
“Stay out of trouble”
“OK Steve you can come back up front now. Have you got your notebook?
“Yes” says I.
“Take this down”
“Fingers Malone is residing at no 28 King Street. He is still associating with known criminals Wiry Burns, Doggo Johnson, Freddie Duggan and Jacko Carpenter.”
I was blown away. Alan had skilfully attained information that was highly useful to the collator. (It would now be done on a computer but in those days by paper.)
To illustrate how useful – I took a call from someone who had their tool van broken into and they had noticed a man known to us (criminal) hanging around.
Found that man’s address from the collator sent a car there and it arrived just as this person was unloading his van of a load of stolen tools.
As he was arrested and cautioned his reply was “Fuck me that was the fastest I have ever been arrested.”
After my father died, my mother was incredibly lonely, she was the type of person who couldn’t be alone. My dad, brother and I were never like this. She just never felt complete if she didn’t have someone in her life.
I was a workaholic, and wasn’t giving her the attention she needed, my brother had his own young family to look after. We just didn’t understand how lonely she was, because when we visited, she wasn’t lonely, she had us.
We started going on road trips, and at first she would lose her train of thought, and not be able to finish a sentence. She couldn’t walk a half block without resting.
After taking a three week road trip, and going for a walk every night, she was back to normal.
But she quickly backslid, and I asked her to move in with me. She was reluctant, because she didn’t want to ruin my life. But she said she would give it some thought, and then she had a stroke and died.
For people who don’t get lonely, its hard for us to imagine what someone who does, feels after years of loneliness.
But I finally got it, albeit, too late.
You say you have lived alone for 15 years, and tried everything. Does that include online dating, there are plenty of fish in the sea, especially if you aren’t too picky, and just need someone. Don’t be afraid to contact men, don’t wait for them to approach you. This is how I met my wife. If this hasn’t worked, try volunteering to fill up your empty hours. You will undoubtedly meet other lonely souls, and don’t be afraid to make the first move. All of my long time girlfriends and my wife, approached me first.
“I never even used that pot! It was the morning shift!” – this was the last lie Stefani told me while she was still employed by me, because I fired her on the spot. Somehow everything that happened around her was always someone else’s fault, but people do occasionally lie, so I let it go until she lied about three different coworkers in one day, trying to get them in trouble for no apparent reason.
Stephani was the sole lunch cook in a small store I own, and she was a problem from day one. She spoke to her coworkers like they were dogs, constantly corrected and bullied them even when she was a new hire being trained by them, and she excused it all by saying that she “always speaks the truth and won’t hold her tongue” and “that’s just how she talks, she can’t help it”. She was also a sneaky bitch, because she tried to kiss my ass, but even with me her temper and pathological need to be right would assert itself, and she’d flash out until she got it under control again. With everyone else, she was constantly insulting them, berating them, and lying about them. You might think that it takes more than one person to carry on a feud, but Stephani proved that she could do it all on her own.
Her job wasn’t hard, because sales were low at that store when I bought it and we’re branded by a chain that mostly has ready-to-fry foods. She had to come in and fry chicken, sides, and make a lunch special, and she had to do the occasional burger or sandwich. Other than that she just needed to prep for the following day, and clean the kitchen and the equipment at the end of her shift, which only takes an hour. The other cooks who had worked her shift had all had lunch out on time, gotten the special orders (those the cashiers can’t put together by the hot case) out in a timely manner, cooked until an hour before their shift ended, and left a clean kitchen with food prepped for the next shift. Stefani, on the other hand, couldn’t get the food out on time, and it was always the breakfast cook’s fault for not getting out her way. She had similar excuses for why she couldn’t prep, and when the kitchen was a filthy mess it was always because someone else made it that way.
We cook our own lunch specials but everything else is branded, and those foods have to be made and they have to be made according to certain standards, but Stefani tried to take advantage of my absences from the store (I have other businesses, a full time job, and a family) to stop doing those items and just do her own cooking that wasn’t even selling in this small town. When her more senior coworkers would politely remind her about the way she was supposed to cook, she make arrogant statements like: “Oh, I know how to cook. I don’t cook according to recipes, I do my own, and these people will either eat it or they can go somewhere else”. I knew about her behavior but for almost two months that little store just wasn’t my focus, as I’d mainly just bought it so it wouldn’t be soaking up sales from my bigger store across the road, which meant that she got away with way too much. Finally I got a chance to focus on this store, so at the beginning of the month I had a serious talk with her. I told her what she had to cook, I transferred an experienced cook from the other store who needed a less demanding job for health reasons to cook breakfast at the little one, and I appointed her kitchen manager so she could stay on top of Stephani.
What I’d hoped was that she’d do what this cook asked, especially since this woman gets along with everyone and has an incredibly tactful way about her, but it didn’t work. She doesn’t complain much but when I asked for updates she admitted that nothing had improved. I tried spending more time in the store, and it did make Stephani at least pretend to do what she’d been asked, but pretend is all she did. I had already made up my mind to fire her, but I was short on staff at both stores and in the process of buying a third, so I was going to wait a bit. When she snapped back at me after I once again told her that she couldn’t bully her coworkers, I went ahead and told her that I was going to fire her if she didn’t start getting along with people, and when I found a very unclean kitchen a day later I made it clear that she was out of chances. She went about two weeks without causing any issues big enough for the other ladies to bring them to me (although they try too hard not to bother me), only instead she started to call me about every little thing.
The big store has a general manager who runs it for me, and I’d tried putting her in charge of the little one too but it was too much for her, so those few employees were temporarily allowed to contact m directly. Other than her calls, the only one to call was the kitchen manager and the assistant manager in the store, and that was for serious trouble like a broken walk-in cooler and a fire marshal showing up to inspect us. Stefani called multiple times about little shit even though I told her every time to go through her immediate manager for that, and then she started to call to complain about her coworkers. One time a cashier had told her that she was being mean, which was exceedingly mild and entirely appropriate under the circumstances, but Stephani wanted her fired. Apparently she’d even looked at her smugly and announced that she was about to get her job taken away from her, as she grabbed her phone and walked outside to call me. This was when I reached out and hired someone to replace her, and started to count the twelve days until that woman could start.
I didn’t want her to leave immediately when I didn’t have her replacement yet, so I didn’t tell her. In fact I was just going to send out the new schedule the day before the new cook started, and let Stephani figure out that she was fired, but she couldn’t stop making trouble. Last Tuesday she called and woke me up after my late shift in the ER (the schedule in the store includes my hours at the hospital so they can know when it’s okay to call), to complain that the same cashier who had said she was mean had called her the n-word. She was gleefully happy as she informed me that I’d have to fire the girl now or she was going to sue me, but I was 99 percent sure she had made the accusation up. I’ve never used it to spy on my workers, but my stores have hidden cameras with microphones and speakers in addition to the visible cameras. I had them installed for precisely this reason, to avoid having to fire someone innnocent, and because audio is useful evidence too in case a crime is committed. It took me a while to find their confrontation on the footage and then search out the audio based on the time stamp, and before I finished the assistant manager of the store calls to tell me that a group of regular customers had come in to say that Stephani had started a fight with them outside when she was smoking. According to the men, they had half-jokingly asked why she never had the fried foods out at lunch time, and she’d gotten pissed and told them that she wasn’t ever cooking for them again. When they asked what the hell she meant, she’d banned them from both my stores.
At that point I got dressed and drove to the store, only to find my cook sitting outside in the middle of the lunch rush, smoking a cigarette. She immediately said it was her first break, but having just watched most of that morning on the cameras, I knew she’d already taken at least seven smoke breaks in less than four hours. She comes inside as I’ve asked the other cook if she’d done any work that day and she’s explaining that no, she has not, so then Stephani starts screaming at the other cook – the kitchen manager – that it’s none of her business if she works. I tell her stop, and I explain that Mary is her supervisor so it absolutely is her business. I tell her to apologize and she does that thing where she says “I’m sorry if you thought what I said was mean, but I can’t help how I talk”. When I insist on a proper apology, while I’m also answering an important call, she says something to Mary just out of earshot. I finish my call and ask Mary if she apologized, and I’m told that no, what Stephani really told her was “to mind her own business because people who crossed her had a way of regretting it”. It was my turn to fly into a rage, especially since I’d just seen a text Stephani must have sent just as I was pulling up to the store, one complaining that another employee had been the one who spilt a lot of gravy on the floor she just left it. I already knew it was Stephani because her coworkers knew she’d blame them, and so they’d sent me the exact time so I could easily check the cameras. That and the veiled threat was it, so I was done with this bitch even if I had to cook lunch myself for the rest of the week!
Up until that day I’d never fired anymore in public, but I followed Stephani out into the store where she was getting her some more free coffee, and told her to get her shit and go home. She’d been suspended once before, because of her attitude, so she put her hands on her hips and said: “Really?? You’re suspending me for taking a smoke break?!”. She’s a big woman who uses her body and voice to bully people, so she wasn’t particularly discreet with her question, which meant that her coworkers and the customers all stopped to stare at us. Knowing her it was deliberate, as she likely thought she was about to verbally own me, so the look on her face was priceless when I told her that she wasn’t suspended; she was fired. It was the first time she didn’t immediately snap back, so I actually got a chance to tell her that I was firing her for failing to perform her job, bullying her coworkers, lying, and making false allegations of racism. Once she recovered from the shock she started to argue with me, about the specific reasons, but I told her to get her shit and go home, and I would mail her last check and her separation papers.
She was starting to cry a little when she grabbed her purse and left, but my sympathy is with the coworkers she terrified and tried to get fired! I wish I’d known just how bad it all had gotten, but my employee are great women who didn’t want to bother me unless it was urgent. I’ve made it clear that everything Stephani did qualified as a valid reason to call me, and I’m training the assistant to run the store. A cashier is filling in until the new cook starts, all five employees at that store got a 50 cent raise for all they’d had to put up with, and now that they know about the microphones and speakers, we’re having some fun with them. Last night I played “Haunted House” sounds from YouTube over the speakers, just as the cashiers looked like they were starting to fuck off a bit too much, and their reactions were hilarious. Oh, and Stephani called to ask that I say she was laid off rather than fired, so she could get unemployment. Even as she was asking for a huge favor, she couldn’t stop being a bitch, because she actually went ahead and said: “you know, since it’s your fault if my kids have to starve”. As you can probably guess, I made it abundantly clear that she’d been fired for cause, and that there are plenty of available jobs around here. None of them are paying as much as I do, but she had her chance.
One of the weirdest stories we covered when I worked at the TV station involved a welfare check. The police received a call from the coworkers of a woman who hadn’t showed up at work that day, nor had she called. Coworkers tried to call her but she didn’t answer multiple calls. Normally the cops are not going to go check on someone because they didn’t feel like going to work. But in this case, her coworkers insisted this was not like her, she’d worked there ten years and never failed to show up without calling, and she was also an older woman who lived alone and had a heart condition. They were concerned she might be sick and unable to get to her phone. Given all that info, the police dispatcher agreed to send a unit to do a welfare check.
The officers got to the door, thinking they were probably going to find an old woman who died in her sleep. That happens a lot with welfare checks. Usually they will start by ringing the doorbell or knocking, and if they don’t get an answer, they walk around and look in the windows to see if they can see the person. If they spot someone who’s not responsive despite repeated yelling and pounding, they might consider that probable cause to break in.
But that wasn’t really necessary in this case. They got to the door, one of the officers knocked, and it just swung open. Wasn’t fully closed, let alone locked. The old woman was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, clearly dead and not from a heart attack. She had been stabbed multiple times. The coroner was called, Homicide detectives and crime scene techs came. One of the detectives knelt down to look at the body and noticed something on the wall. It was a name, written in blood. Turned out it was the name of her cousin, who turned up a few days later at a hospital in another state, claiming to have amnesia. She had the dead woman’s ID on her. I seem to recall she was charged with the murder but not how that turned out.
Bizarre story. I always thought it would be good inspiration for a work of fiction, and I did eventually write a short story loosely based on it.
I was at a hospital for some tests recently. The doctor prescribed some medicines and asked me to get them from the in-house pharmacy as they weren’t available elsewhere. I went to get the same and stood in the queue.
The hospital had put a queue barricade for easy maintenance of crowd. The counter was equipped to handle only two people at a time. There was a lady ahead of me in the queue. She was getting irritated for being made to wait and started shouting at the staff. They offered a mumbled apology. Meanwhile she tried to push her way through, even though the previous guy was still waiting to collect his medicines. His hospital file grazed this lady’s arm and all hell broke loose!
The lady started shouting at the poor guy and accused him of harming her. The poor fellow did not know what had happened exactly. He was a very young lad and was cringing at the lady’s accusations. He tried to reason with her and said that he had not budged from his place at all. It was her own fault. This retaliation was unacceptable to the lady and she took it as a serious affront to her! So she started calling for the management and resorted to threats.
However, everyone present there stood by the boy. That was almost a miracle! No one spoke against the boy and instead told the lady to mind her language. Frustrated at this sudden turn of events, the lady marched away calling all of us a bunch of “bumbling idiots”. Yes… her exact words!
What needs to be said out loud? The message that the perception of people is changing. Slowly but surely. Now women can’t expect immediate and blind support just because they are females. If you are wrong, you are wrong. It’s as simple as that. So it’s the need of the hour to refrain from such stunts so that a genuine case of harassment does not get ignored and a victim is not denied help just because some of us decided to cry wolf and made people wary of every female!
I am still thanking the mechanic who told the guy I bought my new truck from that the engine was bad! 2016 Dodge RAM 1500 and it barely had 50,000 miles on it. This was a few years back.
As I drove this truck around on the highway she rode and smelled like new. It had great acceleration and power, and didn’t have the burning smoke exhaust like an engine using oil should have. I look at the oil on the dipstick, and the percentage the computer says left was 40%. If it had blowback, that oil should be really black and smell of exhaust. It was pretty clean and smelled ok. Nothing was pointing to a bad engine. So I thought maybe bearings or something? I quickly check pricing on a new engine core just in case. Heck doing the work myself I was only looking at $3600.00 for an entire brand new engine core. The price he was asking ($15,000) was half its worth of around $32,000.00. How could I go wrong?
I once again told the seller I didn’t think the engine was bad, he was making a big mistake, etc. Nope he already bought a new truck he likes better and he was happy with the deal he got. Ok, I tried, so I hand over the cash and signed the papers. Best decision i have ever made.
Next morning I go out to a chilly 48deg truck. At this temperature if the rods and bearings are bad they will knock like crazy at first start. I turn the key and listen intently. I hear noises, but not rods or bearings. Now Dodge Hemi engines are noisy. Their design you will hear various rattles and ticks here and there. My last work Dodge lasted 390,000 miles and rattled to high heaven. I listen intently to a very loud tick on the passenger side, as the noise begins to fade away. Using my scope i quickly found what I suspected, a leaky exhaust header. Very common on these. A good look underneath confirms several broken bolts. A pain to remove, but nothing serious. At first it did sound like an internal problem, but any good mechanic with a scope should be able to pinpoint that noise or should have known it was a problem.
At this stage we are at 85,000 miles and doing great. I have never owned a newer vehicle before with so many buttons and things to touch. Most of the miles have been cross country to see relatives. So yes, thank you whoever you are! You got me a new vehicle I otherwise would never get for a fantastic price.
My buddy was 17, the legal drinking age was 18, and he would be turning 18 on Sunday. But he wanted a party in the bar Saturday night to celebrate. So we all go down to the small town bar. A good time was had by all, until about 11:00 pm, when the police do a walk through. Being a small town, they notice that they hadn’t seen my buddy in the bar before. They ask for his ID, and he is underage. They write him up an illegal possession of alcohol, the fine is about the equivalent of 15 dozen beer.
This happened a long time ago, so giving dollars wouldn’t mean much.
My buddy wants me as a witness, to say that I didn’t see him drinking, and the beer on the table wasn’t his. I hadn’t seen him drinking, because I had only arrived 10 minutes before, and so I could tell the truth and get him off. There is a different charge they could have used, with a lesser fine, for being underage in a bar.
He is called before the judge, and the police officer is sitting in the back of the court.
The judge asks my buddy how old he is, and he says 18. The judge says. It says here you were found in the bar, last Saturday night and were under age. He says, yes thats true.
The judge asks when was your birthday. My friend says Sunday. The judge burst out laughing, and says a dollar a day fine, please pay the clerk a dollar. My friend says, but I wasn’t drinking, I have a witness. The judge says, don’t push your luck. its a dollar, do you want to have a trial.
Simply known as “The Greatest”, Muhammad Ali had it all – enormous wealth, exceptional good looks, freakish athleticism, and hundreds of millions of adoring fans. According to international polls, it was Ali who finally toppled Elvis as the “The Most Famous Person in the World”. This is his final picture before taking exit from his frail, withered body.
After someone stole his bicycle, a young Cassius Clay decided to “whup the thief”. He never got the chance, but, hoping for the opportunity, took some boxing lessons at a local gym. Six years later, while still in his teens, he would win an Olympic gold medal. And less than three years after that, Clay became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
Although somewhat shy, Clay watched professional wrestlers with their outlandish behavior and remarks filling the seats with fans. Wanting to do the same, Ali took on a new persona – the supremely pompous “Louisville [Kentucky] Lip”, drawing attention to a sport that seemed to be struggling with mediocrity and a plummeting fan base. People loved him or hated him. Everyone had an opinion and it was never in the middle of the spectrum.
But, although he kept on winning, something was not right. Punches to the head from George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton were taking their toll. Still in his thirties, and no longer calling himself by his “slave name”, Muhammad Ali, was developing early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. But he kept boxing, even as his disability made every moment a chore.
Eventually, there was nothing left. Ali had no choice. It was time to retire or face the prospect that one more punch to the head might take away his last breath. Dedicating the remainder of his life to charity, it is estimated that Ali provided 22 million meals for the hungry in Africa. Among his many other contributions, Ali became one of the biggest donors to the United Negro College Fund, talked a suicidal man off a 9th floor ledge and negotiated the release of American hostages held by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Eventually, his ailing health would no longer allow him to speak. His body would quake. His brain was damaged, losing its ability to function on virtually all levels. His bladder failed. Ali would have regular bouts with pneumonia and infections in which he could never fully recover.
For the last years of his life, Ali was not able to leave his house. His once agile, quick and strong body capitulated to a much stronger, microscopic virus. It would be his last fight.
In 1983 a German couple was on a holiday in Sicily. They were minding their own business, alternating mornings at the beach with little road trips in the afternoon.
On one of those afternoons coming back from a hike, their rented car broke down. In the middle of nowhere. They got out of the car and tried to push it to the side of the narrow dirt road. The car was stuck in gear and wouldn’t budge. The German couple was happy to see a car approaching in the distance, preceding a cloud of dust. The car stopped and a man flung out, screaming. The Germans did speak some Italian but had a hard time understand what he was shouting: do you know who I am!?
They didn’t. And worse, instead of helping the wedged his Fiat through the little space between their car and the edge of the road. Metal against metal, scratching the rented car from front to rear.
Later that evening the couple reported what happened to the local police. They described the man who scratched the car and added he was probably famous since he couldn’t seem to understand they did not recognise or knew him. Well the police sure did who he was. After being on the run for three years Masino L. was arrested. The price he paid for asking stupid questions.
Elon Musk’s Frustration with the Biden administration.
I consulted a business where someone in a work uniform took his break at a nearby coffee shop. He was clocked out. He got into a dispute with another customer over something stupid but decided to check all the boxes in his argument. He insulted an old black woman and implied that she needed to practice better feminine hygiene.
The woman took note of the company name on his coveralls and noted it in her police report. No charges were filed, but the woman made sure to contact the business claiming that this man represented their company and she planned to share with everyone she knew that the company hired racist, sexist assclowns.
When we asked the employee about it, he freely admitted every detail, telling us that we “can’t do a fuckin’ thing about it” since he wasn’t on the clock at the time. He was fired on the spot but police had to trespass him and march him out in handcuffs.
To the woman, she had no power over a large, loud man in the moment, but she chose to get her revenge for his disrespect. Employees who are off the clock usually have instructions about how they can conduct themselves in public while wearing company apparel. This is why companies don’t approve of people wearing company apparel in their off-hours, because they can act like assclowns while also serving as a walking billboard for the company that pays them.
Boring most of the time. After I got out of the military I went to work for a small town of 1000 residents. We had three officers, one for the day, mid day, and night. I was chief of police there and took the day shift. Most of the things that happened were an occasional stop sign violation, a domestic once in a while, and just keeping things safe.
Kids were kids, always trying to get a beer or two past me. Not always successful too. When I would catch a minor with booze, I would take them to the office, sit them down and call parents to come get them. However I did not arrest them as here was the deal. Parents and child could decide if I took the kid to jail, booked them in, gave them a police record, and have them spend time behind bars for their stupidity. OR….they could show up each weekend for the next year, Pick up trash in the park, sweep the sidewalks downtown, Paint the fire hydrants, Plant flowers on the corners downtown, etc. I had the prettiest park, corners, and hydrants in the state. The kids learned a lesson and knew if they did it again they would go right to jail, no parents involved. Which did happen I think three times. After word got around in the younger citizens I and my fellow officers were treated with respect and as a friend of the younger people and parents.
The only bad thing I can think of was the small town politics, When I started I was handed a piece of paper with names and addresses on it as to who to arrest, who not to arrest, who to trust and who to do every thing possible to get to move out of town. After reading the list, I tore it up right in front of the city council meeting, told them I do not discriminate, do not do what they wanted, but I enforce the law equally of all citizens.
I lasted there for two years and when I arrested the Mayors daughter for possession of drugs, with intent to distribute ( $75000 worth of meth, $100000 worth of coke, and more, The city council fired me., She still went to jail, found guilty and spent 5 to 10 behind bars. I went on to a sheriffs dept in the same county and later even arrested the mayor of the town on similar charges. After which I was asked to come back to the town to work and I refused.
So small towns are quiet, boring most of the time, but occasionally have some excitement and danger.
. In addition to its civilian population, Santo Tomas became the initial internment camp for both the army and navy nurses, with the army nurses remaining there until their liberation.“
“Capt. Maude C. Davison, 57 years old and with 20 years of service experience, took command of the nurses, maintained a regular schedule of nursing duty, and insisted that all nurses wear their khaki blouses and skirts while on duty. She worked with Josephine Nesbit.”
At Los Baños
“In May 1943, the navy nurses, still under the command of Lt. Cobb
, were transferred to a new internment camp at Los Baños, where they established a new infirmary and continued working as a nursing unit.“
“At Los Baños they came to be known as “the sacred eleven.”
On the Home Front
“While the capture of the nurses was widely publicized in the U.S., little specific information was known of their fate until they were liberated.
, one of the few nurses to escape, published a memoir of her experiences on Bataan in 1943 that concluded with a dramatic reminder that her colleagues were still prisoners.“
“The nurses’ story was dramatized in several wartime movies, including:
“When So Proudly We Hail was shown in the theaters, a recruitment booth staffed with Red Cross volunteers was set up in the lobby.“
Final year of Internment
“In January 1944, control of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp changed from Japanese civil authorities to the Imperial Japanese Army
, with whom it remained until the camp was liberated.“
“Access to outside food sources was curtailed, the diet of the internees was reduced to 960 calories per person per day by November 1944, and further reduced to 700 calories per person per day by January 1945.“
“A Department of Veterans Affairs study released in April, 2002 found that the nurses lost, on average, 30% of their body weight during internment, and subsequently experienced a degree of service-connected disability “virtually the same as the male ex-POW’s of the Pacific Theater.”
“ Maude C. Davison’s body weight dropped from 156 lbs. to 80 lbs.”
A few years ago I’m in Uganda and we drive through a village. Everyone is running out of their houses with spears and machetes (they call panga), knives and pitchforks. So, I ask the driver to stop and ask the mob WTF is happening.
Within a few seconds, we’re surrounded by about 200 people who look fucking mad as hell.
They tell the driver that some dude just stole a motorcycle and that they’re going to hunt him down and chop him up into lots of tiny pieces. Our curiosity satisfied, we thanked them and continued on with the journey.
Naturally, I had questions for the driver on the way:
if the guy has a bike will they catch him. He says yes. They normally catch people within 24 hours.
I pointed out that the border to the Congo is less than 24 hours away by bike. He says people have tried that in the past and they still get killed.
I ask why the police aren’t going after this guy. He says that the police only catch a guy if they’re paid to. The village is poor and can’t afford the bribes.
And that was that. I had witnessed the beginning of murder, but glad I wasn’t there to see it happen. I know they would have gutted him like an animal. And he must have known this too since he lived in that village. How desperate must that man have been to take such a risk?
When surrounded by a mob and you have a fully loaded pistol, what would you suggest: to fire in the air or fire on people?
If that happened I’d just tuck the pistol in my belt. If the mob is after someone else, they don’t give a fuck about me. If they’re after me, I’m already dead.
Edit: That was the nicest image I could find. A lot of the other ones show the person being chopped up – no censorship. Brutal.
Edit: For those people in the comments trying to turn this answer into a culture war, I recommend you educate yourself about the history of Africa before you call them savages. The most savage thing done to Africa was by Westerners – lest we wilfully forget, yet again.
10k bonus edit:
So, something like this has happened to me before. 1997, Edinburgh, Scotland, during the day. I’m waiting at a bus stop when two young guys come up and offer me a swig of wine. I look at it and say, no thanks. Then they demand, “DRINK IT”. So I take a swig and hand it back. Then one of them comes up to me and says, “Give me all your money or I’ll cut your fucking throat.”
I look down at his hands to see if he has a knife, but he has no hands, just stumps. So I ask him, “how are you going to hold a knife?” He puts one stump behind his back and says he has a knife in his back pocket. Now I only had 53 pence and the bus ticket was going to cost 50 pence, so I told them to “get tae fuck” and walked along the road to the next bus stop while they shouted after me that they were going to murder me.
I just can’t take anyone seriously if they don’t have any hands.
Having been a boss for several decades I feel qualified to give an answer here.
I am smart enough to realise that I am unlikely to attract extremely high intelligence employees to mix detergent! I own two chemical manufacturing companies. So I am talking about normal everyday people with this answer.
For me a good employee is one that is consistent. In other words they produce the same quality and quantity of work/results every day consistently. They are set and forget with little to no effort required from me or their supervisor. I don’t need them to be a superstar. I am happy with them giving me 80% of what a superstar could give me in theory because I know I am always going to get it from them and I can more easily predict business/job outcomes as a result.
This doesn’t mean I don’t try to get them to 85% or greater, of course I try.
The above employee tends to arrive on time and have less than average personal/sick leave too in my experience.
By contrast, the mediocre employee is brilliant one day and off with the fairies for the next three days, then rounds out the week with a day off for a sprained eyelash!
Mediocre employees work output is up and down and hard to predict resulting in far more time spent supervising them. This adds cost and complexity to the business as a result.
So if you want to impress a boss – work consistently. Produce at the same level everyday and try and find ways to gradually improve or become more efficient.
Russia Launch on Feb 9 Causes U.S. National Security “Threat” Today
Five days ago, on February 9, Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, conducted a rocket launch into space carrying cardo for the Russian Ministry of Defense. Today, February 14, Americans are being told of a new “threat” described as “destabilizing.”
Earlier today, February 14, U.S. Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH) head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), announced to the nation a new “Destabilizing threat to national security” and revealed all members of Congress are now able to go into the secure House Briefing area to learn details.
Within the offices of the US House of Representatives is a SCIF: Segmented, Compartmentalized, Information Facility. Anyone entering the SCIF is searched for any electronic devices, which are forbidden. Entrants are also barred from taking any notes. They are “read-in” on the Classified Material and when they depart the facility, they are reminded they are forbidden to talk to anyone about what they have learned under Penalty of prison.
Congressman Turner issued the following notice to fellow members of Congress:
In the notice above, the words “destabilizing foreign military capability.” “Destabilizing” means it is a power THEY have, but which we DO NOT have. That’s what “destabilizing” means in this context.
CNN and other media outlets are claiming this has something to do with Russia. It may.
On February 9th, the Cosmos-2575 Mission was launched by Roskosmos using a Soyuz-2 Rocket carrying an “Unknown Payload into Space for the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is almost guaranteed our spy satellites and ground-based information gathering capabilities have kept close watch on whatever went up.
Based on our current capabilities for intel-gathering, it seems likely (to me) that we now have some idea of what it is — or possibly know EXACTLY what it is. So here we are, just 5 days later, being told there is some new, “destabilizing” foreign military capability.
My personal layman’s FIRST guess: Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) weaponry.
FOBS are space-based nuclear bombs (actual warheads) that can be released at ANY time, orbit the earth several times under their own power for months or years (or just once), then come down anywhere on the planet with ZERO advance warning to the intended target.
A particular city in a particular country would go from happy-go-lucky to vaporized with ZERO warning.
There is no defense to such weaponry.
My SECOND guess:
Iran may now be confirmed to have a working nuclear bomb.
Of course, it is common knowledge that Mike Turner is a RINO, he supports the aid package for Ukraine and Israel (but NOT our own Border), he wants to push the Ukraine support, end of story. SO coming up with some new Russian “threat” may be the impetus to get that passed.
Ukraine has attacked and sunk another Russian navy ship in the Black Sea; this one the “Cezar Kunikov“ shown in a file photo above.
According to information released by the Ukraine armed forces, “Magura V5” drones sank the Russian warship near Alupka, Crimea as shown on the map below:
Below, after being hit by THREE sea drones, the ship listed onto its side and sank.
It’s the fourth landing ship from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet that Ukrainian military has sunk since the beginning of Russia’s Special Military Operation. The Caesar Kunikov was a large landing ship with a crew comprising 87 personnel.
BUILT IN 86 ….38 years old
Class and type: Ropucha-class landing ship Displacement 2,768 long tons (2,812 t) standard 4,012 long tons (4,076 t) full load Length 112.5 m (369 ft 1 in) Beam 15.01 m (49 ft 3 in) Draught 4.26 m (14 ft 0 in) Ramps Over bows and at stern Installed power 3 × 750 kW (1,006 hp) diesel generators Propulsion 2 × 9,600 hp (7,159 kW) Zgoda-Sulzer 16ZVB40/48 diesel engines Speed 17.59 knots (32.58 km/h; 20.24 mph) Range 6,000 nmi (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) 3,500 nmi (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) Endurance 30 days
CAN CARRY 10 TANKS AND 340 SOLDIERS
This Clip Will Disillusion All Young Men
Escalation In Northern Palestine
The situation on the northern Israeli border is escalating. It is likely to soon evolve into a full fledged war. The situation is already increasing the economic price Israel has to pay for its misdeeds.
The international rating agency Moody’s has downgraded Israel’s credit rating. This will lead to higher interest payments on Israeli government debt:
In a report dated last Friday but not issued until Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, the agency officially reduced Israel’s rating from A1 to A2, and added pointers of further downgrading to come. The Anglo-American press immediately reacted against Moody’s.
“Israel hits back”, the Financial Timesheadlined. The newspaper added: “[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, in a rare statement over the Jewish Sabbath, said: ‘The rating downgrade is not connected to the economy, it is entirely due to the fact that we are in a war. The rating will go back up the moment we win the war — and we will win the war.’” In the Associated Press report, “Israel’s finance minister blasts Moody’s downgrade”. Rupert Murdoch’s platform Fox claimed: “Israel has a strong, open economy despite Moody’s downgrade”. “Israel’s creditworthiness remains high,” according to the New York Times, “but the rating agency noted that the outlook for the country was negative… A rating of A2 is still a high rating.”
There are several negative issues that could lead to a further downgrading:
According to Moody’s report, “downside risks remain at the A2 rating level. In particular, the risk of an escalation involving Hezbollah in the North of Israel remains, which would have a potentially much more negative impact on the economy than currently assumed under Moody’s baseline scenario. Government finances would also be under more intense pressure in such a scenario.”
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah reiterated that Hezbollah will continue its border offensive against the Israeli occupation sites near Lebanon border till the Zionist barbaric war on Gaza ends.
“When the aggression on Gaza stops fire will be ceased in South Lebanon,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. … Hezbollah Secretary General commented on the recent threats made by the Zionist defense minister Yoav Gallant who said that the IOF will not stop aggression on South Lebanon even after Gaza ceasefire, stressing that, then, Hezbollah will continue its offensive.
“When the war on Gaza ends, we will stop our offensive. If the enemy resumes its hostilities, we will, act in light of the rules and the formulas.”
Nasrallah rejected western demands, passed through the Lebanese government, to pull back Hizbullah’s forces and to cease fire:
It is Hezbollah duty and responsibility to deter the enemy and prevent the assault on Lebanon, Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed, adding that the Resistance responses will be proportionate, yet effective and productive.
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that the hundreds of thousands of settlers already displaced from the North will not be able to return to their homes in case of escalation.
‘Israel’ must prepare shelters, basements, hotels and schools to house 2 million settlers who will be displaced from northern Palestine if it expands the war zone, Sayyed Nasrallah warned.
If the Israeli enemy expands its war zone against Lebanon, Hezbollah will do too, Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized. … “It is easier to move Litani River forward to the borders than pushing back Hezbollah fighters from the borders to the Litani River,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.
More will be announced later:
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that ‘Israel’ has failed over 130 days to achieve any target in Gaza war, except the monstrous attacks on the civilians.
Concerning the Zionist war on Gaza, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that he will address more details about during a speech he is scheduled to deliver on Friday (February 16) the anniversary of Hezbollah Martyr Commanders.
The resistance in Southern Lebanon, has so far attacked:
HQ of the Northern Region Command in Safad.
Command HQ of the 91st Galilee Division in “Branit”
HQ of the 769th Eastern Brigade in Kiryat Shmona.
Meron Air command and control base
Beit Hillel IOF base
Training camp in Kela, in the occupied Golan Heights
Ma’ale Golan IOF base on Mount Hermon
Most artillery positions along the rear front and military concentrations
Every single border military IOF sites
All of these attacks carried out by the resistance confirm that all military and fire pressure and Israeli threats will not deter it from continuing its operations. The resistance is proceeding with full confidence, first relaying on God, and then its military capabilities, the spirit of its fighters, and the resilience of its people.
The Safad headquarter site was only hit this morning. This followed after more Israeli attacks had hit civilian structures in southern Lebanon.
URGENT: #Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets targeting an army base #Israel’s northern city of Safed. One reportedly killed & eight wounded, one in serious condition. The IDF said some of the rockets hit the Northern Command headquarters base in #Safed, some 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Lebanese border.
Hitting Safad was a (mild) escalation after previous attacks.
Unlike the daily Palestinian victims of Israel’s brutality, the Israeli casualties of the strike created headlines in Israel:
An Israeli woman was killed and eight others were wounded as a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into Safed and an army base in the northern city, the military and medical officials said.
In response to the attack, the IDF said it launched “widespread” airstrikes in Lebanon.
There was no immediate claim for the rocket fire, although it was believed to have been carried out by the Hezbollah terror group, which has been launching daily rocket, missile, and drone attacks on northern Israel in recent months, saying it is doing so in support of the Hamas terror group in Gaza, against whom Israel is waging war.
The Israel Defense Forces and Safed’s municipality said rockets hit an army base in the area, some 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Lebanon border.
The casualty count on Israel’s northern border is still very uneven:
So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in six civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of at least nine IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 194 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 29 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and some two dozen civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed.
If Israel does not evacuated more settlers, at high economic costs, the casualty ratio is likely to change.
The Lebanese Hezbollah expert Amal Saad, who is currently teaching in Cardiff, Britain, explained Hizbullah’s thinking:
There are several messages behind Hizbullah’s qualitatively different strike on Safed this morning, which Israel is treating as the gravest attack since the start of the war, with Ben Gvir calling it a “declaration of war”.
At the forefront, is Hizbullah’s message that it won’t capitulate to Israeli and western demands that it cease hostilities across the border, as per Nasrallah’s speech yesterday. It’s also a response to several Israeli assassination strikes in South Lebanon, reaching as deep as Sidon.
But the timing of this escalation also appears to be related to Netanyahu’s scuppering of the Paris cease-fire proposal and his government’s threats to invade Rafah, which in turn, would make a full-out attack on Lebanon more likely. Hizbullah is giving Israel a taster of the type of strikes and casualty tolls its military will have to bear, should Netanyahu continue to reject a cease-fire.
Predictably the Israeli occupation forces responded to the strike on Safad by escalating further:
The Israeli military said Wednesday its fighter jets “began a series of strikes in Lebanon”, raising fears of a war between the two countries after months of cross-border fire.
The military gave no further details of the air strikes, while Lebanese media reported air raids on southern villages including Adchit, Sawwaneh and Shihabiyeh.
The strikes came hours after fire from Lebanon wounded multiple people in northern Israel, according to medics. … Fears have been growing of another full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, with tens of thousands displaced on both sides of the border and regional tensions soaring.
“I don’t know when the war in the north is, I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past,” Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi said last month.
Following the last Israeli strikes, the Lebanese side said that four civilians had been killed or wounded by them.
The increase of hostility is getting to a point where there will no longer be the question “if” another war between Israel and Hizbullah will occur but only the question of “when”.
Posted by b on February 14, 2024 at 15:23 UTC | Permalink
Yes. This past week. She is a lot older than me but our personalities clicked. We met at work and were really close for 7 years. We both left the department we met in for new jobs but still met up every month. I supported her through breast cancer. Then we both got offered promotions in our old department. Both accepted and were so excited to be working together again. She started a month before me and struggled to settle back in, feeling old colleagues were freezing her out. I comforted her as she sobbed down the phone to me and helped her talk things through with them. Then last week I started back. One particular colleague was very angry I was back as I had given evidence in a bullying case against her involving another colleague and she got very nasty, even refusing to sit beside me in the office and screaming at caretakers to move her desk on my first day. I was very upset and intimidated. I shared my feelings with my friend. Her response was that SHE didn’t feel any toxicity and I needed to just stay away from people. Also she and this woman had now bonded because they were both new grandmothers. I was crushed and texted her about it later, saying I was hurt by what she had said. Her response was to tell me to never text her again. Fine. I figured I’d leave her to cool off and then maybe we could talk.
A couple of days later I developed chest pains in the office. It was early morning and my manager wasn’t in so I left a message on her desk and went for an Emergancy GP appointment. He sent me straight to the hospital. On the way there I was trying to get through to our office to let my manager know what was happening, but couldn’t get through on the office line. So I phoned my friend, told her I was having an emergency and couldn’t get through and asked her to tell the manager what had happened.
She said no, she couldn’t do that. And then hung up. And blocked me.
And now I’m done. Because whether we were fighting or not, I would have taken the call and helped her.
Thankfully I’m ok, it was just a torn chest muscle and pluerasy but I learned that day that some people only like you when you’re the one carrying them. And frankly, she doesn’t deserve my friendship. Don’t waste time trying to heal relationships with people who don’t value you.
Japanese-Peruvian Marino Morikawa found that his childhood lake was contaminated and decided to put his master’s degree and Ph.D. to work. His goal was to change a plant-covered, unsanitary swamp into a place that animals and people could use.
He began by taking a break from school and taking a loan from the bank. He wanted to create something that could clean the lake. He had to use several different methods to get there, though, and research took 6 months.
One tool he tried was microbubbles. Microbubbles are tiny bubbles invisible to the naked eye. Morikawa put them into water. As they traveled up, they caught diseases and other harmful elements, acting like a spider web. Once they finally reached the surface, the bacteria were killed and the bubbles were destroyed by ultraviolet lights. Unfortunately, bubbles take hours to rise due to their size.
Another tool he used was biofilters. Biofilters work by bringing foul pollutants to the surface of a lake while leaving clean water and useful organisms at the bottom. He made his ceramic biofilters by himself in a pottery class.
Eventually, Morikawa created an organic nanotechnology compote to clean dirty water. The compote was so natural that it was even edible! Morikawa admits that it is quite expensive, but he believes that it is worth it.
To use it, one simply had to put it in dirty water and wait for about 15 minutes. This is what the water looks like before and after treatment:
Look, I’m on TV! Hi mom!
Once he had done the hardest part of the work, he was ready to clean his lake. Using homemade biofilters, the compote, and science, he was able to clean the lake in 15 days (although other sources say that cleaning the entire wetlands took 4 months).
As a result of cleaning the lake, people, over 40 species of birds, and 10 species of fish came back to inhabit it. This man should truly be respected. His efforts are not for money or fame; he simply wants to make the world a better place.
And he still wants to do more, zoning in on other polluted lakes and prioritizing Lake Titicaca. With his intelligence, passion, funding, and ingenious technologies, I think he may just be able to do it.
Nana’s Spinach and Sausage Pies
This spinach pie is a family recipe passed down for generations. It stems from a traditional Greek (or in our case Albanian) recipe. It calls for homemade crust, and is truly wonderful when the time is taken to make it from scratch! But if you’d like you can substitute homemade crust for store bought Phyllo dough.
My grandmother would make this spinach pie every New Year’s day. She would wrap a quarter or silver dollar in wax paper, and place it near the crust. Whoever received the lucky dollar would be blessed with good luck for the year! Before you start baking, mark the quarter with a toothpick so you know where it is and it stays in the slice. Cut the pie, take the toothpick out, and randomly provide everyone with a slice. Everyone uses a fork to poke through their slice to find the lucky dollar. Don’t start eating until you find the lucky dollar, or it could become an unlucky choking hazard!
If you’d like to skip making your own dough, purchase Phyllo (not country style) dough for this crust. It’s more and more common in grocery stores these days. It can be very thin, so use up to 10 layers on for your crust.
For homemade dough mix flour, salt, water for dough with your hands until soft. Knead for 5 minutes. Then place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for 10 minutes.
Divide the dough in half, roll it out until thin and spread with melted butter well. Fold the sides to the center and butter again. Now fold one half over the other and butter and fold in the opposite direction until you have a 5 inch folded square formed. Butter the top and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 12-15 minutes (or overnight if you’d like) and do the same with the other half.
Now it’s time to make your filling! Just add all your filling ingredients into a bowl and mix well to make your filling.
Remove your dough from the fridge and roll out to the size of your square or round buttered pan. A 12–15-inch pan is perfect. Place the dough on the bottom of the pan with a ½ overlap around the edges. Add your filling and cover with more dough. Wrap the edges of the dough into a crust and bake uncovered at 350˚ for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a bit crispy.
I will never forget my wonderful Nana Tefta, and all the ways she showed her love. Cooking this family recipe and giving us the joy of finding a lucky quarter was just one of the many ways she did that.
Ingredients
1 pound sweet Italian sausage links, casing removed
10 to 11 ounces piecrust mix or 2 (9-inch) deep dish pie crusts
Instructions
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Crumble sausage in a medium skillet and brown meat over medium heat, breaking up with a spoon. Drain on paper towels.
If using fresh spinach, bring a large pot of water to a boil and put spinach in water. Boil 1 minute and drain; squeeze dry.
Separate 1 egg. Combine 5 eggs with 1 egg white, sausage, spinach mozzarella, ricotta and pepper and set aside.
Prepare pie crust mix if using. Lay 1 pie crust in pie pan and spoon mixture into it. Lay another crust on top and flute with a stand-up edge. Carefully cut a 2-inch circle out of the top crust.
Mix egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water and brush on top of pie. (Can decorate with scraps of dough.)
Bake for 1 hour, 10 minutes until golden and bubbly. Check crust after 1 hour and put foil on edges to prevent over-browning.
Let stand for 10 minutes and cut OR chill uncovered until cold; cover and refrigerate until serving cold.
When I was 15 our cleaner invited our whole family to her wedding and reception. We were friendly with her as she’d given one of our puppies a home when our dog had a litter, but we hadn’t known her long. Being 15 I didn’t really want to go, but my mum said we wouldn’t have to stay long and we would just go for the reception, dance a bit and come home. It was in the Town Hall, a big, grand room in the nearby town.
When we got there we saw the bride and groom dancing, but hardly anyone else in the room. My mum checked the time thinking we were early or late but it turns out no one had turned up! There were my parents, my two brothers and me, and then no more than 7 other people in this huge, heavily decorated room with a large buffet that would have fed around 100 people.
We felt bad for the bride and groom so tried to make up for the lack of people by dancing and eating a lot, but they were acting as if it was totally normal. They seemed to be having a really good time. After a while a couple of people left and the 5 of us in my family made up half of the guests! I felt very awkward, and instead of staying an hour or two we had to stay the whole night, all the while pretending we were having a great time.
We found out later the reason no one had showed – it turns out that the bride and groom had been married before. In fact, they’d been married and divorced 9 times! The reception we went to was their tenth wedding… which explains why none of their family and friends wanted to waste anymore time on them. A match made in heaven! I wonder if they are still married, or how many more weddings they’ve racked up now…
Putin on the Collapse of the Dollar as the World’s Reserve Currency
I was at a thrift store, just looking around for anything interesting.
Standing in the entrance area was a mother with a baby and a toddler, and a large toy chest she had just purchased, which was sitting in her cart.
Thus she had a dilemna.
The baby was too small to walk, so she had to carry the baby. The toy chest was too big to carry one-handed, and too big to allow the baby to sit in the cart with it. Even if she could carry the baby and the toy chest, the toddler’s hand needed held in this busy parking lot.
What to do?
The thrift store was especially busy that day. People walked in, gave her situation a glance, and kept walking. She stood there for at least five minutes (which doesn’t seem very long, but it seems like a long time if you’re just standing there), occasionally trying to pick up the chest. Not a single person stopped to help.
A family walked into the store. They all gave the woman a glance and kept walking, just as the others had.
Well, most of the family kept walking.
A teenager slipped away from the family and went up to the woman.
“Hey. You need some help?”
The teen carried that toy chest all the way to the woman’s car. I saw the woman pull out her wallet, and the teenager backed away, waving their hands.
Any show of kindness is great in the eye of the recipient.
One and only time I ever left a job because of a boss was when I was doing software engineering at a major aerospace company on contract.
The direct manager was a micro-manager and apparently didn’t have a life outside of work.
He would take home the code listings of that day’s work from his team members to do “code reviews.’
The next morning you would get back your listings with “suggested changes” in red pencil.
You would dutifully spend the first half of the day coding and testing the suggested changes then try and make some new progress before turning the day’s listing back to the boss.
The next day it would start all over again except, more often than not, the day’s “suggested changes” basically had you putting the code back to the way you had it to begin with.
I implemented my own code management system so I could easily roll back changes.
I lasted all of a year before finding a new job.
When I became a people manager some years later I used the experience as a life lesson of the kind of manager NOT to become.
The Pathology of America: Dehumanization, Greed, and the Decline of Empire
Actually it is sad, and when I peer into the future, it is absolutely worrying. Please be safe everyone.
Lots of videos today, but most are super short.
Enjoy…
Western Diplomacy is ‘Primitive’
Russians have had to dumb down their speeches at the UN so other countries can understand them, deputy representative Dmitry Polyansky has said.
Russian diplomats perceive their Western counterparts’ approach to international affairs to be “quite primitive,” Moscow’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, has said. Moscow’s representatives are not certain what caused this, but have simplified their messaging in response, he added.
Polyansky made remarks about the quality of the Western diplomatic corps in an interview with RIA Novosti published on Monday, based on his personal experience at the UN. He expressed concern about Anglophone speakers at the forum selectively ignoring the context of particular situations for their own benefit.
”They pick an arbitrary point in time and claim nothing happened before it. They try to blame a nation for its actions regardless of prior events or the general context,” he explained.
The diplomat cited the Ukraine conflict as an example. The US and its allies have been describing Moscow’s military action against Kiev as “unprovoked” and supposedly motivated by “imperial ambitions,” and have pressured other nations to frame it in the same way. As they learn more about the conflict, however, those parties realize how much the general context and Western actions since Ukraine gained its independence matter, he added.
”This trick does not always work, but it is a trend. I don’t know if it’s some deeper trend or just something typical for some people coming from [Western] schools of diplomacy,” Polyansky said. “Having a dialogue with them is challenging because they show certain superficiality, tunnel vision, and unwillingness to seek the core causes of conflicts. No solutions can be found without [such analysis].”
The office of the Russian envoy to the UN has been simplifying its addresses due to uncertainty over how their words are understood, he said. Russian diplomats used to quote foreign and Russian classics in speeches, but are no longer using this rhetorical device as much, Polyansky said.
”Times dictate things. Our partners may now be less well-read individuals, so occasionally we want to speak in plainer terms to make sure our signal comes through,” he explained.
Reality
A New Civil War is A Very Real Prospect for the US
It has long been on the minds of doomsday preppers and fiction media creators alike – but how likely is it, really?
Let’s sketch a big country in three broad strokes:
First, its population is over 333 million. These citizens privately own about (or at least) 339 million guns. They are unique in that no other state in the world has more private guns than people. They easily outdistance, for instance, Yemen, a country with a martial culture that has gone through years of civil war and yet there are only about 53 firearms per 100 inhabitants.
Second, polarization is unusually high and virulent: As of 2020 already, a political scientist at one of America’s most prestigious universities, found that “political polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years — more than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Germany,” for instance. The result: America is special, but not in a good way. “None of the wealthy, consolidated democracies of East Asia, Oceania, or Western Europe,” a 2022 paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace pointed out, “have faced similar levels of polarization for such an extended period.”
Last year, another Carnegie Endowment paper found that even while some of the perception of polarization on specific policy questions (such as gun control or abortion) is exaggerated, that perception itself is detrimental to the country’s cohesion. Because “the people who are most involved in civic and political life hold the least accurate [here meaning: highly negative] views of the other side’s beliefs” and there is a high degree of what political scientists call “affective polarization.” Put simply, all or many of those citizens, collectively hoarding so many guns that over 40% of households are armed in one way or the other, do not like or even merely respect “the other side” of the political spectrum – not at all and ever less.
Third, the country also displays a pronounced cultural preoccupation, really almost obsession, not merely with the idea of civil war as such or the specific history of its own very bloody civil war in the nineteenth century. Rather its elites and general population are fixated on a coming civil war, which, as of 2022, a whopping 43 percent considered likely in the next ten years. Debates, high-brow books, articles, and popular culture feature this fantasy prominently and persistently.
We are talking, of course, about the United States of America. While it would be easy to adduce more criteria and data points, there is no need. The above is sufficient to demonstrate that it would be shortsighted to pooh-pooh the risk of a second civil war in America, for two reasons: It is not a mere fantasy, owing its current national resonance to “hype” and the titillation of imagining a liberatingly apocalyptic future of chaos and every man and woman for themselves (and, in the US, I guess, every other gender that wishes to participate).
Smart Americans realize this as well. Barbara F. Walter, for instance, is a prominent political scientist who has worked extensively with the CIA to develop a model of civil war predictors, for any country but the US, of course. She has now come to warn that the model begins to fit America itself disturbingly well. She may have her centrist biases – the usual exaggeration of “Russian influence” included – but her core points are valid: The US is turning into an anocracy, that is, in essence, a regime that only pretends to be a democracy. (In fact, that is what it has always been, I would contend.) And there is a substantial constituency of those who feel threatened by losing their former social status and preeminence. Those happen to be phenomena strongly correlated with a risk of civil war.
Let’s also not forget that America is proving its enormous capacity for global disruption every day, even without civil war at home. While some observers may – even gleefully – hope that Americans fighting each other would finally have to let go of the rest of us, that is a very dicey bet. With an elite narcissistically obsessed with global “primacy” and “indispensability,” about 800 bases worldwide, an arsenal of thousands of nuclear warheads, and a nasty habit of blaming others for its own failures, a new American civil war would not exclude aggression abroad. Moreover, declining as it is, the US is still a key part of the global economy, much more so than in 1860, when its first civil war already had serious repercussions for the rest of the world.
In sum, it may attract preppers with camo baseball hats, beards, and pump guns, but don’t let that fool you: American Civil War 2.0 is a serious issue. So, what about it? What can we reasonably guess about how likely it really is and what shape it might take if it happens?
To start with the latter question, perhaps the first thing to note is that big civil wars can start small and local. That is, by the way, the real significance of the recent, open tensions over migration and border control between the state of Texas and the federal government in Washington. They did involve armed forces and much foreboding rhetoric, but, fortunately, no shots were fired. Yet those glibly dismissing the incident as mere political theater are wrong. Because, as the New York Times has noted, it was not only Texas that defied the US government. Rather, “many Republican state leaders publicly expressed defiance in terms that echoed armed conflicts.”
Indeed, the second thing to note is that, due to America’s federal structure, a new civil war would most likely begin with secession. In the fracas between Washington and Texas, 25 Republican governors openly sided with rebellious Texas. This was a perfect illustration of how one local flashpoint could quickly suck in the rest of the country by creating a logic of ultimate polarization and then secession. This logic has not yet fully unfolded. Its contours, however, have emerged clearly.
It is worth noting that many of the fiction narratives about Civil War 2.0 make the same point: Whether it is the cult graphic novel series “DMZ,” the bitterly ironic novel “American War” (it’s obvious in-joke is that it has some Americans treat other Americans the way Americans and Israelis now treat Palestinians, Iraqis, or Syrians), the small-budget yet clever movie “Bushwick,” or the big-budget “Civil War” about to hit American cinemas now: Again and again the basic premise is a scenario of secession escalating into massive domestic warfare.
Third, while the humongous pile of private firearms would certainly play a large role in a new civil war, it would be misguided to assume that such a fight would only pit gangs of private citizens, organized in militias, against official police and military forces. In reality, a dynamic of secession, once set in motion would lead to parts of the US’s manifold “siloviki” choosing their own allegiance, splitting, and starting to fight each other. If you believe that, in such a situation, the formal chains of command ultimately linking them all back to Washington would remain intact, I have a whole-and-indivisible Yugoslavia to sell you.
And, last but not least, in such a development, the war would be both severe and long. In that respect, it would resemble the first Civil War. Although, due to advanced technologies and declining inhibitions, it could be even more devastating and cruel. In Netflix’s recent and tellingly successful “Leave the World Behind,” the protagonists never learn who exactly is blowing up their country, but by the end of the movie two things seem reasonably clear: No, it’s not enemies from outside, but an inside job, and nukes are being used. That, by the way, was the premise as well of the earlier, initially unsuccessful but now cult television show “Jericho.”
How likely is such a dark future? Obviously, we do not know. But let’s note two things: We could, a priori, be looking at an America where no one is much interested in thinking about it. Yet we are seeing the opposite. If you think that means nothing, fine. Just don’t mistake your guess for a good policy or planning basis.
There are, of course, alternatives to civil war. One is peaceful de-polarization under the current anocratic conditions, which, hypothetically, can happen. The other is full-blown authoritarianism: one way to suppress the possibility of a civil war is to impose dictatorship.
But here’s the catch: A country can end up with both civil war and dictatorship. Ask the ancient Romans. Those Romans, that is, who were so much on the mind of the founders of the American Republic.
It has long been on the minds of doomsday preppers and fiction media creators alike – but how likely is it, really?
If you are greeting four people standing in a group, at least smile at the fifth person standing along with them, whom you don’t know, so that they don’t feel disrespected.
Whenever you ask someone to do something for you, even if they are ought to do it, frame it as a question to boost their self-esteem. ‘Can you please get my pen from the table?’ sounds much soothing than ‘Go, get my pen’.
People in hurry, appear too irritating, but they may be anxious about something or facing an emergency, don’t bother much, just give them a way and ignore, and even if someone is just too impatient, that’s something to pity.
You desperately want to interrupt someone, may be they are completely wrong, but at least let them finish a sentence, so that you don’t appear even worse than them.
When you finish eating, pick the little pieces of food fallen around your plate and put them on your plate and throw them, it shows immense maturity.
Don’t wait for someone, standing in front of the opposite sex wash room, because when the gate opens again and again, it can be quite embarrasing, and also people may question your integrity.
When you disagree with someone, it doesn’t make them a criminal. Respect their opinion, and realise the fact that your thoughts may also be your opinion and not a fact. ‘Argue with respect.’
Whenever you break a line, you become a teacher for countless innocent people, this isn’t something great to give back to the society, respect a line.
Not liking to be touched is not arrogance, it’s a natural trait of most people, avoid touching people as much as possible to protect your self-esteem and respect theirs.
When you shout at someone, all you are doing is wasting your energy, misusing your larynx, and showing immaturity, learn to take boldest of actions and give harshest of warnings, keeping a smile.
Italian Oven Chowder
To enjoy this hearty chowder as the Italians do, be sure to include the oysters.
What is Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder?
If you are a seafood lover – this Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder is for you!
Sometimes called an Italian “white” seafood chowder – a delicious variety of seafood and vegetables are suspended in a cream-based broth that really allows the flavors of the seafood to shine through. (You can also make a “red” seafood chowder with a tomato-based broth.)
Some Italian families serve this seafood chowder on Christmas Eve for the traditional Feast of Seven Fishes, but we love it anytime of the year – especially with fresh-caught seafood in the summer.
Why you’ll love Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder
It’s chock full of a variety of fresh seafood – and you can vary it depending on the catch of the day, or to suit your family’s tastes.
This chowder is hearty and delicious, and it makes for a very satisfying meal.
You can prepare it ahead of time (but be sure to read our tips below in the Frequently Asked Question to avoid overcooking the seafood if you make it ahead).
Ingredients
4 slices bacon
2 large carrots, sliced 1/2 inch thick
2 medium parsnips, sliced 1/2 inch thick, cutting larger pieces in half
In a 4-quart Dutch oven cook bacon until crisp. Remove bacon, reserving 1 tablespoon drippings in the pan. Drain bacon on paper towels; crumble and set aside.
Add carrots, parsnips, and onions to Dutch oven. Cook over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until brown, stirring occasionally.
Add potatoes, chicken broth, garlic salt and pepper. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. (At this point the soup can be cooled, covered, and chilled in the refrigerator overnight.)
In a small mixing bowl stir together melted margarine or butter and flour. Stir flour-margarine mixture, milk, and corn into chowder mixture in Dutch oven. Cook and stir over medium heat until slightly thickened. If desired, add oysters and liquid to soup; heat through.
Sprinkle each serving with crumbled bacon and chives or parsley, if desired.
Key Ingredients & Substitutions
Salt Pork and Bacon – These two ingredients are an easy way to add delicious flavor to any soup or chowder – the rendered fat is used to sauté vegetables, so you won’t need to add other fats. While we use both salt pork and bacon, you could easily just use all of one or the other – the salt pork adds a nice salty flavor, while the bacon adds a smokey taste.
Seafood – Buy a total of four pounds of seafood. We made our chowder with fresh haddock, chopped fresh clams, shell-on shrimp (frozen shrimp is fine), fresh scallops, and crab meat. You can substitute any of these varieties of seafood, or use all of one or the other, just as long as the total weight equals four pounds.
Clam juice – Look for bottled clam juice at the supermarket – sometimes sold near the seafood counter. Other times, you can find it near the soup aisle.
Dairy – Heavy cream makes up the broth, along with the clam juice and a broth from the shrimp shells. Unsalted butter smooths things out and adds more flavor. You could lighten this soup up a bit with light cream or half and half – but it won’t be quite the same.
Tomato – Buy canned whole and peeled San Marzano tomatoes. You’ll break up the tomato pieces into the soup and reduce the juices to create a serving sauce that garnishes each portion.
Other Vegetables – Peeled and diced russet potatoes are the best for this seafood chowder, plus diced onion and celery, and minced garlic.
Herbs and spices – You’ll use a variety of herbs and spices including bay leaves, fresh basil, fresh mint, dried oregano, kosher salt, black pepper, and fresh thyme.
I was 27 when my husband (29) passed away unexpectedly while stationed overseas. It took 3 weeks for the army to bring his corpse back to the US and a week after the arrival his church service and funeral took place. A week after the burial, I traveled back to my country of origin for only one week. My daddy, who was extremely fond of my late husband, and who couldn’t attend the funeral due to work obligations and visa lasting procedures, had an open-hearted conversation with me. He said that all of us will die. And many of us will go unexpectedly. That there was a divine reason why all of what happened had happened and that I would need to eventually come to peace with losing him. I needed to see my story with my husband as a chapter of my book that ended. I needed to turn the page to the next chapter for my own benefit, if not, instead of having one dead in the family, they were going to have two. Because that’s who I was going to turn into. A dead living woman.
I listened to his words which made sense, but I didn’t want my life to make sense so quickly so I forgot about them until after I dragged myself into an alcohol addiction for months. And one day, I remembered his wise words and between that and the help of a close friend, I realized my daddy was right. Either I got over my husband’s passing or I was going to stay dead myself.
200 Times Wife Has a MELTDOWN After Getting Caught Cheating #2
Aging is a natural process, but there are steps you can take to maintain a youthful appearance and overall well-being in your 70s and 80s. Here are some tips to help you look and feel young:
1. Stay Active: Regular exercise is crucial for maintaining muscle strength, flexibility, and overall health. Low-impact activities like walking, swimming, and yoga can be excellent choices.
2. Eat a Balanced Diet: A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats can support your skin, hair, and overall health.
3. Stay Hydrated: Proper hydration is essential for skin health. Drink enough water to keep your skin hydrated.
4. Protect Your Skin: Use sunscreen to protect your skin from the sun’s harmful UV rays, which can cause premature aging. Moisturize your skin regularly to keep it hydrated.
5. Get Sufficient Sleep: Quality sleep is essential for overall health. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night.
6. Manage Stress: High-stress levels can lead to premature aging. Practice stress-reduction techniques like meditation, deep breathing, or yoga.
7. Regular Checkups: Visit your healthcare provider for regular checkups to address any health concerns promptly.
8. Stay Socially Active: Maintaining social connections can contribute to mental and emotional well-being, which can affect your overall appearance.
9. Mental Stimulation: Keep your mind active with puzzles, games, or learning new skills. It can help maintain cognitive function and a youthful spirit.
10. Good Skincare: Use skincare products suitable for your skin type and age. A good skincare routine can make a difference in maintaining healthy skin.
11. Fashion and Style: Update your wardrobe with clothing that makes you feel confident and stylish. How you dress can impact your overall look.
12. Hair Care: Consider a hairstyle that suits your face shape and is easy to maintain. Many people embrace their natural gray hair, which can be quite attractive.
13. Regular Dental Care: Don’t neglect your dental health. Regular dental checkups and good oral hygiene can help maintain a youthful appearance.
Remember that aging is a natural part of life, and it’s essential to embrace the wisdom and experiences that come with it. Looking and feeling young is about maintaining your health and self-confidence as you age.
I was working at this shipping company, I think it was.
The boss was one of those who would bully his subordinates. He often made several employees cry.
Anyway, we were in a meeting. It was more like a bitching session.
The boss spent the meeting screaming at everyone, calling us lazy and insisting we were the worst employees ever. He was screaming at us and I felt I had to say something.
So I did.
The boss got right in my face. I mean, like a few inches from me. He started screaming right in my face and I simply stood my ground.
The boss screamed at me to get out, that I was fired.
Then he screamed at everyone else, calling them lazy and telling everyone to get out if they didn’t like the way he was running things.
Each and every person followed me out the door. This literally meant there was no staff to get any work done.
Not surprisingly, the boss ended up getting fired.
I was turning 30. I had planned a party for me and my going to be 12 year old daughter. It was a Saturday. My sister and I went with our kids to Mom and Dad’s for the regular Saturday bagel routine. Dad was at his parents’ house mowing their lawn. He had called me earlier with a, “Happy Birthday Robbio, See Yah later”. I responded, “Love you Daddio”. About 45 minutes into our bagel breakfast, the phone rang and my mother answered. The color completely drained from her face. She kept repeating, “A stroke? A stroke?” It was my grandfather. My father was in the hospital. My then husband and brother-in-law raced to my mother’s side and my sister and I loaded the kids into my car and sped to our grandparents. I played the game in my head, If I get all green lights he’s fine. If I see kids playing he’s fine….etc. It was a warm September day. The windows on the car were open. As we approached the house, we could hear what only could be described as wailing. It was Grandma. I have never, ever heard such a sorrowful, painful sound. My daughter found my Dad’s smashed glasses on the lawn. My grandfather returned from the hospital, just shaking his head. He said nothing. Shortly the family showed up. My dad had died. He had a massive heart attack. The sanitation workers picking up trash had jumped off of the truck to help my grandfather apply CPR, but to no avail. He was basically dead before he hit the ground. For the next fifteen years, no one and I mean no one could say, “Happy Birthday” to me. I forbade it and if someone accidentally said it, they got schooled. I still can’t really celebrate my birthday, even though it’s been 36 years. I do have a major amount of respect for sanitation workers though.
Five days after moving into a new (to me and my wife) home our neighbor, Lee, showed up at our door to borrow my weedeater. He’d seen me using it in my backyard the day before and said he wanted to do some “cleanup” around his yard. I told him that I was sorry but I had a firm policy against loaning my tools or equipment out. I also mentioned that I’d bought the weedeater at a local home improvement store for around $75. He replied that he wouldn’t use it that often so he didn’t see the point of buying one.
End of story, right?
Not quite.
The guy pretty much avoided me after I denied his request; if I came outside while he was in his driveway or yard, he’d ignore me, or just give a cursory wave before turning away. Over time I became friendly with Mack, my neighbor across the street, and one evening we were in his backyard, staining his deck, when he said that he didn’t think I was a bad guy, at all. I asked him to explain and he told me that my next door neighbor, Lee, had told him and a couple of other neighbors that I was an asshole who didn’t want to help anyone out. Because I wouldn’t lend him my weedeater.
I told Mack that Lee struck me as being something of an opportunist and con man, and Mack admitted that Lee did have those tendencies. That convinced me that I’d been right to refuse to lend him my weedeater. He was just angry at me because I didn’t buy his BS.
I couldn’t say how friendly German women as a whole were to American troops; (although sometimes they were very friendly indeed, I’ve often read, lol)…but I can relate a story my dad told me about an interaction he once had with a German woman towards the very end of the Third Reich.
My dad was a medic in the 3rd Armored Division. He landed on Omaha beach, fought all through France, drove through the carnage and destruction of the Falaise pocket, was in Belgium at the Battle of the Bulge and was in Germany at the Battle of the Hurtgen forest. He was also at the liberation of the Nordhausen forced labor camp, where V-2 rockets were being constructed by slave labor…Poles, Jews, Czechs and Russians. My father was in the Ruhr pocket in Rhine-North Westphalia, Germany when the war ended.
It really didn’t dawn on me until much later in life what a living repository of history my dad was, and how present he had been at and for so much history. He told me many truly amazing stories, and as I was always pretty much the only one among my siblings who ever showed any interest in my dad’s WW II service, I wrote everything he told me down and have it archived on my computer. (And even as a child, I was fascinated by my father’s stories and recognized them for the real family and WW II history they were). I really wish I had tape recorded my dad telling these stories when he was still alive, and always meant to…but life and time got in the way (as it often does) and I never got around to it. Still, though…I’ve got them all down in print.
This happened shortly after the 3rd Armored had crossed into Germany proper. My dad told me;
“Often,when we moved into and occupied these towns,of course we would sometimes take a break for chow.And invariably, little French or Belgian or in this case Germankids wouldcluster around, watching us getting ready to eat and hoping for some food.All of these children had been living in occupied or food-rationed countries for years now; they were often terribly thin and pale.And they’d gather around, smelling the cooking food and shyly watching us with big eyes.
And of course…we shared. I mean…how the heck could you eat while being watched by hungry kids? Anybody with a heart would’ve shared, and we always did.
And in this particular town, there was a little fella watching us. He had a beat-up, moth-eaten black coat on, and a little black cap on his head. Short pants and knee socks…legs like pipe cleaners…like sticks.
So I decided right then and there to make sure this little guy got fed well.
I grabbed him by the hand, took him to the head of the chow line and told the guy filling our kits, “C’mon, pal. Load this little guy up. Load‘im up.Looks like he hasn’t had a decent meal in years.”And he hunted up an aluminum tray, and piled it high with corned-beef hash and beans and white bread. I dug a D-bar out of my pocket and also put some chewing gum on the tray, too. I knelt down and put the tray and food into the boy’s hands.
You should’ve seen this kid’s face. (Laughs). His eyes nearly popped out of his head! “Danke schoen, Herr Soldaten!’’, he said to me politely and wonderingly. I found an empty packing crate in the street, led him over to some steps in front of a house, propped up the crate and helped him put the tray on it and sit down, and stuck a tin spoon in his hand. In German, I told him to help himself and eat up. Eagerly, he began to dig in.
But as the boy began to bring the first spoonful of food to his mouth…a door to a house on the other side of the street flew open, and a matronly “hausfrau“ maybe sixty years old or so came storming out of the house and across the street to us, snatched the spoon right outta the kid’s hand, grabbed the tray of food and hurled it to the ground.
“ALBERNES KIND!” (FOOLISH CHILD!), she yelled at the boy.“Do you notknow, have you not heard?These American soldiers are all CHICAGO GANGSTERS!! They will kill you!! That food is poisoned!! And yet you are blockhead enough to eat ofit??!!”
Viciously jerking the boy up off the stairs by his arm, she swatted his ass good and turned to march with him back to the house across the street.As the kid started bawling, I grabbed her by the arm to try to stop her and explain things to her. I spoke and understood the Deutsch pretty damned well by then, and I knew exactly what she’d said; and I was very much dismayed that she actually believed I, or we as Americans, would really try to poison her child…or grandchild, most likely. And I desperately wanted her to understand that this wasn’t the case.
And besides…I wasn’t even from Chicago! (Laughs).
So Itried to talk to her, addressing her as ‘’gnadige frau” (gracious lady) and telling her, “The food is not poisoned! Look!”And I bent over and picked up the tray, and actually scooped up a handful of hash off the ground and ate it right in front of her!“Nicht giftig!”, I kept repeating to her, “nicht giftig!” (Not poisoned!)
Unfortunately, she was having none of it. With a glare at me and a sniff of her upturned nose, she turned away and dragged the bawling kid across the street and into the house and slammed the door behind them.
I felt bad that the little guy never got his chow, and that these people had been so ingrained to hate and distrust us by Nazi propaganda.
But not all the German people were that way. Many of them were quite friendly and distinctly glad to see us…as opposed to the Russians.”
My father told me lots of other stories, some funny, many quite tragic, which I’ll be submitting to Quora in the future. My first story of his got an overwhelming response, and I was glad so many people enjoyed it. I fancy myself a student of WW II, and it really made me pleased that so many other people find so much interest in my dad’s war tales. Thanks to everyone for your views and comments…more to come if you’re interested!
I went to the drive up window at our pharmacy to pick up my script. It was a very blustery day. As I went to put my $20 in the drawer a gust of wind blew it out of my hand. After paying with my ATM card I pulled away and parked. Got out of the car and searched the area but no luck. My thought was I hope whoever found it needed it more than me and drove home. During the next week or so I was in and out of my car including the trunk several times.
I had a bag full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. In order to get to the Goodwill near me I had to drive to the intersection near my pharmacy, turn left, travel about half mile, turn right onto a busy highway, drive another half mile and turn left into the Goodwill parking lot, drive to the back of the store to deliver my donation. The rear parking lot backed up to a wooded area. I took the clothes out of the trunk of my car and deposited them in the bin provided.
Just as I walked to the back of my car a $20 bill blew right up to my feet. I just couldn’t believe it. The bill looked like it had been out in weather for a while. Was it my bill from the pharmacy. Was it somehow stuck to my car or trunk. But how could that be. I had driven my car quite a bit and had been in and out of my car and trunk several times during that week. In any event I was so happy because I sure needed that $20.
When Delusional Woke People Get OWNED
TO THE MOM AT THE SCHOOL DROP OFF THIS MORNING
Today I walked my son to his kindergarten class. It was cold and we were huddled together like sardines as we stood outside the door waiting for the bell to ring.
I saw you with your little boy just a few feet from us, and I looked down when I realized you were looking at us. I hoped you didn’t know who we were. I hoped you didn’t know my son was “that kid.” The one who’s not transitioning well in this school year.
I know what the kids say about my son. They go home and tell their parents my kid is bad. Sometimes he pushes and hits. Sometimes he is defiant and refuses to sit down, be quiet, or stay in line.
I know because the kids tell him what they think of him on the playground. “Mark said I’m bad today.” Or “Aiden’s dad said I can’t play with him anymore.” And my heart hurts, because I know he’s struggling in school. And we are working every angle… in school with a specialist, at home, and through classes, books and resources.
Today, you looked at me, then at my son. “You must be K,” you said to my son. And I looked up and smiled sheepishly. It was an apologetic smile. Almost a “I’m sorry you know his name” smile, because that means you’ve heard the stories.
I said to you, “Yes, this is him.”
I whispered when my son stepped away that we are aware he’s causing some trouble and we are working on it. That we take his behavior very seriously.
And then you did something I never expected. I don’t know if I was waiting for you to tell me what you heard K did to your son, or just tell me off. But instead you told me about your older son who struggled with similar problems at this age. You told me that now he’s in high school and he’s a straight A student.
Instead of tearing me down, you lifted me up. You gave me hope. And you handed me an olive branch so I know that I do have an ally during school drop off. An ally I never expected.
You didn’t have to make that connection. You could have ignored us or pretended not to know us. Or yes — you could have told me what you think of my son (you would not be the first). But you didn’t. You showed me grace and kindness and you uplifted me more than I could possibly describe in words.
I told you I would love to learn more about steps you took with your older son. I would love suggestions and guidance and that I would call you. And you know what? I will call you. Even if no suggestions or guidance is ever exchanged. I will call you because you are a friend I want to have. You are a good person.
Supporting evidence: Having spent more than 5 years at TCS I thought employees must accept their manager’s decision, no questions asked. After I moved to Australia I took up a casual hour based contract job. I didn’t mind the pay (which was less than what my experience could get me) because I loved the team. My manager believed in giving credit where it was due and soon the top management wanted to offer a fixed term contract which meant I could take paid leaves. I was so grateful and was about to sign the contract when my manager asked, “Aren’t you going to ask for a raise?”
“But this is so nice of them and I don’t want to make it awkward. What if they think I’m being greedy?”, I asked.
My manager laughed but looked at me seriously as she said, “Ruchika, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! You know you can get more money outside and they know it too. Don’t let them get away with it. Show them you know your worth.”
I nodded and wrote an email only to please my manager. I was so surprised at the response because the higher step pay was granted to me, just like that.
After some time, the management decided to offer me an ongoing permanent position and offered me the topmost step pay in the band. I was about to sign the offer letter as my manager reminded me to ask for a raise again. “But they are already offering me the topmost level in my band and they can’t change the band for this job, so I’m not sure what they can do.”, I responded.
“They will figure out a way if they want to. I know they will because they know you’re good and wouldn’t want to lose you. However, if they can’t, the worse that’ll happen is, they’ll refuse. I can’t see what you have to lose.”
Cursing the awkward situation I was in, I wrote an email trying to sound grateful and confident at the same time. My manager approved the draft and I hit send. By the end of the day, the General Manager asked HR to add a special loading to my pay package, which meant I was earning pretty much the same as the next band without undergoing any admin headache.
The thing is the company knows their good employees and understands, like all relationships, this association needs to be beneficial to both the parties. So if there’s something that you know will help you perform better for your company… just ask!
Boss asked me to train a newly hired paralegal graduate to do my job in one week as she was going to be my backup while I was on vacation.
I asked him how do I train 35 years of experience in a fresh paralegal graduate? I did my best to cram the information before I left for vacation.
She was inattentive and I had grave concerns since she refused to take notes.
Upon my return, I got the blame for every mistake she made during my absence. Each attorney gave me a list of their grievances.
I defended myself and was scolded for insubordination and told my services were no longer required.
So I left, turning in my keys. 4 hours later I receive a text stating that I misunderstood our conversation and that it was not their intention to terminate me.
5 hours later, I receive another text stating that he was no longer firing me but I needed to be less reactive and more understanding of the firm needs.
I decided to help clarify the situation and informed him that my text response confirms the separation terms.
And if you are a teacher, you might be cranky after reading this. It does not put teenage me in a flattering light.
When I was in high school, you had to take 2 years of gym in order to graduate. May I just say, over 30 years later, the most frequent recurring nightmare I have is not having enough of the right credits to graduate high school.
This plagued me.
I hated gym. I wasn’t athletic. I was not a group anything, and was particularly awful at group sports. I’m very tall, so you’d think I’d be good at volleyball. Nope. Into the net every time.
I despised everything about gym, because I was an outsider. Outsiders are most vulnerable in gym class. I just wanted to be alone & read books & listen to Bowie records.
Plus, I hated my body. I thought I was supposed to look like Farrah Fawcett. I did not look like Farrah. I was fat, and in particular I hated my legs.
Back then, you were required to do certain things to pass gym. One of those things was called dressing out. We also had to participate in class, then take a shower & dress for our next class, all in six or seven minutes at the end.
As you can see, this was a lot of body exposure for someone who hated their body so much. Every part of it was a humiliation to me.
I have a picture of myself in a swimsuit after my senior year. Thing is, my body was fine. I’d be delighted to have that body again.
(So if you are a teenager and hate your body, stop it. You are more fabulous than you know.)
Dressing out was changing out of our school clothes & putting on our gym clothes, which was basically a polyester onesie. Navy shorts attached to a navy & white horizontally striped shirt which zipped up the front to our neck.
It was just heinous. See?
(Photo courtesy of Google images)
I just wouldn’t do it. I’d plead not feeling well & wonder why putting on this onesie & playing dodgeball could possibly advance our lives in any way. I sat on the sidelines staring at the antics of class with great disdain. And I seemed to be getting away with it.
I was not getting away with it.
One day, our gym teacher, Mrs. K, walked over to me. She had a very pleased with herself expression on her face. She was smirking.
Because kids like me were the bane of existence to teachers like her. I had a bad attitude.
Once in a while, teachers will one-up kids like me. My antennae went up. The smirk worried me.
I need to talk to you, she said.
I stood up and gazed at my foe, with her Hamill haircut and velour track suit in a particularly unflattering shade of mauve.
I have to tell you, she said, almost unable to contain her glee, that you are failing gym. There’s no way for you to pass. None. I have told you over and over you have to dress out and participate. You haven’t done either. So, she continued, delivering her coup de grace, unless you go to summer school, you will not graduate with your class.
SUMMER SCHOOL? Oh, HELL no.
I do believe I cried. She was unmoved, giving the standard line that eff-ups like me hear time and time again:
There are consequences to our actions!
It was unbearable.
I did feel ashamed. It was just so stupid and avoidable. I’d truly screwed myself this time.
Two things were certain.
I was not going to summer school.
I was not being left behind a year. Impossible.
So I had to put my thinking cap on & figure this mess out.
Okay. What does she want? What do teachers like her want from students? Above all else?
The answer was clear. The problem was the execution of the plan. She would be suspicious. I had to deliver this perfectly.
The next day, I showed up at gym class. I put on the wretched gym suit. I participated in calisthenics and dodgeball. I showered & dressed for class. I saw her looking at me with my peripheral vision; I did not turn my head or make eye contact.
Me & my new, improved attitude were docile. Subdued. One of the herd.
Next day, I came back. Did the same thing. Participated. Laughed along with the other students. Plays well with others, check.
I knew the fatal flaw would be to ask her to pass me. So I didn’t. Nothing happened. A week went by.
Then one day she calls my name after class. I trot up to her. I keep my eyes big and innocent. I say Yes m’am.
I’ve noticed, she starts, that you’ve been dressing out & participating for a week. Without a reward in sight.
That’s right, I think, keep going…
You have had a real change of attitude.
It’s actually worked, I think, this is just thrilling.
So, she continues, kind now; dare I say moved? If you continue to dress out every day & write a two-page report on the importance of dressing out, I will pass you.
YES
But you have to do it every day, she warns, letting me know not to test her benevolence.
Ah, bien sur, Madame. I give effusive & grateful thanks.
I walk out of there like a boss. I can barely contain my joy. No summer school. I graduate with my class.
I tell my best friend, howling with glee, about how my attitude had changed.
Unbelievable, says my friend T, with more than a little disgust.
What do teachers want most? They want to make a difference in a kid’s life. I let her think she had changed me; that she’d taught me the importance of a good attitude.
What are most people surprised to hear about Australia?
the crustaceans we put on barbeques are called “prawns”, not “shrimp”.
I had never heard of Steve Irwin until after he become famous overseas — he was not that well-known here before he became famous overseas
Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee are anything but “typical Australians” — typical Australians live in cities, like Sydney and Melbourne and the other state, territory, and federal capitals
we rarely see dangerous animals or insects — Australia is not particularly dangerous and we have a long life expectancy
we don’t see many kangaroos or other native animals unless we live well outside the big cities
Pavlovas — you must eat one
Australian confectionery is very good, at least compared to American confectionery
Australian food (meat, vegetables, fruit) is fresh and generally of a high quality
most Australians live near the ocean — the interior is relatively empty (and dry, as in desert)
Australia does not have a lot of Mexican restaurants because we don’t live next door to Mexico — it is a long way from here
Australians do not like Starbucks, and do not have “Burger King” — we call it Hungry Jacks because of a court case run by a business here that already had the name “Burger King”
our Woolworths has no relation to American Woolworths … except our Woolworths stole the name before the American Woolworths tried to open stores here (Woolworths Group (Australia) – Wikipedia
)Australians drive on the left — like the British, Japanese, New Zealanders, Indians, and many other people in this part of the worldwe have winter in June, July, and August, and summer in December, January, and February … and no, we don’t think that is strangeit gets cold here in winter, especially because we build our houses to be cool in summer … and then freeze in winter if we don’t have heaters and woolly jumpers (sweaters).
If you only bring summer clothes to Australia you will suffer during winter months.we have Christmas in summer (December) … because Christmas is not a celebration of winter, it is a celebration set on 25 December
Australians write dates as day/month/year not month/day/yearthe Australian accent is different to the New Zealand accent — just ask a New Zealander to say “fish and chips”: if they say “fush end chups” they are from New Zealand. It is definitely different to any British accent.Australians use A4 paper, not “Letter size”; we use the metric system; our currency is the Australian dollar … and we changed all of those things in my lifetime.our temperature is in Celsius.
No, we don’t understand Fahrenheit, we have to convert it to Celsius first.we put “petrol” in our cars, not “gas” … unless your car has been converted to use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), in which case we say “LPG”, not “gas”. Petrol is not a gas, it is a liquid.
One boss asked a subordinate to review sick leave usage. The subordinate reported that 40% of all sick leave was taken in conjunction with a weekend. He took it as proof that people were abusing the sick leave system.
The boss ordered all supervisors to require a doctor’s note when someone took sick leave in conjunction with a weekend.
I did a quick analysis of his order and responded, “Monday and Friday are each one fifth of the work week, or 20% of the work week each. Together they add up to 40% of the week. If people get sick at random, they will call in evenly over the work week. You should expect to see an even distribution of 20% of sick leave taken on any given work day. The fact that only 40% call in on Monday and Friday (20% each) proves that no one is abusing sick leave.”
So I was working with this Car Dealership in the States for quite a while, about 4–5 years. Made good money and we had relatively good business practices, which isn’t common in car sales anywhere, and I ended up liking it alot. Anyway, they had this page in the employee handbook that states essentially that if your fired, quit, etc before commission is paid out on the 15th of each month then they were not required to pay you your commission. And that instead of $15 an hour your paychecks were retroactively reduced to minimum wage of $7.75. So, in this dirtiest of fine prints, what it didn’t tell you is that if they fired you on the 14th, which happened ALOT, then instead of getting your commission check, you were handed a bill that you owed them. Unless you worked an impossible amount of hours, you’d never be able to break the “Draw pay” or the money they front you weekly, $600 weekly. You would have to sell an absurd amount of cars, which case your not fired no matter how much you suck, or work 100+ hours a week to cover it. It was just cruel and dirty. I watched many folk get fired on the 14th and on the 15th have a letter from accounting stating that you ower them $300-$500 due in less than 30 days. Everyone screamed it was illegal, but “You signed the agreement” was always the answer. Somebody sued them for it once, and if memory serves me right they dragged it out for about 2 years and settled on not nearly enough money to cover lawyers and court costs. Dirty fine print at its best.
In 2012 a man was traveling in a Suzuki car with 3 others in Patna. He was driving at a speed of 100 kmph on an empty highway. Soon an SUV passed them at a very high speed. The SUV was so fast that it almost got out of control and was about to hit the Suzuki.
To save the accident, the driver of Suzuki tried to move away from the passing SUV. Doing so, the Suzuki got out of control and overturned and hit the corner of the road.
(photo for illustration only)
Four people in the car were badly injured, but narrowly escaped. The SUV driver fled after the accident and there was no one else on the road. Suzuki’s driver was badly injured and he got out of the car and sat on the middle of the road, shouting “Save!”.
It was 36 degree heat and the road was scorching. The driver lay on the road thinking that he was about to die. He wanted to help the other 3 passengers, who were still inside the car and were moaning in pain.
A few minutes later a car arrived. The man who got out of the car made a video of the accident with his phone. Then he took a closeup of the driver, whose face was covered in blood. Then this person sat in his car and left from there.
A few more minutes passed and the other car stopped. A middle-class couple came out and saw the driver lying on the hot road. The couple went back to their car and came back with a sheet.
To protect the injured driver from the scorching sun, the couple shed a sheet over him and stood up. They both stood in the sun. The husband then called emergency health services and asked them to come to the scene immediately.
They both stood there giving shade to the injured driver for almost 70 minutes! So long in the sun!
After the ambulance arrived, the couple took two other passengers in their car along with the ambulance.
The couple left the hospital after the four injured were admitted to the ICU. The driver narrated this story after recovering from an injured condition for several months, but he could not meet the noble couple.
China is militarily aggressive towards Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
China is a dictatorship.
China is trapping developing countries in debt with the Belt and Road Initiative.
There are many, many more lies. They could fill a book, so it’s not appropriate to expound on all of it in a Quora answer.
Some food for thought…
China has fought no wars since 1979. How many wars has America fought?
China has legitimate maritime disputes in the South China Sea, just like USA and Canada have no fewer than five maritime disputes.
China does not sanction other countries, nor interfere in their politics, nor overthrow their governments. America has done all of this.
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 85% of Chinese trust their government. Only 40% of Americans do, and 30% of Brits do.
According to Latana’s Democracy Perception Index (which measures what people think of their political system), China is the sixth most democratic country, well ahead of Canada, UK, and USA.
The Global South gives overwhelming support to the Belt and Road Initiative. Over 150 countries participate!
Married Women Held Accountable for Late Night Encounters with Under Age Boys
At 4pm he told us to compile a report and action plan ready for tomorrow’s 830am meeting. Now to do this properly would take each of us a full day’s work. All 7 of us protested, and asked for more time. I asked when he expected us to find the time, and he told us to work on it that night at home. I openly said “sorry, that’s unreasonable. I have a 90 minute drive home, then I’ll be cooking dinner, and then helping with showers and homework. When that’s done I have about an hour before I’m ready to fall asleep. His reply? “Get your wife to make the dinner and shower the kids while you work on the report.” And then he left the room. So we all united and decided not to do it.
He went off his tree at 830am the next morning when nothing was done. I had a word to the very nice HR lady, about what he said, along with the list of people in the room who witnessed it. When he blew his gasket and wanted HR to issue warnings, she simply told him to reschedule the meeting for the following day, and let us work all day uninterrupted to prepare for it, in work time.
My ex worked at a Friendlies restaurant. They had that wonderful phenomena with the Sunday morning church crowd. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, ask anyone who works Sunday morning at low-end restaurants.
This one family was notorious for demanding exemplary service, running the servers ragged and not tipping. On my ex’s last day of work, they showed up and did their usual. Rather than not tipping, they left a little card that said “I’ve given your tip to Jesus!” She balled up the card, followed them out into the parking lot, threw it at the dad and said “Jesus doesn’t pay my fucking rent!”
The dad flew back into the restaurant and demanded she be fired. The manager said it was her last day, and maybe things like this wouldn’t happen if you tipped the server. It was golden.
70% of people keep things to themselves to avoid being judged by others.
People between the ages of 18–33 are the most stressed in the world After the age of 48, stress level tends to reduce.
The most common lie said by humans is ” I’m fine”
Pretty people are automatically more acceptable by people. Average looking people have to do something above average to get accepted and ugly people have to do something extraordinary!
Always tell the truth. So when you have to tell a lie, people are more likely to believe you.
More you talk about a person to others, more you fall in love with that person.
If you announce your goals or tell someone else about them, you are less likely to accomplish them because of lack of motivation interest since you have nothing to prove.
A true friend who understands your troubles is far more valuable than a hundred friends who only show up for your smile.
We tend to behave better when we are being watched.
Happier is not the one who has more money, but the one who has more money than his neighbor.
Anger increases the desire of possession in people. People make more efforts to obtain the object that is associated with angry faces.
‘Maturity’ has no connection with ‘Age’. Yes, age is just a number…you can find more maturity in a child, than a person in his 50’s. Maturity comes with ‘Empathy’.
Intelligent people tend to have fewer friends.
We want more choices, but choose better with fewer options.
I’ll admit that when I conducted interviews — either alone or as part of a panel — there were times when I liked, or disliked, a candidate early on. That’s why I came up with a series of questions to ask and made sure to ask them all: I wanted to give the candidate an opportunity to change my mind, one way or the other.
I will say that my initial impression was right about 70% of the time but ending an interview after five minutes would be a waste of the candidate’s and, more importantly, my time. In my 50+ years in the work force, there was only one occassion when I ended an interview prematurely. When I owned a security guard company I interviewed a woman for a job as Operations Manager. When she sat down she said that she’d heard good things about my company and she really wanted the job. Then she stood up and leaned on my desk, so I could see down her blouse, and said she’d do anything to get the job. I looked at her and smiled, and she repeated, Anything.
I ended the interview at that point, after less than ten minutes, and thanked her for coming in. I told her I planned on making a decision before the weekend (she’d come in on Tuesday) and I would let her know what is was. I had my assistant call her two days later and tell her another candidate had been hired. That chick was a lawsuit waiting to happen and I wanted no part of her.
When I’ve approached a table and before I’ve even said hello I’ve been met with ‘just so you know, we are on tripadvisor’. *sigh*. I can tell straight away I’m going to get AT LEAST one complaint about food/service/drinks/the colour of the tablecloths or whatever other excuses they want to make in order to receive a discount or face a terrible review.
We have a group of women who come in twice a month. There are always between 8-10 of them. They are taken care of as well as we take care of all our other guests. The fact you leave reviews on tripadvisor is not special and you will not be treated any differently. Every time they come in they order the same lamb dish. Everytime they ALL complain about the lamb dish.
The first time I was apologetic and gave a good discount on the bill. Two weeks later it happened again I gave a discount but started to suspect something when other patrons complimented the lamb and I had watched them talking for a good 15 minutes after food was served before complaining the food was cold. The third time it happened I was pissed off. Not only were they generally rude to the staff but when they paid the bill they would make a big deal out of saying they left a little extra for the server and it has never been more than 5 pence. Luckily we are in a country where we don’t rely on tips to earn a living.
So this third time they come in; as usual they want lamb and as usual they complain about it. When it comes time to pay I take the complete bill over, no discount.
The chief moaner said that as they hadn’t enjoyed the lamb they should get some discount. I was once again reminded they were on tripadvisor. I proceeded to tell them that they had been here twice now, ordered the same thing and complained about it both times. They were choosing to come here and if the food was that bad they didn’t need to come back. They were more than welcome to leave a terrible review and in exchange we didn’t have to give them free food every other week or put up with their terrible attitude and it was a worthwhile trade.
Shockingly they didn’t argue back just paid the bill and left. Also shockingly they came back two weeks later like normal and ordered the lamb, which when asked if everything was okay with their meals it was ‘delicious’ or ‘lovely, thank you’.
They still come every fortnight and we never got a negative review on tripadvisor.
She Sells Her Soul For 50 Years Of Pleasure, But When The Devil Comes For Her, She Outwits Him
In 2022, I visited New York City to take a training for my job.
I set aside the day before the training started as a sightseeing day. I knew I wanted to visit Ellis Island and the 9–11 Museum, so I bought a package ticket for both through the website where I booked my flight and hotel.
On my sightseeing day, I took the subway from my hotel down to Battery Park and met my tour group there. The tour guide, who was wonderfully intelligent, knowledgeable and interesting, took us to the ferry, which took us to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
After the ferry returned, it turned out that I was the only one of the group who had also signed up to go to the 9–11 Museum. The tour guide walked me down there, saying it was only a few blocks away.
I’m 63 years old, and not in very good physical condition. The temperature was over 90 degrees, and I do not do well in the heat. So it was a long walk for me, and I had to take frequent rest breaks. The tour guide was quite patient with me, and we had a really great conversation during this walk.
At one point in the conversation, I mentioned my husband. The tour guide said to me, “Your husband must be very smart. I know this because you are very smart, and I can tell you would never put up with a guy who wasn’t as smart as you. You would have him for breakfast.”
I will never forget that complement!
P. S. FYI, my husband IS very smart.
Italian Wedding Soup
This Italian Wedding Soup Recipe is simply the best! Made with acini de pepe, beef and pork meatballs, carrots, celery, greens, and Parmesan cheese. This soup is SO flavorful! Serve with crusty bread and a glass of wine and enjoy!
Packed with onions and carrots, spinach and pasta and meatballs, this hearty soup is perfect for chilly winter nights. Serve a big bowl of wedding soup with crusty rolls for a satisfying meal.
Yield: 29 cups; about 16 (12 ounce) servings
Ingredients
Meatballs
2 hamburger rolls or 4 slices white bread
2/3 cup milk
1 large egg
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 pounds ground beef or meatloaf mix
1 medium onion, grated or very finely diced
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried parsley
Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, diced; about 2 cups
2 cups finely diced carrots, about 3 large carrots
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
4 to 4 1/2 quarts (16 to 18 cups) chicken broth, homemade or purchased
1 1/2 teaspoons dried Italian herbs or 3/4 teaspoon each dried oregano and dried basil
10-ounce box frozen chopped spinach
1 teaspoon salt, to taste
1/2 to 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, to taste
2 2/3 cups uncooked orzo, ditalini, or other small, roundish pasta
Instructions
Meatballs
Combine the bread, egg, milk, and salt, stirring until everything is well moistened. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes to soften.
Add the ground meat, onion, cheese, and herbs. Mix gently until thoroughly combined.
Shape tiny meatballs, (about 1 inch diameter or less). Using a level teaspoon scoop (which volume-wise is actually 2 level measuring teaspoons) makes about the right size. Place the meatballs on a parchment-lined or lightly greased cookie sheet, and refrigerate them while you prepare the soup.
Soup
Get out a large pot, at least 6 quart capacity. Pour the olive oil into the bottom of the pot, and add the onions and carrots. Sauté, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, and cook for another couple of minutes.
Add the broth and herbs, bring to a simmer, and cook gently for 10 minutes.
Add the frozen chopped spinach, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, total; the soup will take awhile to come back to a simmer, due to the frozen spinach. Help it along by breaking it up with a fork as it cooks.
Gently drop the meatballs into the soup. Simmer the soup for 30 minutes or so, then stir in the pasta, cooking until it’s al dente. For orzo, this will take about 8 minutes or so.
Add salt and pepper to taste; using reduced-salt canned chicken broth, we added 1 teaspoon salt; and 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper.
Serve the soup garnished with freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese.
When I was a Probation and Parole officer I had this guy on parole and probation at the same time. He had several positive cocaine drug tests. Usually three positive tests was where they would be arrested. Larry was uniquely qualified for extra chances. I can’t remember the fourth reason, but it most have been pretty good for me to have given him the pass. Then he got his fifth positive test. As much as I liked him I felt like I had to arrest him then. So, I confronted him about the positive test, and instead of denying it like most parolees did he said, “Officer Davis, I was this woman, and she poured cocaine all over her breasts and p**sy, and said, Larry go down on all this stuff.” Then he looked at me like a five year old child would, even though he was a forty some year ago man and said, “Officer Davis, what did you expect me to do?”
I never new if that story was true or not, I’m pretty sure it is, but anyway it was such a good story that Larry got another chance and completed hi probation and parole, with a little help from me.
Older Woman Leaves Her Good Husband And Can’t COPE With The CONSEQUENCES
This was back around the mid-90’s in So Cal. We were having dinner with serveral of my husband’s coworkers and their spouses. It was a fairly well-known Italian place, I ordered shrimp and broccoli pasta. I took a few bites, and there was a large curled up caterpillar (I later learned was a “tomato horn worm”). It was the size of the shrimp, but not quite a brilliant green like the broccoli.
I didn’t want to make a huge fuss, so I pushed food around the plate. The server came around, and noticed that my plate was still mostly full. He asked if there was something wrong, and I pointed to the caterpillar. He went kind of pale, and quickly whisked my plate off the table. My husband noticed, but with the rest of the table eating and conversing, no one else did.
The owner of the place came over and very quietly apologized, and offered me another item. I no longer had much appetite. He asked if I would like a dessert, but no, I just couldn’t. You could tell he was genuinely aghast. I didn’t make any announcement to the rest of the table, but just said I was full. They didn’t know anything until they were told that the entire table’s bill was comped.
We still laugh about that “green” shrimp. And yes, that restaurant is still in business.
Irishman here. About 25 years ago, our next door neighbour went on holidays to Spain for 2 weeks leaving their 16 year old son behind. The son had a series of parties all week and I called in to him to have words with him. When I called in, there were a group of kids there and when I was talking to him, I noticed from his eyes that I may have done better talking to the dog. He was as high as a kite and you could see and smell the drugs. I reported it the Gardai (Irish Police) who called out to him, but did nothing.
Friday of the week came and the party was beginning to grow with loads of people and loud music. I couldn’t take it any longer and my wife, kids and I went to our holiday home in Wexford for the weekend. Before we left, we informed the Gardai and some neighbours.
The following morning, we got a call to say the house next door went on fire and we had a lot of fire damage in our house. We came home to chaos.
The young lad next door moved in with some relatives nearby and they refused to ring his parents in Spain to tell them in case it would ruin their holiday.
When they came home, we spoke to them and they refused to accept any responsibility and we had to put it through our insurance. At the time, I was very naive regarding putting in an insurance claim and missed out on a lot. I should have replaced stuff where I just got them repaired and made do with a lot of other stuff. In short, I only claimed for half of what I should have and in saying that, my insurance increased for the next 5 years and affected our no claims bonus for 7 years. It cost me 10s of thousands of Punts.
The next door neighbours got their house completely gutted and rebuilt. Essentially a new house. The only thing that remained of the original house were the 4 walls, All concrete. They then moved out to a new house elsewhere.
In answer to your question: Yes they should pay and carry out a clean up. But it didn’t happen in my case.
When my son was in 8th grade, he refused to get in my ex’s car when she came to pick him up. I never found out why.
We took him to counseling, she had him meet with her minister (I took him over). In all cases, he sat there for over an hour and never said a word.
Eventually, she sued me for not forcing him to go with her. Judge took testimony. Told him all the things that we had tried to find out what was going on. Judge decided to take a crack at it. Spent 15 minutes chatting with him in chambers. Judge found him personable and likeable, but when he brought up why he wanted nothing to do with his mother, my son shut down and refused to interact with him.
Judge’s decision was that my son had veto powers over any custody agreement. My son never talked with his mother again until after high school graduation. He is 25 years now, he still has a bad relationship with his mother, and I still don’t know why.
1968. Single Mom, very poor. So poor I couldn’t afford needle & thread to sew my good blouse with a torn sleeve at shoulder. Worked for GSA, government with 2 other office ladies. Main Secretary had to have major surgery; off several weeks. The other lady became ill & took extended leave also. Left me to do all the work.
I didn’t mind as all the custodial/maintenance persons told me what a great job I was doing. They all said my annual appraisal warranted an outstanding rating; meaning a bonus of $200.
My boss called me in for the appraisal and his words: “I think you deserve an excellent rating but if I give it to you, I will have to fill out a lot of paper work. Then what will you have to work for next year”.
I was crushed and dumbfounded. It was unbelievable to the others persons as well. Within a few months, I found another job. Karma stepped in. Boss called me within a month and asked me to return as the other gals were leaving.
I was 16 years old and had an appointment my mother made because I was bleeding from my rectum. I was a 16 year old who thought it was all so dumb and wasn’t this doctors appointment just stupid and why mom did you bring me here… I was vocalizing all of this and my mom was crying and I was being awful. Finally I hear, “Shut up you little bitch!”
I was stunned. My mother probably wanted to applaud the man and I don’t blame her.
That doctor found very active ulcerative colitis. I was pretty sick. Pretty dumb too. To that end he went on to become my doctor for the next 20 years or until he retired. We had a real bond because of his big mouth.
On the day of his retirement he gave me a big hug and told me that I’d come a long way from the little brat he had met at first. He told me I was his favorite patient now. Good thing he was the best doctor I ever had.
He never apologized for saying that to me, but I did apologize for acting like a little bitch. Entitled one at that. Lol. You go Dr. Cocco!
*****PS. For anyone that thinks this behavior was wrong for a doctor. Maybe. However in this case I was bleeding actively from the inside out. This doctor could tell that with no exam really. All a person in GI bleed status has to do is fart and if you are in the medical profession you know what it smells like and tastes like pretty much without a “guaiac” or test. In this case the doctor could tell that I was mega non compliant as I was 16 and you don’t die at 16. So he stunned me into submission to get me out of there and to a hospital.
My mother had a child die from a bowel that was twisted and maybe she did or did not know what was going on. This was a whole different era. She was probably afraid it was happening again. In any event I was a bitchy little entitled brat back then. Even if it wasn’t emergent she should or would have clapped. Lord knows she tried everything else.
Just so you all know the rest of it maybe you’ll get more of the big picture.
I viewed the world from the lens of television, and I thought that the stereotypes thrown at me was real. I believed that wars were gallant men fighting for just purposes, and that work as an never ending adventures with one mystery after the other.
Ah. The harsh reality wasn’t that at all.
Now, that was decades ago. Today, it seems that Gen-Z is having some real coping issues. This is the West, buy the way, not in the East. And what I am reading, hearing about, and watching is terribly disturbing.
The ship USS America is now under water.
The water has breached the deck and starting to go down the air funnels and leech into the duct-work. The hallways have inches (3 cm) deep water that one has to splash through to get to the upper flooded deck.
The signs are all there.
Perhaps the sinking will be complete before the captain of the Ship; whatever “president” that might be might want to reconsider a war with a vibrant, healthy, professional boxer like China is today.
Just sayin’
Today…
French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done With
The French president Macron has recently pushed for an engagement of foreign troops in Ukraine. The idea was immediately rejected by every country that would be able to send a reasonable number.
The question is why Macron suddenly came out with this.
A series of recent reports from the French defense establishment might have caused his irritation.
The French magazine Marianne got access to “several confidential defense reports” from the French army on the situation in Ukraine.
The situation looks exceedingly bleak for Ukraine, which might in part explain Macron’s recent declarations around sending troops to Ukraine. I translated the important parts of the article:”A Ukrainian military victory now seems impossible”
The reports Marianne consulted write that Ukraine’s counter-offensive “gradually bogged down in mud and blood and did not result in any strategic gain” and that its planning, conceived by Kiev and Western general staffs, turned out to be “disastrous”: “Planners thought that once the first Russian defense lines were breached, the entire front would collapse […] These fundamental preliminary phases were conducted without considering the moral forces of the enemy in defense: that is, the will of the Russian soldier to hold onto the terrain”.
The reports also highlight “the inadequacy of the training of Ukrainian soldiers and officers”: due to a lack of officers and a significant number of veterans, these “Year II soldiers” from Ukraine – often trained for “no more than three weeks” – were launched into an assault on a Russian fortification line that proved impregnable.
Somehow people who had never heard of the Battle of Kursk convinced themselves that Russian soldiers in defensive positions would run away as soon as they would hear a tank rumbling towards them. They of course did not do so.
These Russian troops are well managed and cared for:
The reports also highlight that contrary to Ukraine “the Russians have managed their reserve troops well, to ensure operational endurance.” According to this document, Moscow reinforces its units before they are completely worn out, mixes recruits with experienced troops, ensures regular rest periods in the rear… and “always had a coherent reserve force to manage unforeseen events.” This is far from the widespread idea in the West of a Russian army sending its troops to the slaughter without counting…
The Ukrainians on the other side are done with:
“To date, the Ukrainian general staff does not have a critical mass of land forces capable of inter-arms maneuver at the corps level capable of challenging their Russian counterparts to break through its defensive line,” concludes this confidential defense report, according to which “the gravest error of analysis and judgment would be to continue to seek exclusively military solutions to stop the hostilities“. A French officer summarizes: “It is clear, given the forces present, that Ukraine cannot win this war militarily.“
The fall of Avdeevka has shown that the Ukrainian military, even on the defensive, will inevitably lose the fight:
“The Ukrainian armed forces have tactically shown that they do not possess the human and material capabilities […] to hold a sector of the front that is subjected to the assailant’s effort,” continues the document. “The Ukrainian failure in Avdiivka shows that, despite the emergency deployment of an ‘elite’ brigade – the 3rd Azov Air Assault Brigade –, Kiev is not capable of locally restoring a sector of the front that collapses,” alerts this last report.
In consequence the Russian forces will simply move on:
What the Russians will do with this tactical success remains to be seen. Will they continue in the current mode of “nibbling and slowly shaking” the entire front line, or will they seek to “break through in depth”? “The terrain behind Avdiivka allows it,” signals this recent document, also warning that Western sources tend to “underestimate” the Russians, themselves adept at the practice of “Maskirovka,” “appearing weak when strong.” According to this analysis, after two years of war, Russian forces have thus shown their ability to “develop operational endurance” that allows them to wage “a slow and long-intensity war based on the continuous attrition of the Ukrainian army.”
There is nothing really new in the above for people who have followed the facts on the ground.
So why were western media, and politicians like Macron, late in recognizing the real situation?
Posted by b on March 12, 2024 at 16:59 UTC | Permalink
When a coward meets a man
What did a teacher say that made you immediately walk out of the classroom?
My teacher told me, “No you may not leave the room. Stay in your seat.”
This was said after I glanced out the open door to see my younger brother standing in the doorway crying. (I was a Jr, he was a sophomore) This was so out of character for Mike, that without thinking, I had jumped up from my desk and asked the teacher if I could be excused for a minute. He, too, saw my tall, goofy, big-hearted brother standing there brushing away tears.
I never sat back down, I just kept on going toward the door and my brother. My brothers and I had a very tight relationship. We were always there for one another, and this time was the same. The teacher didn’t say another word as I exited the classroom.
I immediately hugged my brother and asked him what was wrong. He then told me, between the tears that a boy in his gym class had made a nasty remark about me, and without thinking, Mike had sent a basketball soaring across the gym, which hit the offender right square in his face. Blood went everywhere, and it turned out that he had a broken nose. Mike felt terrible about breaking his nose and just knew he was in trouble big time.
I got Mike calmed down and he went back to class, but only after I assured him that I wouldn’t tell our mom about the incident. Then I went back to class and sat down and continued to listen to the lecture for the day. Teacher never said a word to me.
I’d do it just the same if it happened all over again. Nobody, but nobody ever came between my brothers and me.
Damn! This guys is a menace
What is the strangest thing you’ve found buried?
I worked as a field archaeologist for ten years or so and in that time I participated in the excavation of many historic and prehistoric sites in North America.
One of my more unusual finds was in South Western Wyoming.
Wyoming is a big state, comprised of deserts and mountains and little in between. The population is scant and you can drive for hours in some places without seeing another car or an occupied home. A common problem in Wyoming is running out of gasoline because gas stations are few and far between. Many residents have a second gas tank installed in their pickup trucks for this reason.
One spring the company I was working for was scheduled to excavate a prehistoric Native American site in the very rough terrain of the South Western corner of the state. The site was nestled on a terrace on the side of steep hill surrounded by canyon walls. The site had been discovered decades earlier when an oil company put an oil well pad near the site but it had not been investigated further.
The site had some interesting characteristics. First, it was located on a terrace, a flat spot on the side of a steep hill. Then the site was protected from wind on three sides by canyon walls. And finally the site had access to fresh water via a stream that crossed below the site. These characteristics made the site uniquely suited for settlement to ancient people. Such a perfect place was extremely rare.
Upon arrival, we located a series of petro-glyphs or prehistoric rock drawings which were spread across the sandstone walls that protected the terrace. The panels were crowded with images, many of which featured stick like hunters stalking groups of antelope in the desert dunes. Occasionally bison, goats and birds made appearances. But one panel included a dog.
At the time it was known that Native Americans had domesticated the dog but the details were sketchy. For sure dogs were common among the “civilized” late prehistoric tribes of the Carolinas on the Atlantic coast and a breed of tiny dogs were known to the famously civilized Aztecs of Central Mexico but after that it was a big blank as of early 1990s.
The crew examined the “dog” and then looked at the antelopes and it was our collective opinion that the dog was a dog. The ancient artists were particular in their portrayal of the animals, there was little variation in the way they made the antelopes. The antelopes were antelopes and the dog was a dog. We wondered about a domesticated “coyote” or even a “wolf” but this figure had a dog like profile and posture.
We did not spend much time on the rock drawings. They would be documented and preserved. Instead we focused our attention on the sizeable archaeological deposits on the terrace. Imagine the terrace as a bowl with 5 feet of stratified sand in it, with each strata containing the remain of multiple seasonal occupations. In all 8,000 years of ancient American history were recorded in these thin layers, like the pages of a giant history book.
In the coming days, we revealed layer after layer after layer of ancient camp site, with excellent examples of finely designed arrow heads, dart point, and spear tips and all or most of the specimens fit neatly into the historical typology of types which were well documented for this region.
And then we settled into a number of strata that were all from the Archaic age. In the archaeology of the Americas, the Archaic period is this incredibly long and undifferentiated period that starts roughly at 6,000 BC and continues to 1,000 BC. From this period we have only the slightest indications of what life was like.
In the archaic, humans lived in small bands, they hunted, they collected foods from the wild and they moved in seasonal cycles to harvest things as they became available. Almost everything else about the archaic peoples are unknown. We occasionally get a very detailed snap shot of archaic life from a particular region and then hundreds of miles and thousands of years of silence .
Early on, it became apparent that we were going to be looking at many layers or occupational instances of the Archaic. As we peeled the top off the archaic strata we found a multitude of “features” which are stationary archaeology remains that can indicate particular human activities. Features might include storage pits, bone piles, fire features (hearths or fire pits) and so on.
And then we found what looked like a small burial. We quickly adjusted our pace of excavation, and out came the smaller pics and brushes. In the bottom of an oval pit some 80cm across we found the well preserved remains of a dog, curled as if asleep. Our best bet at the time was that the dog dated to the Late Archaic and could be anywhere between 3,000 and 4,500 years old.
Finding the dog was a shock to us. Maybe the specimen was a mutated coyote or adolescent wolf, or maybe the dog was “intrusive,” i.e. from a latter date and someone dug a deep hole into more ancient deposits… However, the features start point was well within the Archaic strata.
This find would indicate that the “dog” appeared in North America at a date much earlier than originally believed and that maybe the “dog” was domesticated separately by ancient native Americans in very distant communities separated by hundreds of miles and thousands of years.
Random, Rome and R
Have you ever called in a “welfare check” to the police? Did it turn out there was a real need? Officers, how often are “welfare checks” something where a person does need assistance?
My lovely youngest brother.
He lived in the local city, I live just outside with my family, he used to talk to our mother every day. She rang me on my daughter’s birthday, and told me he’d not answered his phone, or texted back all day.
We popped over, on the way my husband ran over a raised island, with curbs around, there was usually a lit bollard on top.
We went on, parked, and went in the block of flats. He didn’t answer the door, I rang him. In the end he shouted back. I wanted to call an ambulance, he didn’t want me to. We stayed about 10 minutes. I said you sound terrible ally. He refused help again.
We started driving home, and he rang me, we chatted and he said he’d talk to mum. He sounded the normal Ally then. I said I would call him tomorrow. And he said love you.
Later, on our drive home, we realised we’d damaged the wheel, on that island. The tyre was slowly letting out the air, and I think the wheel rim took a knock. So now the car was out of commission for a day or two.
Later I put my mum at ease, and had a chat with her.
He didn’t answer the next day.
So the day after, I had my daughter take me back. He really didn’t answer any calls through his letter box. I could hear his phone ring.
I rang the police and ambulance. They said yeah, contact the hospital and see if he’s been admitted.
Nope, not there. So I rang ambulance again. The ambulance came first, they called the police, and they crashed in the door.
No one let me see him, but he’d died.
I think he died the evening I spoke to him.
Then I had to ring my family. That’s something I don’t want to do again. I had to tell everyone when our father died, that was shit, too.
I was sent away by the police and the paramedics. It was the start of more worry. The police called the council to seal up the door.
In the UK, a death like this always warrants a postmortem.
LOL
What is the best way a friend has showed you that they are a true friend?
My dad was being taken off a ventilator at the hospital. They put him in a room because they expected him to die. I sent my son and husband home because they were so antsy and while upset didn’t want to stay. So I sat by myself. I held my dad’s hand and thought of why had my normally very smooth rather dull life turn into this horror movie. My mom was becoming somebody I didn’t know with dementia 😢. She said these horrible things to me that I know she didn’t mean but hurt anyway. Then she was killed in an auto accident. Three months later I’m sitting by my dad in this surreal hospital room watching him labor for breath. Suddenly I see the person who has been respite support for my autistic son for years come running up with tears running down her face. She found out I was alone up there. Well, now I wasn’t ❤️.
She has my heart and my sword forever.
Can The US Compare To CHINA’s High-Speed Rail?
Disturbing trends.
What was the best hidden bonus you found in your old car at a new car dealership, when you were cleaning it out before taking your new car home?
I had an elderly couple trade for their “final car” several years back. They had been married a long time and were coming up on their 50th anniversary, and in conversation I had noticed the little old man was not wearing a wedding band. I didn’t mention it as it was none of my business, but I had noticed he was fairly frail looking.
After they left, I was going through their car to double check to see if they had missed anything, and I noticed something gold poking out from under the driver seat rail, so I grabbed a long screw driver and gave it a wack to knock it out from under the rail. It was a very old looking wedding band. I called them to let them know I found something they would want back and asked them to come by to retrieve it. When they came by and I handed it to them, they both teared up. They told me how he had been battling illness over the last 6 years, and he had lost a lot of weight and at some point it had fallen off. They couldn’t figure out where he lost it, but I figure it happened when he was putting on or removing his seat belt. She had offered to replace it, but he said it was irreplaceable and God would make sure he got it back.
That one still gives me chills, and I was glad to get it back to them in time for their 50th anniversary.
We don’t wanna…
In the USA, it’s not just taxes, and inflation, you HAVE to tip!
What is the rudest/most unusual/most obnoxious thing you have seen someone do at a wedding?
I was at a wedding many years ago. The groom’s family were Jewish. The bride’s family were Christian.
The bride’s father stood up to speak. He started with “I love my daughter, Abigail, with an A because she is Amazing. Then he gave a couple of sentences about why she was amazing. Then “I love my daughter, Abigail, with a B because she is Beautiful”.
Okay so he is going to spell out Abigail – that’s cute. But no, he went on to C, then D, etc, all the way through to Z. I have no idea what he came up with for Z because everyone on my table was asleep and/or drooling by then. He spoke for 25 minutes, which is the longest father-of-the-bride speech I have ever had the misfortune to witness.
But it’s not the length of the speech that was the obnoxious thing. Or the gushing sentimentality of it.
For ‘C’ this woman’s father said, “I love my daughter Abigail with a C because she is Clever.” Lovely! Right? No!
He wasn’t proud of her cleverness because she had a very good degree from one of the two best British universities. No! She was clever because she had snagged a rich Jewish husband, who worked in finance and had a trust fund.
The father-of-the-bride looked so proud of her and he clearly didn’t have a clue he had pissed off the Jewish half of the room, with this massively antisemitic trope.
Even now many many years later, the groom’s mum and her friends still talks about that speech and how tacky it was.
Why Gen Z and Alpha Are Making Teachers Quit
Disturbing trends.
Are inmates respectful of the medical equipment that other inmates have to use?
I never saw anyone mess with a wheelchair. Most of the guys in chairs were pretty easy going and got along with everyone else. If someone were to try and swipe a chair, it’d be obvious where it came from, and if they were trying to damage it, they’d quickly discover how rugged the things were.
I saw a little horseplay with crutches, but nothing serious.
The only cases I was aware of where someone actively targeted medical equipment were all against the same guy. Crazy Dave was universally hated by everyone. He’d pick needless fights because he simply had no idea when to quit, or how unpopular he really was.
CPAP machines could be an easy target. The machines are loud and therefore unpopular. Of course, destroying the CPAP will only make the inmate snore and that’s even less soothing. So, to destroy a CPAP, it’s pretty clear who your beef is with.
No idea if this guy is crazy, or if his name is Dave. Image from eBay.
Crazy Dave had a CPAP. Of course he didn’t need it, but he was such an incessant whiner that the staff would give him stuff so they didn’t have to listen to him. He was the kind of guy who would feign a heart attack if we had a new female CO in the unit.
One time someone stole the hose from Dave’s machine. I think it was later found in the showers with some unsavory something-or-other on it. The next attack was more clever. The guy in the very next bunk waited until Crazy was sleeping and used a needle to put dozens and dozens of tiny holes in the hose. After a while, that hose was about as air-tight as a whiffle ball.
Dave wanted a walker too. Nothing wrong with the man (physically), but he wanted a place to sit while waiting in line for commissary. He also had a need to keep up with the hypochondriac Jones crowd. He dumped reams of kites in the box until he eventually got one. Dave couldn’t keep the walker in his locker like the CPAP, so it was always vulnerable. Several times random people would undo the screws that held the handle on, or adjust the legs so they were at different heights.
His own private chair. Image from Amazon.
Aside from Crazy Dave, pretty much everyone else’s medical equipment was off-limits. If there had been a way to make a tattoo gun out of CPAPs however, I’m sure that would’ve been a different story.
More Gen-Z WTF?
SpaghettiOs
Kids will love this homemade version of a favorite canned pasta.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
1 (26 ounce) can tomato sauce
3 cups water
1 cup milk
2 cups Cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon garlic powder
8 ounces ditalini or pasta of choice, uncooked
Instructions
In a large pot mix together the sauce, water and milk. Bring to a boil.
When it reaches a bowl, stir in the cheese and turn it down to a simmer. Continue to stir until the cheese is melted.
Add the garlic and stir.
Pour in the uncooked pasta. Simmer on low for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally during the first 5 to 6 minutes to prevent the pasta from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Check the pasta after 20 minutes, if it’s not as soft as you would like, cook it a little longer. Sauce will thicken even more over time.
Why Are Men Falling Behind?
Disturbing trends.
Have you, while repairing a computer, ever found anything that made your jaw drop?
I got called to look over the computer and network for a very meek looking, slightly overweight, older grandmother..
First, I noticed that her router had no firewall enabled.. Upon inspecting the computer, I noticed that there was a strange folder in the windows directory, filed with foreign copyrighted videos. I found that a ftp server had been hidden in the system and was serving the films to the Internet. I figured the system had been hacked and the ftp server was installed by malicious malware, but then after opening the GUI for the ftp server, I found several other directories.. The contents of one directory took me by surprise.. The directory contained photos and movies of the little old lady involved in BDSM activities with various men. The must have been hundreds of files in it.
I talked to the woman about the firewall and the ftp server and discovered, from the now red faced woman, that she had installed the ftp server herself but supposedly had no clue about the foreign copyrighted movies.. I deleted the foreign copyrighted movies, reconfigured the server and installed a firewall and left her BDSM stuff.. Telling her to be careful of what she exposed on the Internet..
I love this
Why is TikTok going to be banned in America without any scandal meanwhile Facebook is left untouched with massive scandals like Cambridge Analytica?
Facebook is banned in China
Google is banned in China
YouTube is banned in China
This led to China developing some of the finest and best internet applications on earth and today Chinese Software programming beats everyone else hollow
The Chinese Apps are so good that if they ever came out they would beat Western Apps in seconds
Didi has far more features than Uber
Douyin makes Tik Tok look like a Ford Taurus and YouTube like a Ford Model T
WeChat is a combo of everything and runs the entire Chinese nation digitally
Taobao and JD are as good as Amazon and better than flipkart
The US Point of view :-
You guys deny our Internet Giants from playing in your massive market
Your Internet Services & E Commerce market has a 80% share for Domestic companies
Once you come to our markets, you will put all our players at risk and take a large chunk of revenue from our markets
We cannot have that
The Chinese Point of View :-
We don’t pretend and never pretended to be a fan of the FREE MARKET like you did
You have used FREE MARKET and throttled all your competitors but NOT US
The fact is our products are better than yours because we don’t have a saturated market and we have 20 engineers for 1 of yours
The bottom line is
US has a $ 3.5 Trillion a year Internet services market today
China has a 12.6 Trillion RMB Internet Services market today ($ 1.8 Trillion)
The two combined have a market equivalent to 80.3% of the World’s combined market
By 2035, US is expected to have a $ 4.5 Trillion Internet services market
China is expected to have a $ 4 Trillion market
Both nations will fiercely protect their own markets and evolve within their own markets
This is inevitable
Karen is upset
What are the strategies of China and Russia to deter America from using nukes in a desperate situation as a Samsonite option?
China and Russia can’t
raise the IQ of US presidents,
stop US presidents from putting the US neocons/chickenhawks in their cabinets,
improve the critical thinking skills of the US electorate,
make US cable news, the New York Times, and the Washington Post better than the paper you’d use to clean up dog shit.
Right now, we’re relying on Putin and Xi Jinping to be the adults in the room and not the crash-test dummies that we Americans keep putting in the office of the US presidency and Congress.
From the US side, we’re not preventing nuclear war but heading straight into an idiot apocalypse.
I’m old enough to remember when US presidents tried not to provoke a nuclear war, but those times are long gone.
Nuland resigns. China hawks take over
“Project Ukraine is her child.”
“Her resignation was insisted upon by powerful people in the United States.”
Swiss Steak with Tomato Gravy
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 large slice round steak
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large cans tomatoes
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 large onion, diced
Kosher or sea salt and pepper
1 cup water (for gravy)
Instructions
Spray slow cooker with Pam. Turn on LOW.
Heat oil in large skillet.
Cut round steak into serving-size pieces.
Put flour into a shallow pan. Add salt and pepper to flour and flour steak well.
Fry steak in hot oil until brown.
Pour a few tomatoes into the slow cooker. Add pieces of browned steak and remaining tomatoes in layers. Add diced onion.
Cook for 4 hours on LOW heat.
Remove meat from slow cooker.
Put 1 cup of water in a pint jar. Add 3 tablespoons flour. Shake well. Add to tomato mixture in the slow cooker. Cook and stir until gravy is thickened.
Put meat back in long enough to heat.
Serve with mashed potatoes.
Men Are Lost? No they aren’t- they are DONE! Women are clueless about why!
Disturbing trends.
What does it feel like to live in a super-large house?
For years I lived in a large Tudor home, or as a family member called it, an “English two-door”. It was built in 1920 in the U.S. and was most certainly a relic from the days when people had live-in domestic help.
Maintaining such a home is a time consuming and expensive proposition. It was sometimes hard to find a balance between restoring with historical accuracy and updating to modern systems.
The front door looked as though it could withstand a battering ram, 4 inches thick, wooden and heavy. Inside the front door was an ante-room, another heavy door and then the foyer. This was the size of an average living room and was for the most part unused space. It was large enough for a 5 piece orchestra to play comfortably in when we agreed to participate in a walking tour of historic homes, in support of a local theatre one Christmas. There was room left over for a sizable Christmas tree and a grandfather clock that chimed. Being asked to participate in fundraising events becomes a regular occurrence when one owns a home like this.
In addition to all the usual rooms found in an average home, there was a library, a solarium with a stocked bar, a sewing/ironing room, sleeping porch, butler’s pantry, mud room and servants quarters. There were window seats everywhere. Nearly every room had at least one wall of windows with an upholstered seat running along the length.
We installed new hardwood floors throughout the first and most of the second floor.
Secret wall compartments were tucked away around the house. Certain panels opened when pressure was applied, like in a Hercule Poirot mystery.
There was a kitchen original to the house used for food preparation, with stainless counter tops that ran the length of the walls, prep sinks and a pass through to another slightly smaller kitchen with a swinging door that led into the dining room. There was a dumb waiter (no longer in use) that went to a hallway on the second floor, great for playing hide and seek. Once in a while someone would get stuck and be forced to give away their position in order to be helped out of the little cabinet.
There was a narrow back stairway used by the staff, back when there was staff – 2 flights that led to the bedrooms on the second floor and then 2 more that led up to the attic. The attic itself could have served as a very nice living space except for it being unbearably hot in summer and bone chilling in winter.
The doorways were narrow in the “service” area. They led to the basement, laundry room, butler’s pantry and a small apartment. These floors were original to the house.
The bathrooms were almost completely original. Nice in some ways, but not very practical. The tubs were free standing and large, there were only 2 real showers in the entire house; the rest had bathtubs with handheld sprayers attached to the taps. The most popular bathroom with a shower was located in the master suite which meant a steady stream of traffic coming through the bedroom in the mornings.
Many of the bathrooms had the original fixtures similar to these. Others had been updated. There’s also a tub and shower in this bathroom that’s partially visible in the mirror. This type of radiator was throughout the house.
The concept of locking bathroom doors was unheard of in our house. The locks on the doors were all original and the skeleton keys had become either lost or were in the junk drawer in the kitchen and it just wasn’t worth anyone’s time to try to match each with its proper door. This created some minor issues when company came. Our house rule was a closed bathroom door meant occupied and visitors would have to try to trust in that. At yet another fundraising event, even our soon to be Governor wasn’t comfortable in a bathroom with no lock and asked one of his staff to stand outside when he went in.
There’s an episode of Downton Abbey when Lord Grantham says “I’ll sleep in my dressing room tonight” as if he’s making some sort of sacrifice. The master suite in our house had a dressing room. One wall was lined with rows of shallow drawers, meant for folded shirts, ties and other sundry items, a full length free standing mirror and a window seat overlooking the back of the property. There was also a full-sized bed and a small bathroom. Lord Grantham wasn’t exactly roughing it.
There were very few overhead light fixtures except in some of the bedrooms upstairs. There were sconces in most of the rooms that didn’t provide much light. Even with white ceilings and light walls, the house seemed dark much of the time. Extra lamps were a necessity.
The winters were cold not just in the attic but in the entire house. There was a fireplace in every bedroom and common area. The house didn’t seem designed with New England winters in mind. I’d be comfortable wearing a turtleneck, fleece jacket, sweatpants and heavy socks to bed. The original owners probably spent their winters somewhere much further south or maybe this was the height of modern heating in the early 20s.
The furnace was always on its last legs, propped up in some spots by blocks of wood. It was originally coal burning, but had been converted to oil at some point. I remember the furrowed brows on many a technician’s face when I’d lead them down to the cellar to service this behemoth.
All windows had to be covered in plastic every winter to keep the heat inside. The covering of the windows was an annual family activity that began in October.
A large house like this is an amazing place for children to grow up. A magical place of discovery. There was plenty of room to play with friends. There were areas inside large and empty enough to ride a scooter around. There was an empty room on the second floor that became the train room. I filled it with low plastic tables and we designed quite an impressive railway system with 2 separate train sets. There was a high speed bullet train on one side and “Thomas the tank engine” on the other. It was the sort of thing you’d only want to set up once, and because of the size of the house, we were able to do just that.
The cellar was divided up into several small rooms, most with doors and shelving on the walls. There was also a bathroom down there. They were designed to serve a purpose back in the day; wine rooms, cold storage, dry goods, etc. The cellar was avoided by most and was off limits to kids. It was full of dangers, such as a deep well-like hole in the floor that was often filled with water.
The house is unique on the street. It was the only house with any property to speak of. It was situated between two parallel streets with a “service entrance” that led out the back of the property.
The yard was by far. where the kids and I found the greatest joy living in this house. It was an oasis from the world, surrounded by 3+ acres of lawn and woods, insulated from traffic sounds and the dogs could run free. It was like having our own private park. A hill on one side was perfect for sledding in winter. The kids also learned how to make maple syrup with sap that we collected with a simple tap and bucket attached to a tree.
Sledding. The copper beech tree in the background is over 100 years old. The black figures sitting in the leaves to the left are the dogs.
The grounds were full of various wildlife. Some transient, some permanent residents. The array of birds was incredible for a yard in the suburbs. One night, we heard a noise outside and the motion sensor floodlights came on. The kid’s grandmother opened the front door and found herself eye to eye with an eight point buck, standing in the circular drive. There were deer living in the woods adjacent to the lawn. I often caught a glimpse of one or two lying in the woods during the day. I put food out for them on a feeding station I set up on a tree. I provided the food because there was nowhere for them to go that didn’t require crossing a busy street or wandering through a parking lot and residential neighborhoods and a few had already been hit by cars.
We grew Dahlias. I was very proud of those Dahlias. We divided and saved the bulbs from year to year and had a magnificent crop every summer. One spring morning, I was utterly devastated to find the deer had dug up and eaten most of the bulbs. I was upset, no doubt, but unlike one of our neighbors, I would never think of retaliating in any way. I knew a neighbor who had no tolerance for deer and skunks ravaging their gardens. So, I fed them hoping to keep them safe in our yard. The only hazard they faced was one of our dogs bounding after them through the woods occasionally. Raccoons, skunks, foxes and plenty of neighborhood cats (due to the large crop of catnip we planted in the garden) came through on a regular basis. We had hawks, owls and crows that would stop for a few days.
I discovered the bird feeders were attracting wood rats. As much as I respect wildlife, I couldn’t abide rats and took down the bird feeders that were closest to the woods. I don’t particularly like crows either – or rather the racket a flock can make – waking everyone at the crack of dawn with that incessant “CAW… CAW… CAW”. Usually, my husband would go outside and hit the trunk of a tree with a broomstick or something to shut them up. It did, but only until he got back into bed. Early one morning he had had enough of one particularly brazen crow and went outside, picked up a rock and threw it at the thing. We heard the “thwack”. Neither of us could believe he’d actually hit the bird, it was quite a distance away, in a tree in the cover of other trees. We thought we saw it fly away and went back inside. Later on, he found it, dead, lying on top of a bush back in the woods. I felt bad. I didn’t want it killed, just out of our yard. It was a crime of passion though, committed in the heat of the moment. He had been working all night.
There was a small fenced in fish pond where the only resident was a bullfrog that reappeared every summer and a brook that, when it rained, overflowed and flooded parts of the lawn.
There was a fountain (which we didn’t run). The wooded areas had originally been manicured lawns with flower beds and daffodils that I was often asked about as they seemed so strange popping up 100 feet back in the woods. Nearly half of the original lawn had been taken over by various bushes and saplings. There was still plenty of lawn area left, more than most people need. It must have been incredibly beautiful back in the 1920s.
The “thinking rock”, was a large boulder just off the patio, where we would sit and talk about things, sit and think or just sit.
There was a patio next to our thinking rock with a sitting wall that was covered in geraniums from May through October. Pulling the weeds from between the flagstones was a weekly project. The many trees in the yard provided a spectacular show in the Fall. We pressed leaves into a heavy book and labeled them every year.
One day the kids found a small hole at the base of a tree with a flat rock covering it. There was something barely legible scratched into the rock but it looked like it said “Sara’s…something”. We couldn’t quite make it out. But, in the hole under the rock they found an arrowhead, a small blue bottle and a key. It was so much fun for them to find this and they eventually added a few things of their own to this mini time capsule.
The little quirks of daily living in a big old house are endless and many features of the house definitely spark the imagination. It served both as a teaching tool and a window into a time where things were simpler (at least in our minds), and understated opulence was possible. The over-sized rooms that often seemed so empty and lonely magically became just the right size when the house was full of family and friends. The livingroom, that a friend once said seemed about as homey as a hotel lobby, came alive during family gatherings, full of laughing children and clinking glasses.
Outside, there were dogwood blossoms, hickory nuts and widow makers that fell from above. The house was equal parts hazard and haven. Overall, it was a wonderful experience living in a home that size; essentially unchanged from the early 1900s. It was our home and we very much lived in it. It provided my children with room to spread their wings and make all sorts of discoveries all on their own. It gave them a sense of a connection to the home life of a family much like ours 100 years ago, and to learn to appreciate the beauty and value of nature in their own back yard.
History, Bitch!
What would happen if a nuclear bomb were to detonate mid-air when it was halfway down its fall?
Five guys actually volunteered to stand at ground zero of a nuclear blast just to see what would happen.
No, they were not crazy. Nor were they being punished. It just shows how stupid some people can be (I’m joking guys, don’t take out your pitchforks).
During the Cold War when the US and Russia were both trying to set the world record for spending the most amount of money on nuclear weapons, the general public was getting a little bit worried about these weapons of mass destruction.
Despite US claims that nothing bad would happen if a nuclear bomb detonated above civilians, nobody was buying it.
So what did the US do?
They decided to prove it.
On July 19, 1957, five exceptionally brave Air Force officers and one cameraman (probably reevaluating his life at that point) stood about 65 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
Sure enough, two F-89 jets flew above their heads and shot out a nuclear missile. Thankfully for the group, the missile did not malfunction and promptly detonated directly above their heads.
According to Major Body as it happened,
“We felt a heat pulse. A very bright light. A fireball it is red. The sky looks black about it. It is boiling above us. It is rapidly losing its color…”
Then the blast could be heard and he continued to say,
“There is the ground wave! It is over folks, It happened! The mounds are vibrating. It is tremendous! Directly above our heads! It is a huge fireball. … Wasn’t that a perfect, perfect shot.”
Now, at this point you might be wondering about all of that radiation from that blast that was hovering over their heads. Surely they have been exposed to a decent amount of ionizing radiation, right?
Since the blast occurred pretty high up in the air (around 18,000 feet or 5.5 km from above), no ground material was sucked up to create a giant mushroom cloud, and thus no giant radioactive cloud was present. As for the material in the bomb itself and surrounding dust, those radioactive particles would have traveled quite a large distance before descending back down to Earth. EDIT: As others have pointed out in the comments, you don’t need to worry about gamma rays because by the time it reaches them, the radiation is halved by 20 times. Thanks Lyle McElhaney and Graham Ross Leonard Cowan .
So it made sense that later on when the men were being examined, it turned out that they were exposed to negligible amounts of radiation from the bomb. It was even less than the amount the pilot was exposed to.
The irony here is that while this was entirely devoted to proving the safety of nuclear blasts high in the air, radioactive particles from such tests often ended up settling on nearby towns, leading to a number of health issues.
While it’s not certain that it’s related to this particular blast, interestingly enough all 6 men (including the cameraman) eventually ended up with cancer later in their life.
What was the weirdest phone call from a random number you have ever received?
A couple of years ago, I got a rather random call on my business phone. Unlike my regular calls from product vendors or salespeople (or occasionally a potential client) this was a young woman’s voice, quite tentative.
“Is that Nick Malik?”
I confirmed that she had, in fact reached me. But then came the odd question:
“Are you a relative of Mary Wolf?”
I was dumbfounded. That was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name.
“Yes, that’s my grandmother’s name.”
She pressed on “Is that the same Mary Wolf who earned a business degree from Ohio State University in 1918?”
At this point, I was glad I had created a genealogy chart for my family. But this was the most curious call I’d ever had.
“Yes, I think so.”
It turns out the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State was going to celebrate their 100th Centennial. This young woman was trying to get information on Mary Wolf, the first woman to graduate from the OSU college of business.
I knew it was unusual for a woman to attend a public university in those days. I did not know she was the FIRST WOMAN to graduate from the OSU College of Business.
Of course my beautiful Grandmother had passed away many years ago, but her eldest daughter, my aunt, was still alive. Her son had contacted me on Facebook a few years ago, so I looked him up and passed along contact information on my aunt for her to get some biographical details.
This young woman had found me from an old article on a defunct blog where I mentioned my parents. Somehow she had tracked down my mother (a published author, artist, and poet) (who had passed away) and then managed to find me by googling her name, then my name, then found my business site. TENACIOUS!
The nice young woman sent me a set of coasters from OSU and a box of Buckeye chocolates as a thank you. The real thanks was finding out what a pioneer my grandmother was.
Trump 2024
And
And
What did a family member say or do that you don’t talk to them anymore?
“Your Dad may have just died, but he’s been dead to me for 5 years. I just want to know what I’m getting.”
My amazing Dad passed away in 2019. My brother and I were from his first marriage to my mom, and he had 3 more girls with my step-monster. As it turns out, he and step-monster had been divorced for about 20 years and he and my mother rekindled their romance after the death of my stepdad in 2001. His eldest daughter hated my mother with a passion, which caused a lot of drama and neither my mom, myself, or my dad had spoken to the Brat in about 5 years.
My Dad had his first stroke in April 2019, worked extremely hard to recover his speech, walking, etc., but had a massive stroke in June 2019, after which we took him off life support. Only the Brat lived in his city during his illness and did nothing to help or support. I flew cross country and stayed for months to help take care of him and my mom.
My Dad was my hero and I loved him immensely. Watching him struggle was so hard, but nothing prepared me for seeing him have the final stroke and the difficult decision to remove him from life support. He was only 67 and in the prime of his life.
While my mom, brother and I were at the funeral home making arrangements, the Brat walks into his house with a pad and pen – telling her own sister “Your Dad may have just died, but he’s been dead to me for 5 years. I just want to know what I’m getting.”
Needless to say I definitely haven’t spoken to her since. My Dad had talked about removing her from from will for years, but apparently never did. It frustrates the hell out of me that she only saw him as bank. That she received equal shares of his sizable estate kills me to this day.
Biden’s handler
If you see an attractive girl in public, how would you personally approach her, and what would say to her? (I’m trying to learn better social skills)
“Excuse me – do you know anything about making gravy?”
I was at the supermarket, in the flour aisle. A guy was talking to me, looking lost and deeply concerned about the multiple bags of flour that he was holding in his arms.
Me: “Umm… a little bit, what do you need?”
Guy: “I’m confused by all of these different types of flour. I’m making dinner tomorrow for my sister and her family, and the recipe calls for ‘flour’, but I have no idea if I need all-purpose flour, pastry flour, whole wheat flour, spelt flour…”
He gives a confused and embarrassed look and shrug with the hint of a smile as he finally looks at me and makes eye contact. If he’s attempting to flirt, he’s doing a great job of it.
Me: “I’m pretty sure that they would all work, but all-purpose flour is usually a pretty safe bet.”
Guy: “Thanks so much. Why on earth do we need so many types of flour?”
Me: “I don’t know, it’s kind of crazy isn’t it.” I turn to leave
Guy: “I see that you’re buying candles, are you making a birthday cake?”
Me: “Yes, my husband and I are celebrating my daughter’s second birthday tonight.”
Guy: “Wow, congratulations! And let me just tell you that you look amazing. Your husband is very lucky.”
Me: “Thank you.”
I think we both felt good about the exchange. Had I not been happily married, we might have continued the conversation, and who knows where it could have led.
The best way to approach a woman is indirectly, and by talking about something that will pique her interest. Never ask her out until after you have had at least 5 minutes of fascinating two-way conversation.
The West is NUTS!
How do lifers cope with the fact that they will never be outside the prison walls ever again?
There are two types of lifers in Missouri. Those with life without and lifers who have the possibility of parole. Most in both cases accept that prison is their home now and where they will spend a large portion of their lives if not all of it
Those who have life without the possibility of parole do not have to worry about parole hearings.Many cut ties with family and friends on the outside They just want to deal with their life in prison.
I knew many who had life without. Most were laid back and just wanted to do their time. They had their circle of friends. Usually others doing a lot of time. Many are willing to give advice to new people to prison if they think the person will listen.
However, get on their bad side and it’s usually not going to be just a fight , but a stabbing
Only a few had trouble dealing with the life sentence. I remember one young guy who came in with life with the possibility of parole. So he at least had a chance. But he complained to everyone that he couldn’t do the life sentence. He even said he was lost without his phone. Rarely said anything about missing his family , it was always the dawn phone he missed. I think someone got tired of hearing him and beat him up
China Warns New Zealand about Joining AUKUS!
What is the most intelligent one liner you have come across?
Late one Christmas eve my 65 year old father encountered a man who had broken into our warehouse store. The man was half my dad’s age and muscular. When my father realized the man had a handgun he dove behind a counter. The man fired a shot but missed. He started to make his escape but my father got up and tackled him. The burglar fought him off and ran toward the other end of the building but was tackled again. After fighting him off the man limped away but realized there was no exit. He turned and shot at my dad three more times. I arrived to hear those shots. The burglar finally found a way out but I followed him in my truck until the police arrived and took him into custody.
The evening before the man’s trial my father received a phone call from the man’s wife who asked him to think about her husband’s four kids before giving his testimony. My father’s immediate response – “Was your husband thinking of my kids when he shot at me?”
China’s Two Sessions as the World Watches What It Does!
Have you ever seen someone call the cops and it backfired on them?
Oh, yes…
My oldest son’s girlfriend “A” had moved in with us. She was 19, legally an adult and could move wherever she wanted. She also wanted absolutely nothing to do with her mother or her sister (though she and her sister have since reconciled and are now very close). Their mother has serious substance abuse issues and their childhood was much less than ideal.
We still don’t know how her mother found out where we lived, but one night she showed up on our doorstep, demanding to see her daughter. She was yelling thru our locked security screen door how I’d “put a spell” on her daughter, that she refused to believe her daughter didn’t want to see her, we were keeping her against her will, etc. My son’s girlfriend had been hiding in their bedroom while my husband had been calmly replying to the mother’s histrionics, but he finally convinced “A” to at least come out to where her mother could see that she was alive and unharmed. “A” stood under the light in our dining room so her mother could see her, and she once again told her that she was fine, but she wanted nothing to do with her and to please leave her, and us, alone. The mother started up her screaming again and told my husband that she was going to call the sheriff on him. He told her to go ahead and do that if she wanted. We were on our own property and hadn’t broken any laws, so he wasn’t sure what she thought the sheriff would do, but hey…if she wanted to call them, have a ball.
She went back to her car, he closed the door and went back to watching TV. Maybe 10 minutes later, there was a knock at the door. My husband opened it to find a sheriff’s deputy on our front porch. He was invited in and he told us he’d already talked to the mother and he wanted to get “A’s” side. He spoke to her, then went back to where the mother was waiting in her car. He told her that “A” was an adult who was of sound mind and body and she’d made it VERY clear that she wanted nothing to do with her. Not only that, but my husband and I wanted her trespassed, so should she enter our property again, she would be arrested. He then returned to the house and gave us instructions on how to obtain PPOs (personal protection orders) against “A’s” mother.
Yeah…calling the sheriff certainly backfired against her that night.
What’s the biggest thing from childhood that still bothers you today?
From the outside, my family looked pretty normal: Mom stayed home and Dad worked, a full-time job in the Post Office and sometimes one or two part time jobs. But the family dynamics and child rearing were off-kilter.
Unfortunately, my Dad had been injured in a non-combat accident in WWII. That led to multiple medical procedures and left him in continuing pain. He’d come home from work and go right to bed. He even had a sandbag traction device at the foot of his bed attached to a kind of girdle he wore to relieve the pain.
My parents were nice folks, saw that we had what we needed growing up, weren’t the horror parents of abuse stories. But they lacked good parenting skills.
My mother would frequently say to my brother and me (born 1948 and me 1950), “Don’t bother your Father now” when he went to bed. That meant “be quiet and go away” to us. I don’t remember my Dad spending much time with me, unless it was something he was interested in. And his hobbies were… different. Like rock collecting, hand tooling leather crafts and copper enameling jewelry. I don’t remember him so much as throwing a ball back and forth with me, ever. He followed sports, but never explained how baseball or football worked. I think other extended family members recognized this and took pity on me. My maternal uncle took me to one San Francisco Giants game. My
brother-in-law took me to a World Series Giants game in the 1960’s. That was my total sports exposure.
I taught myself to ride a bike borrowed from a neighbor kid. By myself, no help from Mom or Dad. That taught me a lesson: if I wanted to learn something, or do something, I had to do it myself.
So… benign neglect.
As I look back from my 70’s, I wanted to understand my life journey, as many seniors do. What was the narrative?
One of the early signs of a problem was in High School English. The teacher was baffled. He told me, “I don’t understand. You write beautiful sentences and even paragraphs. But you can’t write a story.” I also couldn’t understand literature. Because I didn’t fully understand people.
I wasn’t stupid, although I thought I was an idiot. Was a college graduate, had a job as a computer programmer for decades, so there were some working brain cells. What I lacked were social skills and political savvy. The social skill deficit would come up in job interviews, where the interviewer would pick up on tells like lack of confidence or hesitation. More than once, an interviewer said something along the lines of “Well, you’re going to be working for so-and-so. You’ll be their problem”. The lack of political sense caused problems that could have escalated to job loss.
Lately, I was comparing notes on childhood with my brother. I got so far as to say: “In childhood, did you ever feel like…” and he finished for me: “ we were unwanted? Yeah, me too!”.
Modern Women FURIOUS they also GET REJECTED in Other Countries While Passport Bros find HAPPINESS
Have you ever put your child in a daycare only to take them out shortly after because something didn’t feel right?
My daughter was coming home with bruises on her shins. I asked her what was going on, and she said that a boy was kicking her. I spoke to her teacher about it, and next day, police and CPS were at my house questioning my father. They said she said it was her grandfather. I have been caring for my elderly parents for over 20 years, and at that time, my father had just gotten out of the hospital and was still hooked up to an IV and catheter. It was ridiculous. It was obvious both to me and to CPS and the police that they were covering something up. They knew all about him being ill and in the hospital. And I spoke to another parent having the same problem. They said the teachers would go outside with the kids and stand around talking to one another without watching the kids. I took my complaint to the director, and she said that I had no right to talk to other parents about the school, and my daughter was obviously partially retarded because she couldn’t speak well. I demanded my money back and told her never to even think about breathing the same air as my daughter or I would serve her her own ass on a silver platter. That was the end of that. And I made a formal complaint to every agency involved with them.
What trivial knowledge might save your life one day?
When walking downstairs, don’t put your hands in your pockets.
If you’re ever at a party and your drink tastes unusually salty, do not continue drinking it. Rohypnol is reported to have a salty taste.
If a power line falls next to you, do not walk or run. Put your feet together and do a bunny hop to jump and get away.
When the waterline is abnormally far from the shore, this is a sign of a tsunami.
If you see a photo of anyone where they only have one “red eye” from the flash, this could be a sign of retinoblastoma, a type of eye cancer.
Don’t leave ice packs on wounds or swelling for more than 15 minutes at a time to avoid irreversible nerve damage!
A gray ring around the edge of the cornea is an indication of the high level of cholesterol in the blood.
Keeping transparent water bottles in your car can cause a fire if sunlight passes through them.
A finger up the bum will get the dog (or any animal) to stop what it’s doing real quick.
Baking soda will extinguish a fire, even grease and electrical fires.
Losing weight without trying could very well be cancer.
If you are a male and you pee on a pregnancy test and it comes out positive, go get yourself checked for testicular cancer.
If your car is broken down, do not stand in front of it while waiting for help.
Money falling from buildings? Don’t pick it up, get the hell out of there, it’s a way terrorists kill more people, is by having them all in one place.
If you’re ever unsure if an electrical wire is live, use the back of your hand to touch it. Regular contact could trigger muscle contractions, potentially leading to a fatal grip.
China SHOCKED us 🇨🇳 (British family arriving for the first time)
Have you ever found something in your food that was clearly not supposed to be there? How did you react?
Money was tight when Dad was in the Navy and Mom was home with 3 very young girls. As a rare treat we got popsicles. My youngest sister and I split a 5 cent popsicle. My middle sister insisted on getting a 7 cent banana one. As she started eating it she said it tasted funny and Mom said she demanded it so she had to eat it. She cried but kept eating. Mom started eating the other half and it was bitter. She saw something green on it. My crying sister had finished hers but threw up. The man at the little store gave Mom her money back and offered a free popsicle if a different flavor. He pulled the rest of the banana flavors off the shelf. My sister had some ulcers in her mouth and Mom felt terrible. At that time they used liquid quick lime to speed up freezing. Apparently some got into the mold for the banana flavor. The store owner gave them Mom’s name and she was pleased with the cash settlement they sent to her.
When I was a senior in High School, I had a group of friends that I used to hang around with.
Oh, sure, most of the time we just stood around, smoked joints, drank beer and did acid. But it was a different time and a different place. We would alternate our locations, from the “standard” keggers, to road drives though the Western Pennsylvania woods to just hanging out near the river at a tipple.
Anyways, one of the guys was this older fella named Calvin. I liked him, but he was a hard drinker and partier.
I still get a chuckle out of this, but we are all stoned in my GTO. Calvin was in the back seat. A friend had lit a “Thai stick” which of course, was a very powerful form of marijuana, and when you smoked it, it felt like a baseball bat smashed your face. And we were parked outside this historical landmark; an old church and cemetery. We were listening to Led Zeppelin, and just sitting there completely zoned out. Our brains were pickled.
Calvin was chewing on something. He would reach into the ashtray at the side of the door wall and pull out some old cigarette butts and put in in his mouth and chew on it.
Then he said, after a while… “Man, this popcorn is the really stale”.
The PRC has sent barges into the channels between Quemoy and Xiamen to deepen the water channels between the ROC-held island of Quemoy and the PRC city of Xiamen. The ROC government in Taipei has said that this is a violation of the lines which the ROC had drawn between the two governments, and which had largely been respected by both sides.
Following the Feb. 14 event where an ROC coast guard ship chased a PRC fishing boat, leading to its capsize and the death of two PRC fishermen, the two sides have been involved in several rounds of negotiations. The PRC side has demanded a public apology and compensation to the families of the fishermen, but the ROC authorities have refused. So the PRC side has decided to deepen the shipping channels in the area, and violating the lines drawn up by the ROC.
Now the ROC authorities are threatening to take action against the PRC ships working in the area. They have not specified what actions they will take aside from pushing the PRC ships out of the area. This sets the stage for a confrontation.
The problem with the ROC position is that the authorities now publicly refer to the ROC as “Taiwan”, because the ruling DPP is for Taiwan independence. By taking a stance on offshore islands so close to Xiamen and PRC-held territory, they are choosing to enforce territory which is far away from Taiwan, and is not considered to be a part of “Taiwan”.
Why are they doing this? Do they expect the Biden administration to support them? It does not make a lot of sense.
If they don’t enforce it though, it is likely that the PRC air force and navy are unlikely to recognize air and sea claims made by the ROC anymore.
Salami-slicing in action.
Chuck Wagon Peach Cobbler
Ingredients
Cobbler Crust
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup shortening
1 cup cold water
Cobbler
1 Cobbler Crust
1 cup granulated sugar
6 cups peaches, drained and juice reserved
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup Half-and-Half
1 cup juice from drained peaches
1/2 cup Black Jack Daniels
Instructions
Cobbler Crust
Mix dry ingredients and add shortening. Cut in with a fork. Mixture should look like coarse meal.
Add cold water gradually to make a ball.
Divide into 2 balls, top and bottom. Roll out one and line a 14 inch pan or 14 inch Dutch oven.
Roll out remainder and cut into 1 inch slices for latticework on top.
Cobbler
Melt butter in saucepan. Add peaches, brown sugar, cinnamon, sugar and Half-and-Half. Mix well.
Line pan or Dutch oven with crust.
Pour in fruit mixture.
Cover top with strips of crust in latticework pattern.
Moisten strips with water before baking and sprinkle sugar on latticework for crispy finish.
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes.
Every Man Needs To See This
What is the biggest scam an auto mechanic ever tried on you?
When I bought my first car, a 1966 Mustang, my father insisted that I take it to his mechanic to go over it to make sure it was all working properly before I could drive it. It would stall out after 10 minutes of driving, so there was a problem.
The following was on the bill….
Clean top of carburator
Check oil filter for loosenes
Check window operation
Check exhaust system
Check steering, suggest replacement of steering box.
This was 1972 and the bill was over $300.00!!
The actual problem was a pinched fuel line. Rubber hose and two clamps. $1.50.
I replaced the oil filter and changed the oil. $7.50 total.
I removed the interior panels of the door, and greased the tracks. Already had grease $0.00
I replaced a broken hanger for the exhaust. $3.50
I pulled out the steering box and found it only needed grease and adjustment. Time and labor, already had grease $0.00.
The dude that worked on my car was a hack. I pointed out all this to my father and he only said “I guess your a better mechanic than the place we took it to. I never went back there.
Idiots
Is it difficult for British expatriates to find entry level jobs in law and business in Hong Kong as of 2023? Where do I look for work?
It’s difficult for my legal bod cousins. As I’ve mentioned before in another post during CNY celebrations a lot of UK born cousins were back in HK. A lot of them were looking for a route to come live in HK.
One of them was my cousin from one of my dad’s sisters. She’s worked in a UK legal firm for ages and wanted a way to come back here. Her just like many UK born ones have HKID cards so do not need visa sponsorship.
She had work experience.
She can work for less because accommodation is provided, the Clan provides several fully fitted out portacabins right at the back of the village, Portacabins are used because the common houses are being torn down and rebuilt. Anyway these portacabins all you have to do is pay for the electricity used.
She’s also pretty damned good in Chinese, HSK6… but here’s the thing HSK6 is still considered by most China born Chinese to be illiterate!
So? You have none of the above advantages.
You have to answer the question to HK immigration – why should I let you work in HK? What skills do you have that are in demand or somebody in HK can’t do. AND it has to pay over $28,000 a month.
You’re competing against all the returnees.
Jimmy Tells American General “The U.S. Is The World’s Biggest Terrorist!”
What is the most unsettling thing someone has said to threaten you?
A group of my friends was out drinking at a local bar where the music was loud, the floor was sticky, and the atmosphere was biker/tattoo/STD/obnoxious.
I was talking with someone who was an acquaintance-they were a friend of one of my friends. We knew each other, but only through these mutual friends.
Unfortunately, alcohol makes some people belligerent and, in the case of this one particular individual, paranoid.
I must have said something that didn’t sit well with him because the belligerent paranoid (BPA) accused me of disparaging him (I had not). He turned to my husband and told him he knew for a fact that our daughter was not his biological daughter (She is 100% his biological daughter). He started uttering non-sensical statements which I, for the most part, ignored and took as our cue to get the hell out of that dive bar.
The BPA went to the bathroom, my husband waited to pay the tab, and I went to get the car.
While I waited for my husband to come out, the BPA came up to my window and just stared into my car until I noticed him which caused me to jump and scream. I rolled down my window and told him he nearly gave me a heart attack.
Then he very calmly stared at me and said, “I’ll be by later tonight to stick a lighter in your outside dryer vent until your house catches and you all burn to death.”
Who the fuck communicates such a descriptive and specific way to unalive someone they barely know for reasons that are a complete figment of their imaginative paranoia?
My husband and I didn’t sleep well that night. The next day we installed cameras. And we have avoided all contact with the BPA since that unsettling and strange incident.
Bring your cat to work day
What are some deep things you should read today?
Everybody is self-made but only millionaires will admit it.
When you work for someone, the harder you work , the richer they get . When you work for yourself, the harder you work, the richer you get.
Continue to live for moments that make your heart smile wider than your face could ever imagine.
Uncomfortable dating tips : Women want you the most when you don’t need them.
Most people know “WHAT”to think , not “HOW” to think . If you learn this, you can conquer the world.
You can’t force love. Either it’s there or it isn’t. You’ve got to be able to admit it . If it’s there , you’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect it.
Modern life is low-level psychic warfare.
Men will gladly spend a whole day with a woman, but not a single hour on their purpose. And, in the end, they ask, “why did she leave?”.
Men Have FINALLY Had Enough Of Their FEMALE Colleagues
Who is the dumbest law enforcement officer you have ever encountered?
Oh I have a doozy.
1978. Houston. Near the Galleria Mall.
I was getting off the freeway when a police car cut me off, almost running me off the road, no signal. Just truly bad driving.
Being young and stupid, when I was beside him at the light, I called him on it.
Oh he lit me up. I had three friends in my car with me. He made me get out of the car and was just screaming at me, telling me he could do anything he damn well pleased and poking me in the chest the entire time. I politely asked him to stop poking me with his finger and he threatened to break all my fingers off. He was so mad he was spitting and his partner was standing next to him with a smirk.
I stayed calm and asked my friends to write down their name, badge number, and car number. That’s when they hopped in their cruiser and just zoomed off.
I didn’t like it, so I called and talked to the desk officer. He took all the information and I assumed absolutely nothing would happen.
Nope.
I got a call back from a lieutenant a few days later. They had done an investigation, because the location I reported them at was nowhere NEAR where they were assigned for that shift. What they discovered is that they were cutting out of their area, going to the mall, and catching a movie. Lots.
The lieutenant shared that this was not the first complaint, but it was the last, because they’d both been fired.
Moral of the story? If you’re doing something outright stupid, don’t light up the stubborn college kid.
Today’s Shinjuku Kabukicho August 23, 2023 UP
As a patient, what’s the angriest you have ever been toward a doctor?
Dad had stage four mastatised pancreatic cancer, double incontinence, dementia and crippling arthritis. His oncologists used to call him in every month for a check up that consisted of him looking at dad’s medical notes asking how he was then nodding his head, that’s it. But, the trip to the hospital took nearly an hours preparation, a forty minute drive each way, a ten minute walk from the car park to the clinic (dad in a wheelchair when I found one) and then the worst bit! The oncologist used to call ALL that days patients in at 0930 then see them in alphabetical order! Look at our surname! The first few times were bad but one time after dad returned to the hospice he had to be rushed back to the same hospital under blues and twos! The next appointment we managed about an hour in the waiting room and dad was struggling to hold back his tears of agony, so I wheeled him out and started along the corridors back to the car. First the receptionist tried to stop us and I told her what to do on a short pier, then the nurse came running up to try to return us to the clinic “as the doctor was very busy and would get to us as soon as possible”. Dad told her to go forth and fornicate or something similar! She ran back and told the doctor (don’t know if fornication was involved or not). Pushing a wheelchair with a mind of a shopping trolley containing a fifteen stone (210#) obese man (5′2″ ) in immense pain, who didn’t want to be there, you don’t move very fast! The doctor caught up to us to find out what was going on and exercise his presumed authority! Wrong move! My dad used to be a CSM and he taught me how to project orders across a parade ground! Don’t shout at me if you have sensitive hearing! Amongst other things (including the legitimacy of his birth) I told him we were there for the benefit of dads health and not his ego! And we left, luckily for him he didn’t try anything physical! I’m also 210# but six foot tall and very little of that was fat! Unfortunately the stress and strain on dad contributed to him once again that evening being returned to hospital by emergency ambulance.
Now my dad through a variety of reasons was no stranger to that hospital. In the ward he usually ended up on, all the staff knew him and were on first name terms, most since being students. One of the senior consultants had first met my dad when he was doing his medical training and had become friends (even came to dad’s funeral! What, you think you recover from stage four pancreatic cancer? At 81?) He wanted to know why dad was back in hospital once again. So we told him who, how and why! Now this senior consultant is married to the chief executive of the hospital, that may or may not be the reason that the oncologist changed his appointments policy from block appointments to individual appointments and a very significant attitude adjustment the next time we went to see him!
Gen-Z
What is the biggest secret that your first boss told you that has helped you the most?
I started to work as a programmer with a large insurance company.
I was also going to a university at night for an engineering degree.
So, the job was just a paycheck for me until graduated.
My supervisor called me into her office and let me know that she knew that I was just using the job as a steppingstone until I graduated. She was a quaker and peppered her speech with thee and thou. A lovely lady.
She told me the company had its own problems and if I showed some diligence in my job, she would ensure that I would be rewarded for my effort.
I took her advice and made a great effort to please her and focused on my job.
When the company put together a planning group, she insisted that I be a part of it.
The group consisted of two vice presidents, three directors and one programmer.
The first problem we tackled was the number of boxes of paper documents shipped to all our service locations at the end of the month. The cost of shipping the boxes and how hard it was to look up the data at the service location.
This was in the late sixties and personal computers were not common.
I was a tech magazine reader at the time, so I suggested to the group that we output the data to a fiche machine because the fiche produced would be less costly to ship than sending boxes,
It would require the home office to buy the fiche machine and the service locations to rent fiche readers, which at that time were very cheap.
The benefit to the service location was the fiche was easy to handle and never got torn.
Well, the company and the service locations loved the idea, so it was accepted.
The planning group stayed together for a year, and we solved some smaller problems.
That 15-minute conversation with my supervisor changed my life forever.
When I received my degree, I no longer had an interest in engineering and chose to stay in the computer field.
She is gone now but not forgotten.
Pepe Escobar: Putin and China Send DEVASTATING Warning to NATO as Germany, Macron Threaten WWIII
This is really rather good.
Can Quora conservatives explain why and when you started being a conservative?
I can try.
It’s a long story, though. But, like most other people, my political leanings are the result of my influences early in life, and my experiences. And, to some degree, what I didn’t experience, that others did experience.
For example, it’s easy to be supportive of the police, when you’ve only ever had positive encounters with them. It’s easy to assume that most people can avoid negative encounters with the police by simply obeying the law.
That door swings both ways. It’s easy to have an adversarial view of the police when you or someone you know had a negative encounter with them.
Once you get a political idea in your head, you start to see it everywhere you look. This is true for people across the political spectrum. You’re influenced to see certain things and, by God, now that you’re looking for them, you see them everywhere.
For me, my journey to the right side of the political spectrum is more of a journey of being pushed away by the left, rather than willingly moving towards the right. I’m more libertarian than conservative, but, in contemporary America’s binary political landscape, it seems that anything that isn’t progressive is often all grouped under “conservatism.”
Progressives: What’s your stance on [this issue]?
Me: Total indifference. It has nothing to do with me.
Progressives: So you don’t support the people who are dealing with it?
Me: Does my support or lack of it have any impact on the issue whatsoever? No? Then why must I choose to support it or not? Why can’t I remain indifferent?
Progressives: You sound like a conservative. Your silence tells us all we need to know, and it won’t protect you.
Me: If indifference on this topic makes me a conservative in your eyes, okay then. I’ll add your labeling of my political stances to the list of things I don’t care about.
If I’m being super honest, in the last decade or so, I’ve gone from identifying as “libertarian” to identifying as “cynical.” I assume that most politicians are only looking out for themselves, most government attempts to fix issues will fail, or make things worse, the government has more than enough money to fix society’s problems, but a lot of that money is wasted, etc…
For example, there’s a ballot measure here in Chicago to raise taxes on real estate sales over $1m, to raise funds for housing options for homeless people. My view on that is that it will likely pass, but not a single homeless person will be helped by this. Any money raised by this will find its way into the pockets of politicians and their supporters, while the expenses will just passed on to renters. The people who support it will get to pat themselves on the back for caring about the homeless, while ignoring the complete lack of tangible positive outcomes from it. The goal here is virtue signaling from the rank-and-file voters, sticking it to “rich people,” and lining the pockets of the Democratic machine. Homelessness is just the necessary reasoning for it all.
Basically, I assume that, for the rest of my life, the general situation in the world, and in my country, will be roughly the same as it is now, and my best move is to put myself and my children in a position to avoid the worst of it. The “status quo,” when it comes to politics, is too hopelessly entrenched to be uprooted, and too hopelessly corrupt to be effective.
But this question is about the origins of my conservatism, not why I stick with it in middle age.
I suppose my political journey began as a child in the 80s and early 90s. My father worked for the U.S. Navy, as a civilian machinist. Among other things I remember him saying about his job were:
He was forced to spend millions of dollars on machines that he didn’t really need in his shop, but the companies who made those machines donated to the right politicians.
He was forced to spend every single dime he was allocated for the fiscal year, or, the next fiscal year, he wouldn’t get as much allocated. Saving money isn’t rewarded, but is actually punished, when you work for the government.
He would never be promoted beyond his current level, no matter how well he did, because he was a white male. Back then, the federal government was only interested in promoting racial minorities and females.
That last one was something I heard versions of from most white men I knew growing up. Of course, half of them worked at the same base where my father worked, so they dealt with the same policies. None of these were rich white men. They were all working class white men, and they all felt like they were being punished for things they didn’t do, in the name of “fairness.” And they placed the blame for that injustice directly at the feet of liberals.
The same white “social justice warriors” of the 50s and 60s found themselves, by the 80s, on the receiving end of social injustice, in the form of Affirmative Action. It seemed like every middle-aged white male I knew growing up was a “live and let live” and “don’t judge a book by its cover” kind of guy, with a serious chip on their shoulder that others weren’t adhering to the “don’t judge a book by its cover” mantra. Every single white guy who felt like they were falling behind in society was able to blame Affirmative Action for their slipping, no matter how true it was.
The message, for younger white guys like me, was easy to pick up: it is legal to discriminate against you because of your race and gender, and you just have to accept it.
And, once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere.
Why does my high school have a counselor specifically for helping minority students get into and pay for college? That’s discrimination. Why is no one calling it out? My parents are taxpayers, too. That counselor should be helping everyone who needs help with those things, and not discriminating against students based on race.
You just have to accept it… or, affiliate yourself with the side of the political aisle which points out the hypocrisy of it all.
So it wasn’t so much “we’re conservatives,” as it was “liberals are working against people like us, so I guess that makes us conservative by default. Where else would we go?”
By the time I got to high school, I was socially liberal, in the sense that I simply didn’t care about people’s personal business, particularly in the bedroom. I was also very concerned about environmentalism, and even started a small paper recycling program in my school. It didn’t last, but at least I tried. I wanted to be a “part of the solution.”
My environmental views have skewed heavily to the cynical side in the 30 years since starting high school. I think recycling paper is a huge waste of time.
I remember, however, in high school, being annoyed by some of my more politically involved classmates, demanding that I (and everyone else) not only form opinions in line with theirs on certain topics, but openly express our support. They had the “if you’re not openly supporting us, you must be quietly opposing us” attitude that I’ve seen in other progressives in my adult life.
Some of my most common PG-rated thoughts throughout my high school years were versions of “I’d care more about this person’s point of view if they weren’t so damn loud and obnoxious all of the time.” And, of course, a sarcastic “the problem you’re in could have been easily avoided has you made more conservative choices in life.”
It was during those years that my own sister, of her own volition, developed a drug habit, became a teen mom, and dropped out of high school. I had a front-row seat, starting around age 12, of how to ruin your life through really shitty decisions, and it sapped a lot of the sympathy I had for people who were dealing with the consequences of their own shitty decisions.
Although I’m getting better about it, when I hear that someone put themselves in a bad situation, and is now begging “society” to bail them out of it, one of my first thoughts is, “how is this anyone else’s problem but yours? Why should we all have to pay for this?”
Anyway, that’s my evil conservative origin story.
Tales From The Streets : San Diego Streets Ep-4
What’s the best revenge you’ve gotten after being fired or let go from a job?
While inprocessing for the military, I worked at a radio station selling air time in a town of 30,000. When I took over my route a retired Army major was occasionally hitting $6,000. That was pretty good in 1979. I took billings over $8000. Three months later, I was fired (I was the only man), and a young cutsie 22-year-old girl was hired. She had zero experience.
My sales manager/station owner’s wife told me to “clean out my desk.” I did just that, trashing everything including sales invoices for the month. She made a big point of letting me know I wouldn’t be getting my commissions. I waited patiently for my salary check ($1,500 at the time) at my desk, then walked to the bank and cashed it.
Two days later I got the call. “Where are all the sales invoices for August?’
“In the trash.”
“What!?”
“You said clean out my desk. I did.” Then I hung up.
I heard later the young girl didn’t work out, and the station went bankrupt.
Sad, isn’t it?
Do you think that coaching institutes like Unacademy should be banned as they charge lakhs and crores and those who study from these will do corruption to recover their investment made on studies which they can’t earn honestly in a government job?
I absolutely do
Coaching has become an Industry today and whenever such things happen, everything becomes counter productive
Xi Jingping rightly said
In China :-
Private Tutoring Apps had become an Industry and had commercialized education so much that the newer generation was no longer going to such coaching facilities to LEARN OR ADD TO THEIR KNOWLEDGE OR UNDERSTANDING but to specifically orient themselves to scoring marks in a specific examination (Gaokao)
Private Tutoring Apps had become exploitative and were commercializing learning to an extent where it was feared that the entire Gaokao could be modified to suit the whims of the Private Tutoring Apps
So he wiped out the Industry mercilessly
“F*** the Billions of Dollars in Paper value”
Today Tutoring has gone back to the old 60 RMB per Hour student tutors or Volunteer Tutorials and Extra Coaching
India and China both have predators who suck the blood of common people and exploit them in the name of capitalism
The Difference is CHINA BANNED THIS
In China, if any Institute publishes the list of toppers for admissions
Their license is suspended for 5 Years
They are fined not less than 60,000 RMB but upto 250,000 RMB
Ministry of Education Bans the Idolization of China’s Top Gaokao Scorers
Stories of the top achievers of China’s national exams can no longer be propagated by state media; the emphasis should shift to the average, harmonious student.
India not only allows this to flourish but ignores cases where Institutes LIE about their students by paying money to the students and making the students lie
Most Coaching Institutions are run with political contacts
Now my point is
Is Unacademy really predatory?
Just because they offer coaching for a fee doesn’t make them predatory
Just because they have referrals doesn’t make them predatory. That’s just business. Same as a Tutor asking you to give her cards to your friends.
Do they exploit the situation in India and claim if you don’t take their course, you will lose badly
Do they help you learn or do they force you to structure your brain into clearing the JEE or NEET rather than learning the topics?
Do they prostitute education by paying more money to marketers than teachers?
So far at least I dont think they are that bad
Please correct me if they have become that bad
Coz that’s what happened to BYJUS
From being a place that helped students sharpen their brains to understand CAT better, they prostituted and pimped education spending more on “Celebrities” like SRK who also prostituted himself like he did with Arindam Chaudhari
Unacademy are also going BYJUS WAY
Using Tendulkar the dropout of Xth Standard to promote an Education Product
So they too are starting to pimp out education
It won’t create the Students India needs
Not the thinkers, analysts, people who understand fundamentals – they aren’t born from KOTA FACTORIES or Prospective Pimping Edtech Apps
They are born by self study with tutoring to help them sharpen their brains
One thing to learn and understand Physics, Maths and Chemistry and USE THIS KNOWLEDGE AND WRITE THE JEE
Another is to learn Physics, Maths and Chemistry BECAUSE YOU WANT TO WRITE THE JEE
The former is a winner
The Latter ends up mediocre in life in every aspect
Solution?
Ban full page Ads of Toppers by various Institutions
Regulate the Coaching Fees
Make sure Coaching Institutes remain Sole Proprietorships Or Partnerships and dont become Companies
Ban any Coaching Institute taking over another Institute
Register all Coaching Institutions with Ministry of Education with select standards
Otherwise the next two generations of students, the so called FUTURE OF INDIA would be the most worthless
Anyone who exploits students like this must be taken to Gulags and forced to labor for 20 hours a day in the -17 degree weather
Tokyo’s Night Joy Paradise Plus Unexpected PERMISSION 2
Can you provide an explanation of the recent Texas v. Pennsylvania case before the Supreme Court? Is it accurate that President Trump does not have jurisdiction over these cases due to not being a member of Congress?
Well, let’s start with some basic principles of U.S. constitutional law.
Under the constitution, the Supreme Court may only hear original cases in very limited circumstances. One of those is when one state sues another state. That’s not uncommon, but usually its due to disputes about the right to use water from rivers that pass through more than one state. The usual procedure is to refer the case to a special master (usually a federal court judge) who holds the trial and reports back to the Supreme Court which can then affirm the decision.
Congress cannot expand the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to hear cases that aren’t listed in the constitution. That was what Marbury v. Madison was about – the court was given power by congress to hear cases involving disputes about judicial appointments in the District of Columbia, and ruled that Congress didn’t have that power.
Now, onto the case. The State of Texas attempted to bring a case shortly before Congress was to meet to confirm the result of the 2020 election to sue the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for not following its own election laws. Essentially, they wanted to disqualify all the mail-in ballots cast during the election on the theory that Pennsylvania law hadn’t authorized them. This issue had already been tried by Pennsylvania courts which ruled such suits were “untimely” – any such suit had to be brought before the election, not after.
But the only issue before the court was whether they HAD to take the case. As a rule, the Supreme Court chooses which cases it hears, but again if this is a case within its jurisdiction to hear new cases, they might have to take it.
What the court ruled is that no state has the right to start a case in the Supreme Court unless the judges agree to hear it. That’s probably good policy as it appeared this case would have asked the Supreme Court to allow one state to enforce laws in other states, which in any other case would be a no-no. For example, Texas could not sue to prevent Pennsylvania physicians from performing abortions on Texas residents just because it’s illegal for a Texas resident to leave the state for an abortion, or based on some theory that Pennsylvania law doesn’t allow physicians to perform abortions except on Pennsylvania residents. Once again, the issues in this case were already settled in Pennsylvania courts, and those could have been appealed to the Supreme Court if there were a constitutional issue (that’s what happened in Bush v. Gore).
But let’s get back to the rule about the Supreme Court only being able to hear a narrow range of original cases. The president does not have the right to sue in the Supreme Court (although he could be sued in, for example, a case involving the appointment of an ambassador – that’s within the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction). Members of Congress don’t have the right to sue in the Supreme Court either.
Elysium Movie Clip | Full Robot Fight Scene | Matt Damon | Diego Luna
What is the most unbelievable behavior you witnessed from a new co-worker that made them get terminated almost immediately?
I worked in a loan department as a loan clerk. A man was hired as a new manager for one of our branch offices. Our Vice President asked me to train the man on the loan process and how to type out the form letters, etc.. This man gave me grief from moment one.
He was arrogant and a smart aleck. I wanted to slap him about every five minutes. He was also a male chauvinist pig. He kept making sexual remarks to me and about me. When I sat him in front of the computer to type out the form letters, he refused to do them, saying “Typing is women’s work. I’ll have one of the women do it for me.”
The final straw came when I took him back to our Vice President’s office. The VP was asking me how he had done and before I could respond, the man said something to the effect of “Well, she wouldn’t sit in my lap, so I think she needs to be spanked.”. I just stared at the VP. He turned to the new manager and said “You’re fired. This is one great lady and you’ve disrespected her since the moment you walked in. Get out before I turn her loose on you.”.
Middle Class Meltdown: America’s Unseen Crisis
Biden = Russia, Russia, Russia!
Trump = China!, China!, China!
Nothing is ever going to get fixed.
Was Hitler a drug addict?
Adolf Hitler was a chronic drug addict. His drug use was of epic proportions.
Hitler was prescribed by his doctors so many various drugs (including cocaine) that he was rarely in a state unaffected by powerful mind-altering substances.
According to his doctors, Hitler was “a good patient.”
He was meticulously adherent to the regimen for his chronic sinusitis: cocaine in aerosol form.
The German Fuhrer also took amphetamines, sedatives, and hormones.
Hitler relied on daily injections of the “wonder drug” Eukodol. It contained oxycodone, a semi-synthetic opioid. The drug caused the state of euphoria, practically rendering the user incapable of making sound judgments.
In his book “Blitzed”, German author Norman Ohler described how the Third Reich was permeated with drugs, including cocaine, heroin and most notably crystal meth, which was used by everyone from soldiers to housewives and factory workers.
Pervitin, an early form of methamphetamine, was available in Nazi German without a prescription.
In Nazi military during WWII, drug use was encouraged.
In September 1939, Ranke tested the drug on 90 university students and concluded that Pervitin could help the Wehrmacht win the war.
The effects of amphetamines on an person are similar to those of the adrenaline produced by the body, triggering a heightened state of alertness. In most people, the substance increases self-confidence, concentration, and willingness to take risks while at the same time reducing sensitivity to pain, hunger, and the need for sleep.
Later, a dose of cocaine was added to Pervitin tablets, to increase the drug’s potency and encourage continuous use.
When Hitler’s drug supplies ran out by the end of the war, he suffered severe withdrawal from serotonin and dopamine, paranoia, psychosis, rotting teeth, extreme shaking, kidney failure and delusion.
The Sopranos – Paulie enjoys Miami
Can Mike Tyson still knock out Jake Paul when he’s going to be 58 years old in the fight?
Technically yes but realistically an emphatic no.
I never thought I would be saying this but Jake Paul is likely to beat Mike Tyson.
Why? That’s a legitimate question since we are talking about one of the greatest and most feared heavyweight champions ever V a relatively junior pro boxer with very few fights.
I’m afraid it all comes down to age, activity and conditioning. At age 40 or even 50 I’d give Tyson a great chance but he’s nearly 60 now, been out of the ring close to 20 years and been doing a lot of other things. Put simply he’s just not in condition to fight a professional fight. He could beat the hell out of the normal types of guys in the street no doubt about it but this is a professional boxing fight we’re talking about. It’s very likely that after one round of intense fighting he’ll be totally finished from a cardio perspective. After that last stand, Jake Paul who if nothing else can at least hit hard will probably get him.
Don’t be fooled by the videos of Tyson looking fast and powerful in training. They have been carefully edited to make him look good. In reality in the fight (if it’s a real one) he won’t look that good or fast. He’ll still have a bit of power so there is some danger to Jake Paul but probably only for one or two rounds max. After that it will a big advantage to the younger man.
No matter how good a condition a fighter is in, the age aspect of this is relevant. A 60 years old head isn’t supposed to get hit hard by a pro fighter. The blood vessels can’t be trained to take those shots like they used to.
For people of my generation it’s pretty sad to see the great Iron Mike Tyson reduced to doing this kind of circus act.
This fight could end pretty badly and shouldn’t really be happening at all. That’s capitalism for you.
EDIT : I guess the most likely thing here is that they’re both in on it as a money grabbing exercise and have agreed with each other not to hurt each other. The fight will probably be the least interesting part of the next few weeks. It’s all about the build up.
Mr. Spock Sends Up a Flare – Star Trek – 1967
What is the craziest thing you ever did when you were a teenager?
I can’t believe I am going to admit this….
When I was 14 years old in 1982-ish. I was recently uprooted from my lifelong hometown. I moved from upstate New York to Pennsylvania with my mom and step-monster. A friend of mine had just gotten sentenced to serve time in a NY state jail. I wrote to Scott frequently, as I thought he must be bored and lonely. I used this same stationary every time, with little unicorns on it. After the third or fourth letter, I realized just how bad it was for him in there.
I got together a little bit of money and bought some pot. I put it in a little matchbook, and sent the matchbook to Scott, along with a letter saying something like “I hope this helps.” I was smart enough not to sign my name, just in case anything bad happened. I thought that it was illegal to tamper with someone’s mail. It never even occured to me that the jail’s officials in charge were allowed to open up Scott’s mail and go through it. I used the same stationary as normal. Little unicorns. Can you see where this is heading?
My parents were surprised when federal detectives showed up. The formal charges were:
“Using the Federal Government (The United States Post Office) to transport illegal drugs across state lines.” To a correctional institution, no less.
Okay, you can laugh your a** off now…
I’ll wait.
Thank God I was 14. I was sentenced as a juvenile offender (the record was sealed); deemed “incorrigible”; had a PINS petition put in place against me (Person In Need of Supervision); had to perform 100 hours of community service and was almost placed in foster care because my parents couldn’t handle it or me anymore. Thankfully, my grandmother took me in, instead. My parents called me all sorts of stupid. Yes, I have to agree. But my answer to them at the time was “I thought he could use a buzz.”
Hugs.
-Valeri
The fourth
What is a polite response when someone says they don’t like your home?
I am soon to be 64. At this stage in my life, I have a VERY low tolerance for a**hattery. I don’t bother trying to be polite to people that aren’t polite.
The last time one of my sisters came to my house and made a comment about a few papers laying on the floor, I didn’t let her get away with it. I left them laying on the floor after they fell off the desk; for a good reason, but that was none of my sister’s business. I don’t believe in explaining to people why my house looks the way it does. Why SHOULD I? So, what I said to her was this: “You don’t REALLY want me to start critiquing YOUR housekeeping, do you?”. After I said that to her, she never said anything about anything that was on the floor again.
You see, her and her husband always leave their dining room table FULL of all different kinds of papers, looks real messy, but you know what? I never say anything because it’s THEIR house! They can keep it the way they WANT to! Plus, I don’t CARE about it, it’s not MY house! They SHOULD have the same respect for me!
AND, that’s the same way I feel about someone coming into my home telling me they don’t like it. Depending on who it is that is saying it, I MIGHT say something like “I don’t care, you don’t live here.” or maybe ”What did you come over for then?”. See, the FUN thing about messing with RUDE people, is because they never expect people to be rude BACK, which is why they are rude in the first place, because people LET them get away with it. *I* don’t. The looks on their faces when they are rude and I am blunt with them…PRICELESS!!!
In a medium bowl, combine ground beef, seasoned salt and seasoned pepper; shape into four patties.
Grill or broil to desired doneness (about 5 to 6 minutes on each side for medium).
Meanwhile, in medium skillet, melt butter.
Add onion and taco seasoning; mix well.
Cook onion over medium high heat until soft and transparent.
Top each patty with onions and cheese.
Return to grill or broiler until cheese is melted.
Place each patty on a roll; top with lettuce and tomato.
Companies Are Being Forced Out of NYC… Why?
Are Democrat supporters who have a pathological hatred of Donald Trump aware that at least 80% of what they think about Trump is misinformation and comes from outright lies by the US Mainstream Media?
I was a mainstream reporter (NYTimes and NY Herald Tribune) when Donald Trump was in his early 30s in NYC. I got to know him at his hangouts and on several more private occasions.
He was not then, nor is he now, “stupid” as so many anti-Trumpers continually proclaim. He was, however, a man whose word meant absolutely nothing. He spoke almost nothing but outright lies and “gut” fabrications. He’d betray a “friend” in a blink; he loathed any woman whose “pussy” he could not “grab”. He was a physical coward in private and in public. He was frightened to wetting his pants of his Nazi-loving, face-slapping, fascist father, to whom he lied and groveled. He had no friends since he only took and never gave. Both men and women immediately felt his creepy, duplicitous, despicable ways and avoided him unless they wanted to be close to what they thought was his money. Her learned how to manipulate and twist the American legal system from his evil genius lawyer Roy Cohen (“Don’t tell me about the law, tell me about the judge.”). I believed then that hate is stupid and as a reporter I did not hate Trump. But I understood him, and understanding is the opposite of hatred.
Trump is now and was then (as any woman who knew him even a bit well would agree) —- a mentally vicious, endlessly traitorous, sickeningly self-absorbed adolescent with feminine soft hands (no manual labor) and a filthy tongue. That was in his early 30s. Any honest observer and reporter quickly found him out and in New York and environs his name was a dirty joke. . . Then came TV “reality” shows and millions of unfortunate Americans watched how he behaved and they want to be just like him, and get away with it. If anyone who reads this considers themselves a friend of Trump, may their gods help them. He will make America and Americans poorer in mind, money, than it ever was, The only way to beat the Russian-sponsored thug is to confront him with a community of people who will oppose him and his fellow liars, cheaters, thieves, and those who tolerate them,
Father’s statement
What did you do when an aggressive driver got out of their car and wanted to fight?
Bad Traffic day in Orlando, FL. As a legal motorcycle rider, I was following traffic laws and traffic lights, and traffic wasn’t moving at all. The *ssh*l* in the car behind me started to lean on his horn. After 5 or 10 horn blows I started to respond with my 139 decibel horn everytime, followed by a turn of my head to look at the driver banging his hands on his steering wheel and yelling again. When he tried to pull up next to me in the space between me and the car in the next lane, I moved to block just enough of the lane that he would have to hit either me or the car in the next lane. At this point he starts yelling at me. He continues to try to move up. The Car next to me gives him just enough space, and I continue to control my lane.
When he gets close enough he started yelling “You! On the motorcycle! ….” and a flood of anti-hispanic, anti-biker rhetoric just comes spewing out of his mouth. Not being hispanic and not considering myself a “biker”, I calmly turned around, looked him in the eyes, and said “No hables espaniol”.
The drivers is ENRAGED! He starts to get out of his car. And he keeps screaming about immigrants. Once he is out of the car, I turn to him again.
I say to him “I was born in Philadelphia PA. Am I an immigrant? And aren’t you smart enough to understand that I don’t speak Spanish? That is what “No hables espaniol” means.”
The man is flabbergasted, stops in his tracks, flaps his mouth several times, and the best revenge, the log jam broke and the light changed, at the same moment. As I pulled away, the man was left standing in the middle of the street with every car behind him laying on the horn, and trying to get around him.
It Begins… Army Troops Take Over NYC
Have you ever had to tell an employee that their attire was inappropriate?
Yes, I had to take on the most difficult challenge of all, a man telling a woman that her attire was inappropriate for the office.
To set the scene, this woman was a young adult, a peer and also a work-friend. She had just lost a bunch of weight and also taken a European vacation. She was feeling good about her body and bought a dress in Paris that showed it off. This dress was so low-cut that it showed the underside of her breasts. If you wanted to pick up a casual hookup in a bar, this was exactly the dress you wanted to wear. But I would never, could never say that.
What I said to her was that this dress looked awesome on her with her weight loss, and if she was looking for a date, it was a great choice. But if she wanted to be taken seriously as an engineer and not distract people, something more conservative and businesslike might be a better choice. She was, in fact, having difficulty being taken seriously, so she took this advice on board and dressed more professionally after that. I got to keep our friendship and not get sued. I’m super glad I won’t ever have to do that again.
Passport Bros are leaving and Modern Women are HUMBLED
When U.S. prisons are inspected, does it actually help the prisoners?
The American Correctional Association (ACA) came to do an inspection at the Federal prison I was in.
A failed inspection would mean loss of accreditation. I’m not aware that means anything other than egg on some suit’s face.
For a prison inspection to be meaningful, hordes of inspectors should rappel from helicopters into the yard in the dead of night without warning. They could carry badges, clipboards, and maybe a few pieces of equipment. (OK… five minutes warning so nobody gets shot).
Instead, the prison had months of notice. They had enough lead time that they could leisurely waste weeks, doing nothing to get ready. When the visit was about two weeks off, suddenly stuff started happening.
New paint was slathered on everything, thick enough it could’ve stopped an escape all by itself.
In the chow hall, we had a persistent leak in the roof. Because it wasn’t fixed for years, the drop ceiling soaked up water, several tiles collapsed, and ominous mold was growing in the insulation around the duct work. At about the same time that paint was being poured over every surface, a crew of inmates came in to patch the ceiling. They didn’t fix the leak, they just patched the drywall and drop in sections that were affected.
Our dishwasher could never get up to temperature. The water was so hard that the heating coils were continually clogged with deposits several inches thick. Pick up any tray that had gone through the thing, and you’d immediately see that the luke warm water wasn’t getting trays clean (of course we never bothered with soap or surfactants either). Instead of trying to fix the dishwasher, the staff, experienced in many an inspection, simply stopped using it. It was “temporarily out of service” for the visit, and we used thousands of dollars worth of disposable foam plates and cups for each meal. This kept the inspectors from finding out that the machine was actually permanently out of service.
So, no. The inspections didn’t help us at all. Our food did get dramatically better for the couple of days that the visit went on, but that was really the only change.
After the visitors left, the dishwasher was plugged back in so it could moisten the dirt on the plates, and the ceiling started to crumble again, revealing mold that had blossomed nicely in the humid darkness.
What story of survival blows your mind every time you think about it?
A bolt of lightning hit the right wing of the aircraft, and suddenly LANSA Flight 508 was plummeting toward the ground. Over the screams of dozens of others, Juliane Koepcke — who was sitting at 19F, a window seat — heard her mother say from the seat beside her: “Now it’s all over.”
Seconds later, the plane is disintegrating in mid-air, and Juliane’s mom is gone. Juliane is still strapped in her seat, but she is not inside the cabin anymore — instead, she is all alone in the open air at a height of 10,000 feet, tumbling down from the heavens.
The last things she will ever see are packed treetops that look like broccoli heads. Or so she thinks.
Because the next day, she wakes up on the Amazon rainforest floor, still very much alive and miraculously only modestly wounded:
She had a concussion, a broken collarbone, some deep cuts. The forest, she wrote in her memoir, “saved my life,” the foliage cushioning the impact of her 10,000-foot fall. She went in and out of consciousness before finally pulling herself to her feet.
That is her first survival story, but now she is all alone in a jungle. She is seventeen years old, and she needs to focus on the next step. A second survival. Luckily for her, Juliane has lived in the jungle for several years, in a research station where both of her parents were working at the time.
She looks for her mom first, but doesn’t find her. Then, she decides to look for a stream, because streams often lead to villages, and she will soon need water. And when she finally finds a creek, she also finds dead people:
“When I turned a corner in the creek, I found a bench with three passengers rammed head first into the earth. I was paralysed by panic. It was the first time I had seen a dead body.”
[Image of plain wreckage of LANSA Flight 508, which had boarded in Peru. (Coral Brunner/Shutterstock.)]
As days go by, a wound on her upper right arm gets infested with maggots about one centimeter long each. She remembered that their dog once had the same infection and that her father had put kerosene in it, so when she finds a small hut with a palm leaf roof, and outboard motor and one liter of kerosine, she sucks the gasoline out and puts it into the wound.
The next day she hears human voices, and she is saved for the second time around.
Later, Juliane found out that her mom also survived the crash, but was badly wounded and died a couple of days later in the rainforest, all alone, and desperately hoping that a miracle had saved her daughter.
We all pick up bad habits. One of my bad habits (I have many) is that I often swear in English. When I swear, very few people around me understands English, so they do not realize that I am swearing.
Familiarity causes problems.
So I swear at the house. My wife does not like it, but it has become so commonplace that I don’t think about it.
But…
I have a young daughter.
And GULP! she has started to swear! Oh, God no! So I stopped all my swearing completely. But I think the Genie is out of the bottle. And NO, I do not think that it is “cute”. I hate her swearing.
I think that I am handling it fine, and not raising an eyebrow when she says “What the Fuck!” or “that God-damn son of a bitch”, or anything else.
Now, I use the terms… “Jimmy Crickets”, “fiddle-sticks”, and “Gosh and golly”. Alot.
But still…
Don’t let your life change because you have gotten too relaxed and confident. A word to the wise.
Yes, he was. Albert Einstein was notoriously incapable of remaining faithful to one woman. Female beauty was his greatest weakness, and he wasn’t shy or bashful about the fact — he famously explained relativity as “an hour talking to a pretty woman feeling shorter than a minute of having one’s hand on a hot stove”.
Albert Einstein had mistresses throughout his life. He was unfaithful to his first wife, who was the mother of his three children. He then was unfaithful to his second wife as well, who was also his cousin. The little girl on Einstein’s lap? His adopted granddaughter. Who, as legend has it, may have been an out-of-wedlock daughter fathered by the aging scientist and then adopted by one of his sons to ‘avoid scandal’.
The stereotype we have of Einstein is “somewhat confused, awkward scientist completely obsessed with his work”, but in reality, he was quite socially savvy and quite capable of seducing women, something he did often and ferociously. Women in his life were aware of his proclivities — a great man belongs ‘to the world’, and sharing, as he saw it, was caring.
Some women like their men handsome. Others go for brains. Albert Einstein had no shortage of brains… and no shortage of women in his life. He got around, so to speak, and was sexually active until old age.
A quick learner
Spaghetti all’Aglio e Olio (Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil)
This dish comes from Campania, Italy. The flavor of the olive oil is what makes this dish, so use the finest extra virgin olive oil.
Ingredients
1 pound spaghetti
2/3 cup olive oil
3 large cloves garlic, crushed
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Instructions
Cook spaghetti in plenty of boiling, salted water, with a dash of olive oil.
Heat olive oil with cloves of garlic but do not let the garlic brown.
Warm oil gently to release the flavor of the garlic.
When spaghetti is cooked, drain it and transfer to a warm serving bowl.
Pour over the oil and garlic and toss the spaghetti well.
I always use my cruise control as I have a heavy foot and without the control would speed without meaning to. I was on my way to church and when I turned off the expressway I stopped for a light. That turned off the cruise control. I was doing 70 in a 35 when I spotted the trouper. I slowed down and pulled over and of course he came up right behind me. The usual “Do you know why I stoped you”. I was totally honest. Explained about my cruise control being off and realized I was speeding the same time I spotted him. He went back to his cruiser and then came up, handed my license back and said, “You haven’t had a speeding ticket in years so I’m just telling you to slow down. Where were you heading anyway?” I said, “Wow, thanks and I was on my way to church just up the road”. Truth.. He smiled and said I should be on my way before any of my friends drive by and see me sitting there. I thanked him again and stayed 3 under the limited the rest of the short drive to church. I have always wondered if it was because I am a little old lady or the fact I was very honest with him. But he saved me a huge fine that day.
The western media is a coordinated propaganda machine mostly own by the far right Neocon group that has a clear agenda to demonised any nation or nations that refused to be submissive and subservient to them. And China and Russia is their key focus.
Do their coordinate their attack on China to slur it, to demonise them, to cast doubts on China, to downplay their achievements and to spew hates on China and the Chinese people. That is simply a fact and a matter of fact that everyone on earth knows except some 5% or so brain dead who blindly follow the western media narratives.
Politically the U.S. is a dead man walking. It has totally lost its plot. It has done so much shit the entire world wants to get as far away from the U.S. as possible. With the exception of US slave vassal states like Germany, Japan and South Korea, US fellow natives slaughterer like Australia, Canada and to some extent New Zealand, its fellow despicable colonial masters like UK, France, Spain, Portugal and Belgium and those nations who loved to poke Russia in the eye and then run to hide under the U.S. skirt Lithuania or Poland!
China has 150–175 nations on earth out of the world’s 195 nations respecting and supporting them regularly versus the above 12–15 nations supporting the U.S. that is the comparison.
Obviously, I mean OBVIOUSLY, they have never been to China and have no idea how fucking enormous it is.
If you hop in a car, and start driving, it will take you days… DAYS… passing huge apartment buildings full of hard working, militarized families, studying… working… training…
…building after building. Mile after mile. Kilometer after kilometer. Over and over and over.
One enormous giga-complex housing thousands of families… after another… and another… and yet another.
China is HUGE.
Simply enormous.
…
China is not the third world cesspool that the Western “news” says it is. It’s a nation thirty years in the future. It is proud. It is strong. And it is LETHAL.
It is a dragon wearing a cute panda-bear suit.
You all in the West are unaware.
Backwards. Retarded.
Fed garbage; not just figuratively, but literally. Most American doesn’t even know where California is on a map, or how many States there are, or how much 5 + 8 is.
When I say “stupid”.
I mean it.
Meanwhile in China…
I started using facial recognition and QR to pay back in 2013. That was ten years ago. I haven’t touched a coin or paper money in all that time. Using paper money is so 19th century.
My car is electric and it talks to me, and only turns on when my voice recognition software allows it to.
It self parks, customizes the interior with a rotation of interior motifs, plays my morning jazz tunes, and gives me a nice warm back rub as it links to the toll road and carries me off to my office.
In my office, my staff brings me my coffee and turns on my systems for me. Sometimes they might have a kid or two with them, being sick or what not. No worries, though, they are their next to their parents doing their studies next to the desks.
Lunch is paid for all my staff. It’s one of the state mandated laws, and after they eat a huge healthy cafeteria meal of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, they go take their normal naps.
…
That’s just the first four hours of a typical day in China.
…
There’s a bunch of dunder-heads that think that the USA can invade China with D-Day style Naval assaults, and the threat of nuclear war.
Troll?
Moron?
Buffoon?
Ignoramus?
They believe that proud and powerful aircraft carrier will lay off the coast of China and launch cascade after cascade of fighters and bombers into China.
They think that stealthy submarines will sneak up and start bombing China. All this unopposed, and the Chinese will take it. Smile and say “… can I have another, master?”
They believe that the proud troops will be easily resupplied by Australia, Japan, Korea and Philippines. After all, that is the on-going American construction activity. Billets. Barracks. Supply depots, and large investments in bordellos for employment for the locals.
Fantasies. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
NEVER going to happen.
…
I am here to tell you that World War started in 2008.
Oh, sure, the elements started far earlier. But historians will write that the date of the war began was in 2008.
It peaked in 2020 with the bio-weapon(s) that the USA launched on China during CNY (John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo brilliance there), and fell back towards conventional war with the NATO conflict began in Ukraine.
It hasn’t gone that great though.
Wars don’t go to plan, and this crop of brain-dead, pathological psychopathic oligarchs are dangerously deluded.
Take Ukraine. Ah. The “war in Ukraine”.
What they mean is the unreported hostilities used to counter the Russian “special military operation”.
Over 3000 American soldiers (with countless more NATO gents) are dead. Just because the American “news” isn’t reporting it, doesn’t mean that it is not going on.
Dead Americans are all over the place. I have photos and photos. Movies and movies. But if I put them up, they get pulled. It’s “news you can use”, but that is bad for the Westerners to see.
Good men. Soldiers. American men.
Dead.
Over what? And why?
It is sad.
I cry for the widows at Fort Lenard Wood.
As that phase winds down with a European collapse (economic, social, industrial, and military) a new phase opened up.
All to schedule; a disruption of the middle eastern shipping lanes.
Ah… that’s gonna teach China a lesson!
In their wet dreams, perhaps. China is about 3450 steps ahead of the rest of the world. They know what underwear that you will wear two days from now. Long before you even decide to put some on. That’s how advanced China is.
This idea that “China can be isolated” has failed, and is bound to fail, as the Chinese BRI are now proving how far-sighted and successful the rerouting of shipping avenues have proven themselves.
No wonder both Russia and China are screaming forward; an economic gallop. While the collective “West” is mired in inefficiency, lunacy, and insanity.
None of which is being reported in the “news”.
Here’s some more American troops in Ukraine…
Meanwhile…
We are watching the United States collapse in front of our very eyes.
After all, Texas has laid forth the reasons for departure from the Federal monstrosity.
And look at all the “steam” that it is gathering…
And yeah.
The USA has this dream of opening up a long-desired war in the Pacific over China. Troops, material and weaponry are flooding toward the Philippines, Japan and Australia. All ready to die for “democracy”.
Whatever the Hell that means.
A rally-cry of the moronic who still believe that “their vote counts” and that American culture (woke, red-pill, open marriage, LGBQ+) is worthy of preserving.
Woo! Woo! I’m gonna kill Commies for all that free gay sex!
And when that day comes… “death by cop” will be experienced in America. Up and down the coasts. As the United States will be bludgeoned by many, many, MANY people; and their nations. People who have been ridiculed and marginalized over the decades of pompous, elitist wars and flouting.
America is NOT respected in the world.
It is despised.
It is no mistake the distain that the illegal immigrants show towards American. And they are the polite ones. The USA is poised to get a much-needed Ass-Kicking at a scale of ferocity that is off the scale; in both ferocity, and in long-duration and everlasting pain.
And the United States has lost.
It just hasn’t been reported on yet.
Look around yourselves. The USA has no downtowns. No factories. No hard workers. No functioning anything. It’s just on the long slow crumble…
At this point in time, “war against China” will not be needed.
I was swimming in the hotel swimming pool and this lonely 12 year old girl came to swim. I immediately swam to the other end. She just kept following me, and talking and saying her parents were busy, and didn’t have any time to spend with her, and she was in a strange city.
I was really really getting uncomfortable, she wasn’t doing anything wrong, and if her parents or my wife were there, I wouldn’t have been near as uncomfortable, but would still be worried.
I eventually left her in the pool by herself.
When I was living in the city, the neighbors kids, probably 5 and 6, would come out and wait by the fence for me to walk to work, and I would stop and talk to them for 5 minutes, always staying back at least 3 feet from the fence, in my own yard.
They were such cute kids. But I hardly knew the parents.
When I walk down an almost empty street, if there is a woman in front of me, I either fall further back, or speed up and pass her when there are people around. I can’t just walk at my own pace.
You have to avoid anything that looks vaguely inappropriate, even if you are doing nothing wrong.
Wife Thought Husband Was A Doormat Until He Showed EVERYONE Graphic Evidence Of Her “Adventures”
I was with a group of people who where trying out clay pigeon shooting, and were standing around in groups of 3 or 4 people.
When it was your time, you were called forward and given the shotgun, shown how to load it and where the off-catch was. Then you just needed to put the shotgun against your shoulder and call out for the pigeons to be released. Nice and simple, and the trainer was standing to the left of the shooter.
Until we had a girl who, having loaded the shotgun, had a problem and needed to talk to the trainer. So, she needed to turn around and decided to turn to her right, with the shotgun pointed horizontally in front of her. Of course, that meant that she was then pointing a loaded shotgun at everyone else in the group as she turned around.
Apart from me, no-one in the group noticed what was happening. I was, obviously, flat on the ground before she reached my position. End of shooting for her.
You know guys, sometimes I get the biggest belly-laugh when I read some of the answers here. Either they are terribly deluded, or they are immensely ignorant.
…
Here’s a REAL answer.
First of all, let’s throw out some FACTS to “set the table”, so to speak.
China has the largest Navy in the world.
China’s navy is not spread out all over the place (like the USN), but are concentrated at the projected battle fields.
China’s navy is also the oldest navy in the world. It was operating CENTURIES before the first organized navy in Europe.
China’s navy has been restructured, and operates NEW ships with cutting-leading-edge systems and technology. Many of which are unique and unknown to the West.
Were a war to occur between the USA and China, a Naval war would be the lest of the worries of the American “leadership”. Economic, social, and financial collapse would all be in free-fall.
But, let’s answer this question.
Can the United States Navy sink the Chinese Navy?
Here’s my answer…
Yes, the USN has the ability to destroy vessels, aircraft, bases, and people of the PLAN.
It is highly unlikely, however, that they will be able to completely destroy the PLAN.
It is likely that in the process of this destruction, that the USN would suffer great losses in men, material, weapons, and vessels.
Both sides will likely take great losses.
But this is 2024. China’s city-destroying munition capabilities are global. The consequence of a United States (or proxy) war against China will result in the people of the attacking nation being hurt.
Thus…
American major cities will also become targets for destruction.
…
Remember, boys and girls, China is a peaceful nation…
…until it isn’t.
…
Never forget the great losses that the United States incurred the last time they fought the Chinese.
Look at the BIG PICTURE. Not the tactical issues, but the strategic issues. Then faced with this reality, project the highest probability outcomes.
Three days! In fact, they fired the CEO that fired me, then called and asked if I would consider coming back. I said, no. They then offered me a contractor position at over $200 an hour, I still said, no thank you. They ended up hiring someone nearly twice my salary and that person quit within 90 days. Although still happily unemployed, I never considered going back. Two weeks after my severance pay ran out, I found another job and was very happy. More pay, less stress, and much better management. I was lucky! My previous company, no so much. They tried contacting me a few times for questions, and I gave them info if I could but I never did any work for them again. I followed the recently fired CEO on LinkedIn and till this day, she is still unemployed. I sure hope she learned her lesson about hiring friends with less skills to replace experienced workers. It may not have been her best plan for success. Just about all the management were inexperienced friends of the CEO. Of course, many were let go once she was fired. The company is near bankruptcy and most of the good talent started to leave. It is sad just how much damage a CEO can do to a company when they put their own interest first.
second class life in MOSCOW! better than the WEST?
Examples of pointless human cruelty are, sadly, boundless. This is a shocking image and I apologize in advance for sharing it, but here’s one that truly got to me… in Belarus, 1918, after WWI had already ended, the brave Russian officer Rosinski was captured by the Bolsheviks.
The Bolsheviks tortured the captain, likely to get information out of the man, which he bravely refused to give. After that, they simply continued with the torture out of some sick sense of innate cruelty. He was ‘the enemy’ and he was at their mercy, so they brutally murdered their captive.
The brave captain was emasculated. And anally impaled on a tree branch. All this while still alive.
Alfred Savoir, the man who published the picture and was an eye witness to the death of the brave military officer, described “M. B.”, who ordered this atrocity, thus:
I knew him not long ago; he was a charming teenager with an ironic wit and joker. He was rubbed with French culture, he admired the novels of Barres and he quoted willingly poets that I did not know quite. He was also a great dancer, a great flirteur and a good bridger. He often came to Paris, and he amused himself.
Today, this bourgeois benevolent and skeptical, this happy boy is impaling people. Understand who can!
This is a perfect example of just how cruel people can get. And also, its a perfect example of the very worst treatment, torture and humiliation a human being can be forced to endure.
What shocked Savoir the most when seeing the scene, wasn’t just the act of cruelty itself, but the utter indifference of the crowd:
“In this inhuman document you will find something more terrible than torture, it is the attitude of the crowd. Look at these figures: they are bored! A horse falling Avenue de l’Opera provokes in the Parisian public more reflexes, more comments. Here, what placidity, what indifference!”
Basically, the Communist soldiers overseeing the brutal torture of the prisoner of war in their hands, had seen similar horrendous tortures taking place before their very eyes. Rosinski, chillingly enough, wasn’t even the first, or the worst of their victims.
Needless to say, the image and story have been etched in my mind forever. Why are humans this way? Simply because they can be. You give a person the power over life and death, and you’d be surprised by how even the most polite and milquetoast person turns into a psychopath practically overnight under the right circumstances…
It’s going down
This sounds toxic
Pictures of Noah’s Ark That Are Completely Real — If They Happened Today
The classic cosmic do-it-yourself project, Noah’s Ark, is probably well known to all of you. In it, God tells Noah to “build a giant ark, grab two of every animal, and let’s turn this planet into a giant water park.” But what if this tale involved a common man who was having financial difficulties today?
It all began in the 1990’s under President Bill Clinton. By off-shoring manufacturing, and converting to finance and a Managerial economy, the GDP reflects a measure of how wealthy the top 1% is in a given nation.
Elements of society that generate profit for very wealthy people, for large corporations, and for the government are measured int his calculus. Things that matter to them; things that generate money for them, are what is measured.
The collectable tax base. Higher taxes = higher GDP.
Annual liquidity of the currency of the nation. Less savings = higher GDP.
Vacant buildings; a potential to be rented out for profit. Empty building = GDP.
Income from tariffs for inbound imported items. Add tariffs = Higher GDP.
Population. More people = Higher GDP.
Income from duties; on inbound products. More duties = Higher GDP.
Services; potential or realized. Includes babysitting, and waitress activity.
The success of the stock market. Direct correlation.
Inflation. The higher the inflation; the higher the GDP.
Personally, I think this is a Ponzi scheme of great deception. As it holds no advantage to a business owner, or an investor in determination of value, gain or loss of anything. It is just a rather useless measure that is used by the “news media” to convince dissatisfied people that they are happy and doing well.
This isn’t my idea.
This is what is discussed in the most prestigious video with the great economics professors of the West; Michael Hudson, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen.
She took one of my team members out for drinks with some other colleagues and didn’t invite me. I didn’t mind at all at the time because people form friendships at work and it’s fine not to always invite everyone. But I did think it was a bit odd.
It turned out that this was the beginning of an elaborate campaign to try to get my job. She tried to undermine me with my staff, my peers and my management as well as my stakeholders. She blamed me for things going wrong, lied about things I had said/not said, and tried to take my work off me. She even tried to tell my lesbian staff member that I was homophobic.
She wasn’t subtle. And because I prioritise people management and relationships at work, it got her nowhere. I got my revenge a bit later when asked to review a crucial report she had produced. I eviscerated it, quietly suggested to my manager that if she wasn’t capable of such basic work, and couldn’t write grammatically correct English, perhaps her contract shouldn’t be renewed.
She never spoke to me again, and left shortly after.
When my wife and I were first married we would frequently buy coupon books that were put out by charities that gave discounts to go to different restaurants. We really enjoyed this because it gave us a chance to go around see different restaurants but also to see different parts of the city where we lived.
One night at about 7:00 around the Christmas holidays we went to a small Mexican restaurant that was in a nearby town. We went in and there were very few people in the restaurant and it was very small with only four or five tables. We were seated by a young girl who looked to be about 11 or 12 years old. She greeted us politely and gave us menus. She came back to the table and took our orders and my wife and I were able to sit and have a nice quiet conversation.
When the food came the young girl and her younger brother who appeared to be about eight years old carried the food to the table, expertly placed it in front of us and brought us our non-alcoholic drinks. A little while later she came back and asked us how the food was and we told her that it was very good.
At this point we we were puzzled because they seemed to be the only two in the restaurant. I got up and walked to the door of the kitchen and saw only the two children working hard as they prepared food at the stove.
So when he brought the bill I asked the young girl where the adults were who owned the restaurant. She explained to me that her mother and father had gone out for the evening because it was near the Christmas holidays and they hadn’t had much time together.
She and her brother had cooked dinner for us, served it and also accurately handled the bill at the end of the dinner. She even gave us each a piece of candy and wished us a merry Christmas.
My wife and I were both stunned as we left and talked about these two little children who prepared and served such a good dinner. This became a subject that we talked about for years.
Walter White’s 5 Most Badass Moves | Breaking Bad ( Bryan Cranston)
I would like to start this by saying I am an American who has lived in the UK for 38 years, worked in 12 countries and visited 43 countries. My Bachelors is a BSc (Economics) in International Relations.i will try to be as unbiased as possible.
The experiences are very different. Jingoism and patriotic brainwashing takes place in many countries, but honestly, my life in a Californian elementary school had more in common with China and North Korea than most of Europe. Pledging the flag every day and the teaching of American exceptionalism. Yes, the is much to be proud of in the US from the National Park movement to flight, amazing manufacturing leap forwards to putting man on the moon. However there is much that is not taught:
The natural resources of the US created great wealth, the founding fathers were largely gentry land owners (and mainly slave owners). Washington and Jefferson’s families have had huge estates in Northamptonshire England, and went to the US as it was not enough for them.
Slavery – this is taught now. It made a huge difference in wealth creation. Meanwhile most of Europe, slavery was illegal (yes I know rich brits and Dutch owned slave trade companies and the abolition movement pressured hard in Europe to stop it, and did a generation before the US Civil War.
Robber Barons exploited the poor in the South (and the North) and were even celebrated for living the American dream. The union movement in the early 20th century started to counter this. But the fear of the “red menace” largely squashed it in the post war years.
The 2 world wars decimated Europe, WWII especially. So America, who’s infrastructure was largely unaffected profited well as decolonisation took place and Europe rebuilt. The balance of power changed.
The dollar became king. America was seen as the land of opportunity. But really the mind set of Puritan settlements seen as radical nut jobs in Europe, coupled with the propaganda of the revolution (remember the red coats protected shipping lanes from pirates and also tried to defend the colonies from the indigenous population, that is not cheap and the tax on tea was to help pay for that) and everything else led to small government, frontier spirit and let’s be honest, exploitation of immigrants and the working class. The country was new, so yes, opportunity was there.
But now, so many people have to work hard to feed their families. One sickness can lead to bankrupt and homelessness. People are largely ruled by fear and capitalism. It is sad, but true.
Now compare this to the European experience. The American revolution showed Europe a route for change. And revolutions took place through the late 18th and through the 19th centuries. But it was to workers and farmers that led the charge, not the upper echelons of society like America. Strikes and worker mobilisation and supportive societies led to stopping children in factories and up chimneys. It led to rights for the workers. In the tin mines of Cornwall, in the early 1800’s, the average life expectancy was 23. People rose up to fight for their rights. And they were given, after long hard fights.
Attitudes were different after the world wars. The populations lost so many compared to America (of course the US involvement, where my Grandmother’s first husband was killed on the beaches of Normandy) led Europe to be thankful, but it was nothing of the scale in Europe. Most people wanted (and want) a better quality of life. Socialised medicine systems like the NHS were established. Worker rights improved further to encourage them to work in different industries (the UK encouraged people from India, the Caribbean and Africa to come and work here). There are similar stories in mainland Europe. We saw that by having these things in place, people became happier and more productive.
I know no European who really considers health insurance before moving jobs. It is not a thing. I do know many who like packages where they can take less pay for even more leave.
I now work in the NHS. I have 31 days off a year as paid vacation and 8 bank holidays. I work as hard as I have in other countries as my American work ethic was drummed into me since childhood. But I have travelled the world, taken time to see friends and family, indulged in hobbies, been to 90% of my kids’ school events and relaxed when we have had a hard time. I am told off if I go too long without a break or don’t use my allocation. I am told off if I am seen emailing when I am off.
Between social health care and annual leave I believe I experience a far greater level of freedom now than I did in the States. And I really wish my fellow Americans could experience it too.
Kinloch story
Sending a message
First time in Chinese new year CCTV performance, the PLA: “winning 决胜” with island landing: that shows Beijing determination towards Taiwan reunification. This is unusual as traditionally, Chinese new year celebrations are without 🔥. Enjoys the 3.27minutes video :
Over 35 years ago, our small daughter had a fairly young (16–17yo) babysitter while I worked at a part time job in a school. Obviously the babysitter was not required during school holidays, so the babysitter, who I will call Marjorie, decided on the spur of the moment to hop on an interstate bus and have her own little holiday.
Before school recommenced, Marjorie came to me looking embarrassed, and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t babysit for you any more.” I was a bit blindsided as I knew she hadn’t just found a new job or anything like that, so I asked what was the matter. With much embarrassment, Marjorie told me that on her return to our small town, she found that there were rumours circulating to the effect that her sudden departure on her holiday was because I had come home unexpectedly to find her in bed with my husband.
Talk about making a story out of nothing! (I should note that at another time when my husband went on leave from his job at the same time his company car broke down and had to be towed to the city for repairs, the rumours circulated that his absence was due to his crashing the company car and breaking his leg 🙄). Apart from it being totally untrue, it was insulting to my husband to insinuate that he would be having an affair with a barely legal teenager. And poor Marjorie, who was a very sweet young lady, was mortified.
So I said, “If you stop babysitting for us, it will reinforce the belief that there is truth to this disgusting rumour. What we need to do is to go shopping together in the main street and have lunch, then for you to keep babysitting to demonstrate that nothing has happened.”
When I was a young boy, my parents warned me to stay away from a particular house on the West side of town. My parents would warn “They want to be left alone, so leave them be. Do not go up there, and do not provoke them. Remember they have guns.”
Why ask questions that you know the answer to?
What are you, a sadist? Asking the same old questions day in, and day out. Hoping, praying, waiting, for some other tidbit of information that would make the reality easier to digest?
On paper, in theory, all of the 11 aircraft carriers that the United States fields (10 Nimitz and 1 Ford), could be destroyed by Chinese conventionally-armed DF-26 “carrier Killer” missiles. Given the flight times for the latest upgrades for the hyper-velocity versions of the DF-26 anticipated stopwatch from launch to destruction is within five minutes within the 4000 Km range.
They are very effective.
And are designed to completely destroy Aircraft carriers.
China has a few thousand of them. Against what? 15 aircraft carriers.
From time to time, China takes them out as a warning to overly aggressive American neocons that are getting “too big for their britches”.
These units are not the ONLY weapons systems that are designed to destroy carrier flotillas, islands, and large bases like in Guam or Hawaii. There are many others. It’s just that the DF-26 is particularly good at it. Given the enormous numbers of launchers, and the insane levels of stockpiled munitions, one can only assume that all targets from land bases to submarines will be the prey for this missile.
The DF-26 appears to be designed specifically for high precision conventional strikes. The most likely target for the DF-26 missile would be Guam going by the range of the missile. Given the nature of the targets in Guam, which are mostly air bases (Guam has two large air bases where, as revealed by satellite imagery, B-52 squadrons are deployed), the DF-26 might be carrying specially designed cluster based bomb-lets to cause maximum damage to bombers spread out on the tarmac. In addition, there could be a specially designed deep penetration warhead for Hardened and Deeply Buried Targets (HDBTs).
Now, for the longest time, the USN and the ONI have been very quiet about the massive exponential increase in Chinese weapon lethality, survival-ability, and technology. The reports have been duly logged. The studies have been gamed out. The results and conclusions have been presented, filed and forgotten.
But it has only been during the last year that the USN admirals have become increasingly frenzied when dealing with hawkish Administration and Senate members. These people are not taking “no” for an answer, and want to find some edge; some justification, to “pull off” a “successful” war against China.
So, sometime, within the last nine months or so, the ONI through a number of key admirals, laid out the reality to the neocon “war hawks”.
The Chinese “just ran rings around us,” said former Joint Chiefs Vice Chair Gen. John Hyten in one after-action report
. “They knew exactly what we were going to do before we did it.”
Dozens of versions of the above war-game scenario have been enacted over the last few years, most recently
in April by the House Select Committee on competition with China. And while the ultimate outcome in these exercises is not always clear — the U.S. does better in some than others — the cost is. In every exercise the U.S. uses up all its long-range air-to-surface missiles in a few days, with a substantial portion of its planes destroyed on the ground. In every exercise the U.S. is not engaged in an abstract push-button war from 30,000 feet up like the ones Americans have come to expect since the end of the Cold War, but a horrifically bloody one.
And that’s assuming the U.S.-China war doesn’t go nuclear.
“The thing we see across all the wargames is that there are major losses on all sides. And the impact of that on our society is quite devastating,” said Becca Wasser, who played the role of the Chinese leadership in the Select Committee’s wargame and is head of the gaming lab at the Center for a New American Security.
“The most common thread in these exercises is that the United States needs to take steps now in the Indo-Pacific to ensure the conflict doesn’t happen in the future.
We are hugely behind the curve. Ukraine is our wakeup call. This is our watershed moment.”
So…
Please give me a break. Stop asking for answers that you do not want to hear.
If the United States drops one bullet inside of China, and Taiwan is China, the entire USN gets sunk. And the American losses in the first two hours will be absolutely horrific.
Finally, keep in mind that the limitations of the DF-26 (4,000 km) represents just a tiny portion of the massively lethal military onslaught that the China is ready and willing to unleash upon the United States and it’s idiotic “allies”. I suggest the Mr. DF-41 educate you all on what will happen to American and European cities. And lets not forget the up front and personal Type 094 or Jin class submarines.
China Launched a new Generation of Fighting Robots that Shocked the World
I’ve been fortunate so far in avoiding most scams. But a recent incident is worth noting. The driver side window was coming off the track in my wife’s Corolla. I took the vehicle to a Toyota dealership. They diagnosed the problem as a bent window regulator. The diagnosis cost nearly $100. But the repair would cost an additional $500. This did not seems right to me, so I declined. A bit of research on YouTube led me to purchase the part for $50. I saved an additional $50 money by purchasing a window regulator without the motor, then just transferred the motor from the stock unit. The most relevant aspect is that I was able to complete the entire repair in well under 1 hour. It was straightforward, and it worked perfectly. Charging $600 for the job is a scam – period.
In retrospect, I doubt the repair tech ever removed the door panel. Since this incident, I take my vehicles to a nearby independent shop that has earned my respect. Furthermore, I regularly reference YouTube for guidance in making minor repairs myself.
Women know but still won’t change, they just demand men accept their damage.
I had a young man who worked for me, quite a few years back, for about 6 months. He was constantly late to work which use to annoy me no end.
When staff come to work late on more than one occasion, I sit them down and have a chat. I let them know that I have noticed that they are late and that it makes me feel bad. I feel bad because it tells me that they don’t want to be there. So I ask them if that’s true and if I can do anything to improve this.
Every time I have this conversation it has never been said to me that they don’t like the job or don’t want to be there. So I continue with the reality that if I don’t insist upon them being at work on time it has the potential to spread to all the other employees and I can’t have that happening. I ask that they be mindful of the wider implications of being late and to make sure it isn’t a habit.
So this is how it went with this young man except he continued to come in late. My conversations gradually changed from nice to demanding to threatening him with losing his job if he kept it up.
Sure enough he again came in late,again, and I fired him for it. He was shocked and couldn’t understand why and literally said this golden nugget to me. “Why? I haven’t been late since the last time!”
In Australia the industrial relations law at the time allowed me to fire any employee, with no written warnings, if they had been with the company less than a year and the company employed lease than 15 people. This being the case I was well within my rights to fire him without a formal process.
A few weeks after his termination I am served with papers informing me that a wrongful termination complaint has been filed against me and I have to appear before a tribunal. Great!
In his filing he lied about his start date and lied about the size of my company and the number of employees. I had to prove otherwise and sent this documentation into the tribunal along with why he was fired prior to the hearing. It was work I shouldn’t have had to do but it was not too onerous.
I wrongly assumed the tribunal would throw the case out based on the evidence I gave them and the lack of evidence he gave, but no, it went ahead anyway.
He and his representatives – by the way, I was not allowed representation – talked about his work and why he shouldn’t have been sacked and how bad an employer I was, this carried on for about 15 minutes and was mostly untrue.
When my turn came I declined to talk about him, his work or say anything negative. I told the tribunal it wouldn’t serve any positive purpose talking about his work. I simply addressed the two key pieces of evidence that allowed me to fire him with no come back.
The tribunal then separated us both to speak with us separately. I was told by them they could tell I was a good employer by what I said and how I didn’t say anything negative about him. They said I had done nothing wrong and asked if I would consider reversing my decision to fire him and let him resign instead.
I resisted this as that wasn’t how it happened but relented after further pressure from the tribunal.
The whole thing, in my mind, was him deliberately wasting my time so he could make me pay for having fired him. It’s possible he was after a payout too but the way the tribunal saw things it was obvious he couldn’t succeed with that.
For those who will feel the need to side with the employee because all employers are money hungry, slave driving mongrels and want to leave me some comments.
Know this:
He never rang to say he was going to be late. He was at the gym prior to coming to work. His work was not good when he was there. He was late on more than 10 occasions. I also asked his supervisor to talk to him about being late. He never once offered to make up the time and was very quickly out the door at days end. He also never asked to vary his hours either.
So let’s begin by by prefacing this saying this happened to by my god-daughter’s mother. I had known this lady for over 24 years at the time. I was the one person that she called when she needed help, a ride to work, grocery stores planning her money, and things like that. So I didn’t think twice, when she asked to borrow my extra truck for awhile. So I’m thinking that she’s only wanted to be able to do couple things for a week or so, but NO. She ends up keeping it for nearly a year, didn’t change the oil change when I told her that she needed to after keeping it more than 5 months. But she did get an front end alignment, then she bugged me about getting her money back for it so much, I just said f*¢£ it. I ended up showing her to continue to drive the truck just about a years time. Finally she calls me and tells me I can come and pick it up cause she was moving to different house. I go to get it and find out that the only reason she was returning it was the engine had messed up, and needed fixing.
So I she called me up to tell me that I can have the truck back, but it going to need some fixing up. And just to make herself look better, she calls a mechanic, to diagnose the problem. He dies and she even arranges for him to fix it. But he has never fixed it or returned the truck. So far forward two years and she is asking to borrow the other car I had bought to replace truck, plus loan her several hundred dollars. She even tried get her daughter to sweet talk me into give her what she wants. I didn’t give in and told her that I just didn’t haveit then. No darn way I was going to help her out anymore after she messed up my truck.
May be because the “some people” is indeed 87% of the world call the Global South! And maybe because those people has intelligence, you don’t! You thought sucking up to the U.S. and helping them stay in denial is great.
Oh by the way the rest of the 13% most are coerce into saying US is great, some are forced to do, the rest are wishful that US is strong! A bankrupt nation with a million homeless with 35 trillion dollars debts is anything but strong!
Tagliatelle with Gorgonzola Sauce
Ingredients
25g/1 ounce/2 tablespoons butter, + extra for tossing the pasta
225g/8 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, divided
150ml/1/4 pint/2/3 cup double or whipping cream
30ml/ 2 tablespoons dry vermouth
5ml/ 1 teaspoon cornflour
15ml/1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
450g/1 pound tagliatelle
Salt and ground black pepper
Instructions
Melt butter in a heavy saucepan ( it needs to be thick based to prevent the cheese from burning).
Stir in 175g/6 ounces crumbled gorgonzola cheese and stir over a gentle heat for about 2 to 3 minutes until melted.
Whisk in the cream, vermouth and cornflour.
Add the sage; season. Cook, whisking, until the sauce boils and thickens.
Boil the pasta in plenty of salted water according to the instructions on the packet.
Drain well and toss with a little butter.
Reheat the sauce gently, whisking well.
Divide the pasta among 4 serving bowls, top with the sauce and sprinkle over the remaining crumbled cheese.
Interview to Tucker Carlson – Kremlin.ru, Feb 9 2024 Vladimir Putin answered questions from Tucker Carlson, a journalist and founder of Tucker Carlson Network.
> Russia is said to weaponize everything. The position of China is not (yet) seen in military terms. The emphasis is on economic competition. Any undeniable Chinese achievement must be declared to have been a bad investment. The directive thus reads:
“When writing about China’s achievements – question their purported cost.”
But we will be very polite if you’re 1) not that brainwashed and 2) reasonable.
Positive reports about China are rare to be seen in American media, you don’t think it’s strange.
Posts revealing the facts behind your propaganda on Tweeter/X or Facebook got deleted, you don’t think it’s strange.
Chinese users were banned on social media for no reason, you don’t think it’s strange.
Chinese quorans are upset and disappointed about this, because no matter how detailed we tried to prove China is not what you thought, what replies I frequently received is: it’s China’s propaganda.
OK, fine, whatever.
Several days ago, I met a guy here, his argument is, China DID genocide Uyghurs, because he has evidences. I checked his evidences only to find they are reports on some mainstram media.
Firstly I told him, although those reports had “revealed” some CCP documents, but it is about the vocational education records (background information: Chinese farmers do not own large peice of land, so they are not able to be rich on their small piece of land due to huge polulation, and they usually don’t have chances to work in cities due to their economic status), and this is a proverty-eradication program initiated by government. However, MSM like NYT took it as an evidence of “forced labour”, LMAO, this program is nation wide, not just in Xinjiang but to all Chinese in lower income levels. Obviously he didn’t know this background.
He said although he can’t read Chinese, he can verify the information via translation.
Then I told him 1) what you can verify is the translation, not the truth, 2) this is called selective appropriation , translation usually used to project negative images in news reports, these are academic conclusion in communication studies and I have a degree in this area.
He said he can’t verify my education background.
Then I suggested him to read some of the leading scholars in this area.
This is just a simple version of what happened.
The fact is, during the course, I’m annoyed by his stubbornness and arrogance, and his attitude rejecting any polite argument, then I lost control, calling him brainwashed, stupid, uneducated.
See, this is a typical case of Chinese quorans being “strangely aggressive”.
This is in the era when computers broke the $1,000 price so a lot of people with limited skills were getting them.
At that time, I made PC clones, and sold/serviced them (and any other brands) in the local area. Think: small town.
The PCs we sold were all with home delivery and setup. That saved so much hassle (for us and our clients). At least when we left they could dial up and get online and surf the internet. Usually! One client it just wouldn’t work. Wrong password error no matter how many times he tried.
Finally, we got the ISP to tell what password he was trying to use. Let’s say it was ABC, the correct one. When we setup it up with logged in fine. Saved the password. So all he had to do was click connect.
But what he did was add ABC to the password field. So his first attempt to login was with ABCABC then ABCABCABC. Each time he tried he just appended his correct password onto a long string of correct passwords.
Computer were new… that is an easy thing to do. And the in home setup and service got us past a lot of those kinds of issues.
It wasn’t uncommon when at someone’s house for service (not a new one) the client would want me to clean up the hard disk. Kinda like go through their folders and ask “do you want this?” and if not click delete.
Sometimes they would mention it would be best to avoid a specific folder or so.
So, this guy asks me to clean up his folders…. and we’re going through one by one. Now, I am not a prude and could careless if you have porn on your computer.
But, I click a folder and the screen fills with adult images…. of my client sitting next to me and others some of whom I recall knowing! Now, that is really something I don’t want to see! I think my client was also a little more than embarassed.
The Spiritual Connection of Cats | Why Did GOD put a CAT in your life ?
I posted a comment / answer on Quora, and it was deleted. The space was a “Warfare” space, and was very heavily “Pro-America”. The same thing, that you all understand if you were brought up in the USA… America is the best, and the toughest and the king of the world… yeah. Sure.
This answer was declined. Posting here. If you know the reasons for it being declined Please inform me.
China is a peaceful nation.
But, it is NOT stupid.
…
The United States has thrown EVERYTHING at China. And I do mean EVERYTHING.
From “color revolutions” inside of China, to “color revolutions” in all the nations surrounding China. From undersea excursions and conflicts, to near-space satellite warfare. From cyber warfare, to bio-warfare attacks. From managed famines to lawfare assaults. From efforts designed to collapse the Chiense banking industry to efforts to collapse the Chinese real estate industry.
It’s been full spectrum and absolute.
But not reported in the “news” of the West.
…
Instead we hear of submarines ramming undersea mountains, freak geomagnetic storms, the “apparent random” firings of Naval Commanders, and the Secretary of the Navy. We read (in the West) about Chinese “warmongering” a build up for a “Taiwanese invasion”.
All this interspersed about how Putin has brain cancer, and how Russia is running out of ammo. We read about how Xi Peng is going to be disposed and how the poor downtrodden people of China are going to rise up for “democracy” and Freedom”.
…
Info war is in full swing.
There is ZERO credibility in Western “news” media. Today it is so outrageous and comically fake and ridiculous that it is amazing that these tabloids are still able to have people that watch and read their content.
…
So… Yeah. It’s full spectrum. EVERYTHING.
Of course…
The clueless in the West would believe the fake narratives of Putin losing, China collapsing, and America remaining strong. They will believe that COVID was fake, or if it was something of concern, then it was “China’s fault” for one reason or the other. That’s the narrative, and that’s want the oligarchy expects Westerners to believe.
…
The United States is a feudal plutocracy.
While China is military-based meritocracy.
…
And the question is…
“Why is China preparing for a war with the United States”?
Answer…
China must. China owes it to it’s people. China has a responsibility to its people to expect the best, but prepare for the worst… and prepare they ARE.
…
Oh, it’s just like the United States is throwing EVERYTHING at China, China is preparing with EVERYTHING as well.
And, let me tell you all…
They don’t read American / Western “news”.
They know what is REALLY going on.
…
So China is ready.
If you are a consumer of Western “news” you will be unaware of the following facts, but you do need to brace yourself for the realities.
Were the USA, either directly or through proxy, attacks China… China will throw nuclear warheads at American cities and military installations.
Oh, sure. China has a “no first use policy” in regards to nuclear weapons.
But within the FORMAL WORDING of this (particular) policy is one sentence that you all should all pay attention to…
“…if attacked… China reserves the right … to use every means at its disposal … to attack the nation that attacks it.”
For some reason, the Western “news” media glosses over this sentence.
Perhaps they cannot read Chinese, or simply just cut and paste their “news articles” directly out of Langley VA.
Whatever, the Chinese FORMAL STATEMENT regarding nuclear weapons use is very carefully worded, and intentionally ambiguous enough to give the most aggressive neocons pause to consider.
…
So, yeah. China is ready.
It was ready in 1950–53 when it defeated the United States in Korea, and is ready today as it dishes EVERYTHING thrown at it, right back to the United States to consume.
…
At this point in time…
The United States and China are like a married couple living together weeks prior to a divorce. The United States is cheating, bending words, manipulating systems… and thinking “They’ll never find out”.
While China, is playing it smart.
Already has contacted the divorce attorneys, arranged the legal papers and made all the necessary arrangements. Just waiting for the time of CHINA’s choosing to terminate the relationship.
…
Quick summary
China is READY to take on the United States, simultaneously with it’s proxy “allies”.
China WILL use nuclear weapons.
China is above-peer capable with the best equipment of the West.
China is a military-based meritocracy.
…
Quick Note
The disinformation about China permeates all levels.
China is a military-based meritocracy, but the West portrays this reality as “conscription”. Which is disingenuous. It gives the Western reader a pre-conceived illusion of poorly trained, unmotivated troops. But the reality is something quite different.
…
I was going though my stacks and found other posts similarly deleted on the American website.
Such as this one…
…
Is ‘World War 3’ really on the horizon?
I can understand your fear and concern.
I hope to calm you down with a nice happy dose of reality. The biggest culprit in this fear is the media. Whether it is social media, or main-stream media. Media is filling your mind with fear.
What the American Main-Stream Media says
According to 99.9999% of the American government controlled Western media; the world is heading towards world war 3 out of necessity. Both Putin and Xi are “loose cannons” with a selection of mental disorders and are out of control in trying to rule the world. Putin invaded Ukraine out of greed and lust, and Xi Peng will invade Taiwan for the same reasons. They despise democracy and freedom and want to rule the world as a dystopian nightmare world where everyone is controlled by Tiktok and weather balloons.
The REAL answer – being under-reported intentionally
World War 3 is the climax of the massive period of change that the world is going though. It is a generational event, and coincidences with solar activity. It is as predictable as the orbits of planets, and the mass movements of animals.
This period of change is a rather long event cycle and involves change at all levels. Some nations collapse. Some nations grow. Some groups engage in battles, while others suffer economic hardships. What ever happens, it is not homogeneous. But rather an aggregate of minor events sprinkled over a multi-decade long time periods.
The build-up to this period can be traced back to the 1960’s where the major dominant power; The United States, began a series of strategic blunders that set the stage for events that we are now witnessing.
The actual pivot point for contentious calamity occurred in 2008 with an economic meltdown in the West, and the resulting frantic splashing and doggie-paddling that we see today all spawn from it.
The actual war occurred in 2019 though 2022 with was the Coronavirus event. This was a three tiered biological phased attack on China by the United States.
Other events during this “war” consisted of the the disastrous 2020 Trump Flotilla into the South Chinese Sea, the undersea submarine wars from 2021 to 2023, and the satellite wars of 2020 to 2023.
Simultaneous with these events are the generalized cultural, social, and economic collapse of the United States and it’s Western proxies, the NATO incursions and war in the Ukraine following the “color revolution” in Kiev in 2014, and the failed Hong Kong color revolution of 2018 – 2020.
While the West shrinks in influence, the East (and Global South) grows. Both Russia and China are major global powers in all measurements, and are generally immune from the boiler-plate of attacks, and manipulations normally used by the West.
Africa is completely changing, and it has shed it’s colonial slave role and embraced a role as the “new” middle class in a rapidly changing world. Along with this follows a rag-tag collection of power centers around the world.
The world is now has entered into a “reconstruction” period globally. This is resulting in new alignments, and massive failures of nations and societies that are unable to adjust and change with the times.
This period will be a long one, and I am afraid that it has only begun.
Though, I anticipate the end of this period around 2030 or so, give or take two years. … The main-stream “news’ is designed to incite and inject fear to control people. I urge everyone to control themselves.
The future looks bright for most of the world. It is change that we do not like, and those in power want us to fear it. Do not. The intelligent person recognizes this and takes appropriate steps for a bright future ahead rather than clutching on the past though fear.
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Resulting in this comment…
I see the “West” and in late-stage dying. The “dance of death” where the body contorts and twists and shudders.
Not only just chinese from China but also chinese origin from others even from Singapore.
I travel to US for a dozen times both business and holidays but each time my checked in luggages 100% checked and prised open plus hand luggage checked even if you go to green lane.
This prove one thing for sure. US had created so many enemies around the world that they are living in fear of daily terrorist attacks whereas chinese people in China are living in peace and harmony without any fear or concern for their safety.
When you approach American policeman, they are ready to draw their guns whereas when you approach a chinese policeman, their mindset is that you need help.
That is the difference between China and America.
Baked Lasagna
Ingredients
Sauce
3 pounds ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
3 tablespoons tomato puree
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
Lasagna
3/4 to 1 pound lasagna noodles
Butter
1/2 pound mozzarella cheese
1/4 pound Italian sausage or ground beef, coarsely chopped
2 hardboiled eggs, chopped
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup ricotta or cottage cheese
Instructions
Sauce
Put all the ingredients into a large cooking pot. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour.
Pass through a sieve; return to the pot, and season to your satisfaction. Continue to simmer until sauce has thickened.
Just before using this sauce, stir in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of butter.
Lasagna: Brown sausage or beef, then drain.
Boil lasagna noodles. Drain and put a layer into a well buttered casserole dish.
Add a layer of mozzarella cheese, then a layer of sausage or beef and a thin layer of hardboiled egg.
Sprinkle with grated Parmesan and ricotta or cottage cheese. Moisten cheese with some of tomato sauce.
Continue in layers, finishing with a good thick layer of grated Parmesan.
Dot with butter and bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes.
I am a Chinese, have studied in the UK and traveled to many countries.
For me, China is democratic – probably even more democratic than western countries.
Of course, I am referring to the original meaning of the word democracy – the power of the state belongs to the people and the people have the right to rule the government.
Nowadays, democracy in the west often refers to multi-party competition, where the ruling party are elected by universal suffrage.
But this approach has some significant problems. As voters are ordinary people who has no specialized knowledge on managing the country, the core competitiveness of the election process becomes the ability to publicize public opinion, personal affinity, and persuasion, which have little to do with whether they can actually formulate and implement policies well, but are more relevant to the resources of the society and the media operation behind them.
In the west, the rule of the people is in a single choice question of political preference, and the frequency of being able to make a choice is once every four years. If you are the minority voter, you will not be able to get a satisfactory result in those four years.
In contrast, China’s “democracy” works like this:
1. A huge system of officials that everyone can enter by studying and taking exams – from the smallest local township government to the central government, all within the same pyramid-tested promotion system. For Chinese graduates, it is a very common career selection to pick an official position related to their major from an open government list, take a test on logic and issue processing skills, and become a government official. All newcomers need to start from the basic positions and get enough practical results before they are internally elected with promotion.
2. The criterion value of the government affairs is “people first”. The most important judgment dimension is whether they can improve the life of the majority and satisfy the people.
3. Public opinion monitoring and feedback mechanism. All levels of government have set up channels to receive public opinion, such as emails, petitions reception, or social media. For every actual problem, the government must give feedback or specific plans within a period of time; and after a period of time, they must do regular follow-up visits to ensure that the problem has been solved satisfactorily. All this is counted in the KPIs of government staff. If the people are not satisfied with this government’s response, they can complain to a higher level of government, which has absolute power over the next level of government, and the government department complained against will be penalized and monitored.
In China, the rule of the people is in the government’s “people first” evaluation criteria, and in the mechanism of feedback and resolution of specific issues that are highly valued. However, if your opinion is detrimental to the interests of the underprivileged, or if you are not looking for a solution, but simply venting your negative feelings and trying to get more people to share your negative feelings, then your opinion might be refused or ignored, or be deferred in to future considerations.
I think this is why people say: in the west, you can change the government, but you can’t change the policies; however in China, you can’t change the government, but you can change the policies.
Of course, both mechanisms have their own drawbacks. For example, since the core competence of universal suffrage is the ability of influencing public opinion, so having control of the media and enough money is almost equivalent to having a high probability of obtaining the highest power in the country; in China, it is very difficult to make the complex internal promotion completely transparent, and it is not easy for the people to monitor inefficiencies and corruption inside the system.
But for me and at least 80%+ Chinese people, the current one party Chinese government is still very satisfactory.
As for the so-called “Communist Party is not the same as government”: in fact, the CCP is not the same as the Soviet Union type of “communism”, for example, China has its market economy system and is running well. Actually when there is only one political party, the notion of party advocacy would be extremely weakened. In the case of China, people would tend to feel that the Chinese system is more like a parliamentary system even within the government. China is a country with a secular culture, and ideology discussion is not really that important, what matters to this government council is simply about insisting with the people-oriented value, and making people living in better lives.
To be honest, I think that the vast majority of the world’s people don’t care about politics.
People care more about their own lives – whether they can live healthy and happy lives with the people they love, whether the society is fair, safe and free, whether they can enjoy their civil rights as a human being, whether their problems can be solved and whether their dreams can be realized.
Also, I agree that China is better for ordinary people, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to live in, but not for the extremely rich guys. If you are a rich tycoon or celebrity and has no interest in benefiting ordinary people, then the Chinese government might supervising you with very strict rules, you will have more freedom and power in the West.
But as for me, China is not bad.
Kirill Babaev: Here’s why the result of Taiwan’s election is bad news for the US
It will become apparent in the long term that China was the real winner
By Kirill Babaev, PhD, director of the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor of the Financial University, and deputy chairman of the Presidium of the National Committee for BRICS Research.
In 2023, the volume of trade between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait was $268 billion. This means Taipei traded more with its main adversary, Beijing, than with its foremost ally, Washington. And for Chinese business, Taiwan was a more important counterparty than the state’s key strategic partner, Russia.
These facts are important for an understanding of the current relationship between the two parts of China. They are inextricably linked not only by the commonality of language, history, and culture, but also by hundreds of thousands of trade and production contracts. And this may prove to be a decisive factor in the long-term struggle for the island between the great powers.
The elections in Taiwan on January 13 did nothing to change this. On the contrary, apart from pro-American candidate Lai Qingde’s victory (with a far-from-solid 40% of the vote), the parliamentary elections revealed the defeat of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which lost its majority and ten seats in the Legislative Yuan to the conventionally “pro-Chinese” Kuomintang Party.
The outcome has made the island’s power system somewhat unstable, suggesting that the main battle between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan is yet to come. However, the US has only one undeniable advantage in this war – the ability to pump its proxy with weapons and defense systems in anticipation of a violent conflict. China, on the other hand, has far more leverage. Thus, in the coming years, Beijing won’t try to solve the Taiwan problem militarily: on the contrary, it will attempt to turn America’s “Pyrrhic victory” on January 13 into a final US defeat in the next elections on the island.
In his first post-election comments, winning candidate Lai (who won’t officially become president until May) spoke in a peaceful way about Beijing and Sino-Taiwanese relations, without in any way trying to demonstrate a desire to unilaterally declare the island’s independence. US leaders have also spoken in the same vein, stressing that they intend to develop only “informal” relations with Taiwan, while continuing to be guided by the “One-China” principle.
As a result, Taiwan is now well aware that the path to independence is a dead end, as none of Taipei’s closest allies will endorse the move or recognize the existence of an “alternative China.” The path of maintaining the status quo, on the other hand, is the most unstable, because in this case the sword of Damocles of armed conflict between the US and China will hang over Taiwan, in which the island risks losing its entire economy and many thousands of its citizens’ lives.
The only option for Taiwan in the long term is a compromise with mainland China; some kind of full-fledged arrangement that will allow the island to maintain the way of life and economic system that it’s accustomed to, and that will allow Beijing to consider the question of reunification closed, or at least with a clear, if distant, solution.
Hong Kong may partly serve as a model for such a solution, but in the case of Taiwan, the compromise is likely to be much softer. Beijing and Taipei could agree on a roadmap to reunification by 2049 – ending a century-long cycle of confrontation. That plan could well lead to a union state along the lines of the EU or Russia and Belarus.
Of course, such an outcome would be good for all Chinese on both sides of the strait, as it would remove all risk of armed conflict or a ‘hostile takeover’ of Taiwan by the PRC. These are precisely the outcomes feared by all those who voted for Lai on January 13.
Only one country would be extremely disadvantaged by such a cross-strait arrangement, namely the US. Washington has invested too much in the doctrine of containment of China, in the formation of a chain of military and political alliances around its borders and a defense belt on the island of Taiwan itself, to lose this “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” Of course, the Americans will do everything in their power to oppose any kind of agreement between the two parts of China, whatever it may be.
But attempts to move Taiwan away from Chinese shores and closer to the US coast are geographically meaningless. As Beijing’s economic power grows, the importance of the Sino-Taiwan economic relationship will only increase (even if bilateral trade temporarily declined in 2023). The status quo that Washington has fought so hard to preserve is actually more favorable to China. It seems that President Lai Qingde will prove to be a much more balanced politician than the outgoing leader, Tsai Ing-wen. If this is the case, it may well come to pass that the January 13 elections were actually won by Beijing, not Washington.
Peter Man Comments
The author, as a smart PhD, should state the obvious. All Taiwan election results are bad for the US.
Once again, I will say something not echoing media platitudes. China is, in fact, conducting long-term strategic actions to weaken the hegemon, which will eventually collapse by exhaustion. This strategy has been applied many times in China’s history, and as a history lover, I will illustrate with one example, the war between Chu and Wu during the Spring and Autumn Era (771 – 476 BCE). This was the early Zhou feudal era when historians began recording state annals. Chinese annals in those days were known as Spring and Autumn, meaning a year. It came from the Shang, Chinese civilization’s progenitor, who did not have summer and winter seasons so spring and autumn represented a year.
Near the end of this era, the barbarian (culturally and linguistically non-Chinese) state of Chu in the south along the middle part of the Yangzi River became a behemoth. After making a strong matrimonial alliance with Qin in the northwest, which lasted until Qin Shihuang unified China, Chu threatened and made war on every state in the north while encroaching and swallowing small states to its east. The last bulwark against Chu’s eastern expansion to the Pacific coast was Wu, a small barbarian state centered around Suzhou to the west of Shanghai. Chinese annals recorded that Wu natives shaved their heads and tattooed their bodies, decidedly non-Chinese practices.
At the time, Chu had subjugated many small tribes and states between themselves and Wu, creating a buffer zone as well as a launch pad for future wars against Wu. When looking at this behemoth state of Chu with a hundred times the power of this small state of Wu living on the plains of Huai River, it would appear that Wu’s fate was sealed. Instead, over two generations, Wu would not only survive but defeat Chu in every battle, eventually capturing Chu’s capital.
One of Wu’s strategies was to light up endless fires in the buffer zone. Chu could not maintain its hegemony without reacting. Each time there was trouble, Chu had to send its army over long distances across mountainous areas, and each time Wu would withdraw into a defensive position nearby. When the Chu army, being tired, far from home and uncertain of their vassals’ loyalty, decided to retreat, the Wu army would ambush them and cause further damage. Thus, Wu, at very little cost, exhausted Chu (疲于奔命) and eventually defeated them.
The history of the Chu and Wu conflict is a much bigger story, but this illustrates how a big, hegemonic country with its fingers in every pie can be weakened from exhaustion caused by endless small fires. Knowing this, I’m not surprised that China is not using its weight to put out small fires. All this talk of China helping America cool things down in the Middle East or West Asia is just wishful thinking.
Another thing that China definitely should be aware of and which I have always averred, the US and Japan will not intervene militarily should the PLA decide to land in Taiwan. Chang Ya-chung, the deep blue KMT member who advocates immediate negotiations with China for peaceful reunification, said as much in a recent interview.
In short, Stop dreaming anyone will come and rescue us in a war with mainland China. If there is war, Taiwan will be destroyed like Ukraine. I guarantee not a single GI will die for you. Why not? Because their opponent will be the PRC, a well-armed nuclear state, America is not that stupid. They will tell you all kinds of rubbish to sell arms and use you as a proxy.
They will use you, the Taiwanese people, as a pawn and sacrifice you in a heartbeat.
So you better wake up and do what’s best for Taiwan and its people.” For all pols and pundits who paint Chang as a red communist trojan horse, he welcomes holding a public debate, but no one wants to take him up on the challenge.
No one wants that debate lest people learn the bitter truth.
Chang, as the principal of Dr. Sun College is well respected as an educator and well-liked by young Taiwanese. These well-educated young voters are not stupid. They voted en mass for Ko because they’re disillusioned with the corrupt KMT led by a scumbag who appointed an unwinnable nonentity as the presidential candidate.
I ran an Engineering department that covered military equipment scattered across the country.
We had specialised staff based out of an office building who were dispatched nationwide as required.
We had a good atmosphere. Staff worked hard and long as required and when it was quiet were compensated with additional vacation days and “under the table” days off. Overtime was not available.
For example – it was fairly normal for an eng team to leave home at 4 in the morning to be at an airbase for 7:30, leave at 8 pm and do the same the next day, and for as long as required. The company refused to give hotel accommodation, considering every base within the country “drivable”.
A new admin boss took over and a biometric system was implemented. A decree was issued that EVERY member of staff MUST clock in and out, and while clocking out could be any time, clocking in had to be between 7 and 7:30 am.
I fought it for about 6 months but eventually was told to toe the line or leave.
It was no longer possible to pay staff back with vacation days, official or unofficial, and the company immediately lost hundreds of hours of productivity with staff, understandably cutting back their hours, feeling unappreciated. As their boss (and a human being) I could no longer ask them to work the ridiculous hours they had been previously working, knowing there was no compensation available.
Another productivity masterstroke from the same guy was the removal of all printers from eng department, putting us on the print server located on a different floor, sharing with other departments.
The boss had previously implemented a rule that petty cash could only cover items up to USD 80. One day we ran out of toner for the color printer, had to print documents for a top level meeting.
The boss, wanting to impress by cutting stationery costs, had delayed signing approval for purchase of toner, ordered weeks earlier, so the cupboard was bare! I contacted the IT guy and explained about the meeting, who was going to be there, and that the boss wasn’t around and he nipped out to the local mall and picked up toner at a cash cost of USD 81. As punishment, for exceeding the 80 buck limit, the boss removed all printers from Engineering.
These things happen when people get promoted beyond their capability.
One, was a friend of a friend. He was actually a pretty smart guy, and did programing of some sort. The guy’s personal life was a disaster. His wife left him, he bought a car he couldn’t afford, then got fired from his job. He kept the car but stopped making payments, and hid the car so they couldn’t repo it. He was staying at my friends house for a while and he screwed that up as well by being a jerk to his hosts. So, he finally found a job as a programmer, and it seemed he was going to be able to turn his life around. His first day on the job, he sent an email to upper management, and basically cc’d the entire company, telling them everything they were doing wrong. >They came to see him, thanked him for coming in, and fired him. This guy is a total dufus.
The second is almost the same. A friend mine, never seems to be able to hold a job. She told me she got hired at a new place. She wanted to make her mark there, so sent the president and the executive a long e-mail about how they could improve the company by taking her advice, and listed a bunch of her suggestions. This, after working there for less than a week.. yup she got fired.
Snow fell in Texas and the whole metroplex closed down. School was cancelled, power outages disabled many households, and I found myself collecting fallen branches in our front yard to make a fire for warmth.
My worries about entertaining my five young kids for the day, however, quickly dwindled as my two oldest began to organize an elaborate project in the back yard.
“Come on, let’s build an igloo!” they hollered.
I thought, “OK, that’s not going to work, but at least they’ll be occupied for a while.”
Bradley, my oldest, gathered supplies, while Amber helped my younger kids get dressed in layers of their warmest clothes. Garden gloves had to suffice for hand ware, but nobody minded. Excitement lit up the house to where we barely needed electricity.
I went to work starting a fire in the fireplace and preparing a crude meal that required no heat.
I looked outside and saw the meager beginnings of a snow structure and, after feeling a bit sorry for them, thought, “This might be a great chance for my kids to use real-life problem solving skills.”
The next time I looked out, I was amazed! Someone had the idea to empty out the sidewalk chalk boxes and use the plastic containers as molds for the igloo blocks.
They worked all day on that igloo, eventually building it up to Bradley’s head. As the sun went down, they made plans to finish the structure the next day.
All my kids went to bed early, as there was really nothing much to do in the dark, and they were exhausted from their laborious day.
Then, my husband came home from work. His business never closed. He parked in the driveway behind our house and came in through the back door. Being so dark, he ran right into the igloo, got snow “all over” him and became irate.
He destroyed the igloo, claiming that the weather would soon become warm, the snow blocks would melt, the grass underneath would be saturated, resulting in a huge mud puddle and a ruined lawn. He then got a shovel and a flash light and spread the snow all over the back yard. The igloo was gone and I was furious.
That was February.
The crushing of the igloo had crushed my kids’ hearts, and when I stood at the window watching my husband with a shovel and a flashlight spread out snow to preserve his lawn, something else was crushed too. My denial — at how dysfunctional our marriage was — shattered, and other fits of his unnecessary anger over the last decade flooded my mind, just like that igloo was going to flood the backyard.
I filed for divorce in March.
That was 14 years ago, and I am now happily married to a man who would never dream of crushing a child’s igloo.
After getting rejected in his first interview of the day, he was naturally dejected. So he entered the room with a frustrated face.
He was hardly interested in the company profile and such was his mood that he wanted to take someone on.
Interviewer: Are you fine? You don’t look well!
Friend: I haven’t eaten since morning, I prepared for my previous interview so well and got rejected in the very first round.
I: So, did you prepare for this interview as well?
F: No! I was more interested in that company. And I wanted to give my best at one place.
I: Do you know trading?
F: No! I don’t!
I: Then why are you interested in this company?
F: For the money! Do you think all those standing outside know trading?
I: Atleast some of them might?
F: I’m telling you, they don’t.
I: So you are a student of geology, right? How do think you’ll be able to manage working in a trading company?
F: There is a novel named Liar’s Poker in which the male protagonist was a student of Art History and ended up getting trained at Salomon Brothers. He works as a financial journalist now. And yes, it’s not fiction, the guy wrote it as his semi-autobiography. I think I will be fine.
(He knew he scored there)
(After asking some basic tell-me-about-you questions)
I: What’s your biggest strength?
F: I’m very patient.
I: See! We need people who are dynamic and full of energy. I don’t think patience and our required qualities go hand in hand.
(This was like a tipping point for him)
F: Have you heard of Rahul Dravid? He is regarded as one of the most patient cricketer. Yet, once he had the fastest fifty in ODIs. When he played his first T-20, he hit 3 consecutive sixes. Just because someone is patient doesn’t mean they can’t be dynamic and aggressive.
(Interviewer gave a smile at this answer)
Result: Selected
UFC fighters were assaulted by the woke mob
Federal Reserve Chairman: U.S. Debt “Unsustainable”
The United States is on an “unsustainable” path with regard to its national debt and it is time to address the issue, Jerome Powell said in an interview aired Sunday.
The US national debt currently stands at more than $34 trillion, according to the US Treasury.
“In the long run, the US is on an unsustainable fiscal path. The US federal government’s on an unsustainable fiscal path. And that just means that the debt is growing faster than the economy,” Powell told CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program.
“It’s probably time, or past time, to get back to an adult conversation among elected officials about getting the federal government back on a sustainable fiscal path,” he said in the interview, which was recorded on Thursday.
In the CBS interview, Powell reiterated that stance, saying it was unlikely that a rate cut would come at the next meeting of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in March.
“I think it’s not likely that this committee will reach that level of confidence in time for the March meeting, which is in seven weeks,” Powell said.
The VC/NVA had dedicated SIGINT (signals intelligence) units involving in radio interception, telephone tapping, and code-breaking. Their members were fluent in many languages. In 1970, the U.S. 25th Infantry Division found a North Vietnamese SIGINT facility hidden underground near the Thi Tinh River; every single radio communication of the U.S. 1st and 25th Divisions had been logged, and the intercepts translated into Vietnamese.
In 1966, all 14 Vietnamese barbers working in the U.S. 25th Infantry Division’s base camp were Vietcong sympathizers. They didn’t cut anybody’s throat but they did gather intelligence.
The first B-52 operational losses of the Vietnam war took place on 18 June 1965 when two B-52s were destroyed in a mid-air collision, costing American taxpayers 20 million dollar.
In early 1970, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces made a short incursion into Cambodia and discovered huge NVA compounds containing: 4,793 small arms, 730 mortars, over 3 million rifle rounds, 6.5 million anti-aircraft rounds, 7,285 rockets, 124 trucks, nearly 1 thousand tons of rice and a telephone switchboard.
A report issued by the Pentagon in 1973 estimated that 35% of all enlisted men who had served in Vietnam had tried heroin and 20% had been addicted at some point during their tour.
By 1968, the U.S. had set up 40 ice-cream plants in Vietnam and 760,000 tons of supplies were being delivered every month. American movies, stage shows, color TVs, chilled beer, Napoleon brandy, etc. were readily available. Rear-echelon troops could imagine they were still back home.
Some 10,000 U.S. servicemen lost at least one limb in Vietnam – more than in World War II and Korea put together.
The number of U.S. helicopter lost during the war: 4,865.
Eight (8) million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, 4 times more than the amount dropped in all of World War 2.
The amount of ammunition fired per U.S. soldier was 26 times greater in Vietnam than during World War II.
For each artillery shell or rocket hitting its base camp, the U.S. 25th Infantry Division’s official policy was to fire 1,000 shells on the surrounding countryside in retaliation. (Talking about a rich man’s war, huh)
Lucky number 13: An estimated 27 thousands tons of unexploded ordnance were littered throughout the country at the end of the war. In November 2015, one unexploded 406mm naval shell was unearthed from a garden in Quang Tri Province, near the former Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Presumably, this 2,000-pound shell was fired from the battleship USS New Jersey.
14. Over 18 million gallons (or 72 million liters) of defoliants were used throughout the war, even now Vietnamese children are being born with horrifying physical disabilities as a direct result of the US use of chemical defoliants.
15. In 1965, around 42% of all chemical defoliants sprayed in South Vietnam were aimed at food crops, and the country quickly went from rice exporter to rice importer.
16. At the peak of their commitment, South Korea had 44,829 troops in South Vietnam, Australia had 7,672, Philippines sent 2,000, Taiwan sent 31 and Fascist Spain sent 13 men. Morocco sent 10,000 cans of sardines.
17. By the early 1970s, years before the war’s end, South Vietnam’s landscape was already pockmarked with an estimated 21 million bomb and artillery craters, covering some 350,000 acres in all.
18. At its peak, the U.S. effort in Vietnam was soaking up 37% of all American military spending and required the fighting strength of more than 50% of all Marine Corps divisions, 40% of all combat-ready army divisions, and 33% of the navy.
19. In mid 1969, the GI underground newspaper in Vietnam, “GI Says,” publicly offered a $10,000 reward for the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Weldon Honeycutt, the officer responsible for the disastrous attack on Hamburger Hill in May that year. There were at least 7 attempts, but Honeycutt managed to live out his tour and return to the U.S.
20. US Navy pilot (later Senator and 2008 Presidential Candidate) John McCain was taken prisoner by North Vietnam on October 26, 1967 when his A-4 aircraft was shot down over Hanoi. Upon discovering that his father was the admiral commanding all U.S. forces in the Pacific, North Vietnam offered to return him early, in exchange for his cooperation. McCain, however, insisted that standard military procedures be followed and prisoners of war be returned in the order of their date of capture. He ended up spending 5 and a half years in captivity and was frequently tortured.
3 of my kids were in a horrible car accident. 2 only had minor injuries but my youngest son, Joe, was severely injured. He had a brain injury and fractured orbital plane requiring immediate surgery. When the insurance company settled the 2 received $1500.00 in a trust until they turned 18. But Joe was awarded $35,000. The courts insisted the trust was a regular bank, which had lower interest rates, rather than my credit union. When the bank received the 2 trusts for $1500 we decided to put the money into CDs, at the time CDs were getting 8–9% interest. Then Joe’s case was settled and the money sent to the same bank. However the bank refused to put his into a CD, instead they put into regular savings which paid maybe 3%. My husband went to his business bank and had them look over the court order. That bank said there was no valid reason for not putting the money onto a CD and they requested a wire transfer to their bank placed all 3 into an even higher rate termed to end when each turned 18. As a result Joe had 65,000 dollars when he graduated from high school. The 1st bank tried to fight the move but the court backed us up. Their loss Joe’s win.
Ancient Romans Reproduced so much that A Plant Went Extinct
Ancient Romans and Greeks used a plant called Silphium as a super effective contraceptive. But here’s the crazy part: they used it so much that it actually went extinct. Can you imagine that? This plant was so important to them, and they relied on it so heavily, that they ended up losing it forever.
Its heart-shaped seeds are thought to be the reason we associate the symbol with romance to this day.
It was cherished by the Romans and held such a special place in their hearts that they immortalized it in poems, songs, and esteemed works of literature. Its popularity was so profound that it contributed to the wealth and prosperity of the city of Cyrene, located in modern-day Shahhat, Libya, making it the wealthiest city in Africa.
The history of silphium can be traced back to ancient times. It was first mentioned in writings by the Greek poet Hesiod in the 8th century BCE, and it was also referenced in the works of other ancient Greek writers, including Theophrastus and Aristotle. The ancient Greeks believed that silphium was a gift from the gods and valued it highly for its medicinal properties.
The Greek residents of Cyrene valued silphium to such an extent that they depicted its silhouette on their currency before relinquishing control to the Romans. The significance of this extraordinary plant was even recognized by Julius Caesar, who stored an impressive stockpile of 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms) in the official treasury.
It grew abundantly in the wild in ancient North Africa, particularly in the region that is now modern-day Libya. It had large heart-shaped leaves, tall stalks, and yellow flowers, which grew in clusters. It was unique in its flavor and aroma. The leaves and stems were used to flavor food and wine, while its juice was used as a natural remedy for a variety of ailments.
Not only as a contraceptive and in beverages, but Silphium was also used for treating a variety of medical conditions such as coughs, sore throats, and indigestion.
The plant grew only in a small region around Cyrene, which made it a rare and valuable commodity. As the plant became more and more scarce, its price skyrocketed, making it became more valuable and further increasing the demand for it. Despite efforts to cultivate the plant and protect it from overharvesting, it ultimately proved to be unsustainable and went extinct.
The loss of the Silphium plant had significant consequences for the ancient Greeks and Romans. Without access to this effective form of birth control, the population of these societies may have grown at a faster rate, leading to increased competition for resources and potentially putting strain on their economies and environments.
But the story of Silphium doesn’t end there. In fact, its extinction may have had even wider-reaching consequences. The plant was not only used as a contraceptive but also as a remedy for a variety of ailments. Its loss meant that people were no longer able to rely on it for these medical purposes, and they had to find alternative treatments. This had a major impact on the health and well-being of the ancient Greek and Roman people.
The extinction of the Silphium plant serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of overconsumption and the need to carefully manage our use of natural resources. It also serves as a reminder of the important role that plants like Silphium have played in human history, and the need to preserve and protect the biodiversity of our planet. So the next time you hear about a plant or animal going extinct, remember the story of Silphium and the lessons it holds for us all.
Today, the exact identity of silphium remains a mystery, as no specimens of the plant have survived. However, it is believed to have been related to the fennel or giant fennel plant, and its medicinal properties are thought to have been due to a resinous substance contained within the plant. The legacy of silphium can still be seen in ancient artwork and writings, which depict the plant and its many uses.
I was investigated by CID, are you selling drugs? Are you working in a strip club? Are you dating men who give you money?
A rumor that I was sleeping with the Post Commanding General went around my unit.
I was placed on night shift, and every crosswalk duty for a month.
My promotion paperwork for an upcoming board disappeared.
Keep in mind this was at Ft. Benning GA in 1997, I was an MP (military police)
The” war on drugs” was still around and the perception in the news was that the only African Americans who drove luxury cars were drug, that was the “obvious” conclusion.
My Platoon sergeant finally pulled me into his office and asked “private, how in the hell can you afford a brand new Mercedes!” I told it was 7 years old, she just looked good, it was the entry level Mercedes so was affordable and my payments were about 125.00 a month (can’t remember exact amount).
He sat back and just laughed, and said “ok that makes sense”
Now remember this was 1997, AOL was just coming out so an online search was not possible. And it never occurred to the big heads in CID to ask me how much I paid for the car, how old was it, all the questions my platoon Sergeant asked me. I am still shaking my head about that.
I was more mad that people thought that I would sleep with the Commanding General, I was 22 so he was probably 50+ so in my young eyes he was oooold, like The Crypt Keeper old! ROFL!
I have always driven a MB since, have two in the garage now.
This is the same prejudicial calculus behind the pogroms, lynchings, riots and destruction suffered repeatedly by Chinese communities around the world over the last few centuries.
In Indonesia, formerly known as Batavia, it has happened repeatedly, and it will happen again.
In Malaysia, the Emergency eventually led to depopulation of the Chinese through the forced Separation of Singapore, and the implementation of race-specific policy to encourage emigration through the clever use of Singapore as a relief valve.
In America, a massive wave of violence against Chinese immigrants beginning in the 1870s culminated in the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Scott Act, and the Geary Act in the 1880s-1890s. There were massive celebratory demonstrations in California each time an act was passed.
YELLOW PERIL became a crystallized phrase in the press at the turn of the 20th century.
Chinese in America were bottom of the ladder, and treated worse than vermin.
Fast forward to the 21st century and the same attitudes persist. If the US could, it would have bombed Beijing or Shanghai like Gaza is being pounded today, and insist it isn’t a genocide.
Considering what his ancestors perpetrated repeatedly, Tom exhibited nothing more than rude antics, part of the election gameplan in a crucial “winner takes all” Presidential election year.
What we must bear in mind is the naked prejudice revealed and confirmed by the performance, and how the same sentiment can rapidly boil over into hate that require bloodletting to calm.
We should all make preparations for war in East Asia in the coming decade.
BULLETIN: EUROPEAN COUNTRY ISSUES NOTAM FOR “UNPLANNED MILITARY ACTIVITY NECESSARY TO PROTECT NATIONAL SECURITY”
We now have an precise date window for the outbreak of World War 3 in Europe. A country has issued a NOTAM for “Unpanned military activity necessary to protect national security.” This LIFE-SAVING content is now open to the General Public —
Poland has issued a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) involving the ENTIRE eastern 1/4 of the country of Poland from Gdansk in the north to the southern tip of the country, including the border with Belarus and Ukraine.
Specifically, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (PANSA) in Coordination with the Polish Air Force has Introduced a Notice-to-Air-Missions (NOTAM) from February 5th to May 5th for the entire East of the Country on the Border with Ukraine due to the reported possibility of Unplanned Military Actions related to ensuring National Security.
The NOTAM requires any Civilian Aircraft which is Operating inside of the Zone to remain in Radio Contact with Flight Authorities and to Activate their Transponder as to prevent their Disruption of Increased Activity by Military Aircraft.
Hal Turner Analysis
It seems to me, as a guy with average intellect, the only reason Poland would do this is because they KNOW there will be a NATO entry into the Russia-Ukraine war during this specific time period, and as soon as that entry begins, war between NATO and Russia will ensue. The NOTAM was issued yesterday and began yesterday, February 5, so WE ARE ALREADY IN THE WINDOW for the start of actual World War 3.
Also, as a regular guy with average intellect, this notice tells me they don’t yet know the specific date, but they know the window of time, which, to me, means when this comes, it will happen like a lightning bolt from the sky. I suspect we, the general public, will have NO WARNING AT ALL.
For weeks now, European countries have been telling their citizens to stock-up on Prescription medicines they may need to live. Many people found this advice curious; after all, why would there be a need to do something like that? Now, we seem to know why.
It looks to me as though they have been planning a NATO entry into the Ukraine war for quite some time, and they’re trying to prep the public for the war that NATO is going to cause.
In addition to countries in Europe telling their people to stock up on Prescription medicines, other nations, like Sweden and the UK, have been openly telling their citizens to “prepare for war” with emergency food, water, medicine, fuel, flashlights, batteries and portable radios for news.
So, it seems to me, the writing on the wall is now blazingly clear.
As all readers may recall, Russia made plain at the start of their Special Military Operation (SMO) into Ukraine, that if NATO chose to enter the conflict, Russian conventional forces are NOT comparable to NATO. Russia admitted that from the start.
Russia then also made clear that “We are a nuclear power, and our abilities in this area are superior to NATO.” Russia finished by saying, “If NATO declares Article 5 Collective Self Defense against Russia, it will be a war that no one will win.”
Those words . . . . “a war no one will win” is a nuclear war.
So we are now in the window for the outbreak of actual nuclear war, from right this minute, until May 5.
I earnestly hope my readers have stocked-up on Emergency food, water, medicines, an electric generator with stored fuel to run it, so as to have electricity for refrigerators, freezers, maybe some light.
We are OUT OF TIME. You have to possess these things NOW or get what you can IMMEDIATELY.
As I mentioned earlier, it seems to me we will have ZERO warning about this. When it begins, it will likely escalate so fast, none of us will have any time to react.
If you don’t have your emergency supplies before this breaks out, there will be no way at all for you to get them.
The general public – who wait until the very last minute to do — . . . anything . . . . — will be in shear panic. Stores will be immediately flooded with shoppers trying to get their hands on anything they can. It will be chaos. Bedlam.
Store shelves will be wiped clean within a couple hours.
So if you don’t have your stuff, you won’t be able to get it.
Please, in the name of Almighty God, I implore you to get prepped right now.
You need:
Shelf-stable foods: Pasta, Rice, Dried Beans, Canned meats, Canned vegetables, Condiments (Ketchup, Mustard, Mayonnaise, Salt, Pepper, SUGAR), cooking oil, Jarred pasta sauces and the like.
WATER! A human needs 8 eight-ounce glasses of water, per day, to survive. If the nukes fly, the public water supply will become contaminated. You MUST have water stored. Not for doing dishes, or showering, but to consume and cook with!
Medicines you take to survive. For instance, my wife had Thyroid cancer and her Thyroid was surgically removed. But a human cannot live without Thyroid Hormone, so she has to take a pill EVERY DAY just to continue living. If she runs out of those pills, by day 5 of no pill, she will be dead.
If YOU or your family members take medicines to live, YOU need to stock up. Tell your doctor to give you a prescription so you can stock up. Tell him why you want it. And pay for it with your own money, because your insurance company WILL NOT PAY.
A generator or some type of small solar array with a battery. You need to be able to power your refrigerator/freezer a couple hours a day to prevent food from spoiling. Have spare fuel for that generator, but don’t store flammable fuel in your house. It has to be outside. And NEVER run a generator indoors. Gas-operated generators give off carbon monoxide gas which is LETHAL. You would die from the fumes within minutes if you ran the generator indoors.
COMMUNICATIONS GEAR: Get yourself a small, cheap CB Radio ($39) with a small antenna for your car or your house. If this thing happens, and I believe it will, our electric grid may go down. All the TV and Radio stations have generators, but they may go down too after a few days of no power. YOU have to be able to communicated with neighbors, friends, and the like.
Get a SHORTWAVE RECEIVER – small ones operate on batteries. They’ll let you hear the news from many countries around the world. You’ll be able to keep informed! Have spare batteries for it, too.
Flashlights for each family member and replacement batteries for each light.
The list is **NOT** complete, and for some of us, what we “need” seems endless, but these are the absolute essentials you need. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THEM.
I was working on a ship, we were in a relatively mild storm, and a line had come loose and was flapping in the wind. I sent the deck hand out to secure it, he was wearing a floatation jacket, to keep him dry, and keep him afloat, if he fell over board. There was a railing all the way around the deck, except for the stairway. Since it wasn’t a bad storm, he wasn’t required to put on a safety line, and to tell you the truth, back in the 1980s people were pretty lax about safety, and safety lines were not always worn when they should be.
Just before he left the bridge, I said, “You know what, we should practice with the safety line, when its easy to get around, rather than only gain experience when its dangerous”
He wasn’t happy, they were a pain in the rear, and got tangled in every thing. But he put it on, and just clamped it onto the railing, when a rogue wave hit, and washed him down the deck, and under the railing. I grabbed a safety line, clamped on, and started to pull him up. Another wave came and washed him right back onto the deck. I dragged him into the bridge.
We always used safety lines after that, in even mild storms.
We would take off a week or two around christmas to go visit family since we lived halfway across the US from them. Usually we would get a cat-sitter, but on one occasion, we didn’t have anybody lined up, and we were flying Southwest, which allows small animals in the cabin. I went by the airport to buy the special mesh carrier they require you to use as well as pay the fee for bringing an animal on-board.
On the day of travel, the cat is mildly sedated and attracting a lot of attention—people love animals in airports, and cats are especially uncommon to see.
While waiting for our connection, the attendants at the gate called us to the desk to inform us there was a family with cat allergies going to be on the same flight and to mitigate any issues, the family had opted to sit in the very back of the plane, and would we please mind boarding in the first group and selecting a seat towards the very front? Hell yeah! awesome, let’s do it!
So we aren’t the very first to board, the special priority members still got first dibs, but we do manage to get seats in the second row behind an older couple, so pretty good on distancing from the family with the allergies.
I’m holding the cat in the carrier on my lap while people board before sticking her under the seat, and at some point a passenger or flight attendant comments on how they love cats, at which point, the woman in the row ahead of us swivels to say “there’s a CAT?! but I’m allergic!”.
A nearby flight attendant explains that we are being seated up here to accommodate a family who also has an allergic member and that this woman and her companion are welcome to reseat in the back if it’s going to be a problem, but the cat will be confined to the carrier at all times, and they ask me to go ahead and put her under the seat in front of me, which I do.
“But, my husband needs the front row seat! His legs get cramps otherwise!”
“Well, you’re welcome to move back there by yourself then, ma’am”
It turned out she didn’t feel her allergies were severe enough to justify that. Her only symptoms I could observe during the flight were disdainful sniffs every so often.
I was very pleased at the respect paid to my cat, who was basically a ticketed passenger and had followed protocol, and I left the attendant a glowing review on the SWA site.
An amazing husband. An amazing father. Always putting his family first. An engineer. Smart. Smart as a whip.
At most things.
sometimes he does things and I don’t know wether to laugh or laugh and cry.
there was the the time he took back a new pair of shoes because the left one was too tight. The salesman with a deadpan face pulled the paper stuffing out if the shoe and said, try it now.
there was the time he got banned from the neighborhood gas station because he drove off with the gas handle still in the gas tank.
The time he jumped on his new racing bike but forgot there were no pedals. Yes I helped him up off the yard and died laughing.
so.., you get it.
I mentioned it to him once, for a smart guy you sure do a lot of not-so smart stuff.
He smiled. And shrugged his shoulders, ya, go figure, when someone’s smart brain switch turns on that bright, something else up there has to shut off.
When I still practiced dentistry, I was running tight on time getting to work, but I had to fuel my stomach first or pay the consequences. So I stood in line at Panera’s, only one person in front of me, when a woman dashed in just as the cashier called, “Next!”
To my shock (and the guy ahead of me), the woman dashed right on up to the cashier and began to place her order.
I walked over and pointed out to the cashier how the other guy and I had been waiting at least ten minutes, while this woman she was waiting on had just now flown through the door. The cashier had already started ringing up the woman’s order, so said cashier sheepishly shrugged and grimaced a half-assed apology, like, What do you expect me to do now, it’s too late. And continued on.
Entitled woman, in the meantime, yelled at me, “I’m running late for work!” As though that explained everything. To which I replied, “So am I! But I was here first, and now you’re going to make me even more late.”
She waved me off as the cashier went to get her order.
Now for the satisfaction.
As I walked toward the door with my bag of food, entitled woman stood at a counter to add sugar, etc. to her extra-large coffee, when the cup flipped over and spilled its contents all across the counter and onto her.
It may have been mean of me, but I said loud enough for her to hear, “Perfect karma,” walked on by and out the door.
Rarely, some people managed to survive the gas chambers and were not killed immediately afterwards. One such person is Gena Turgel and her story is more than astonishing. She survived three Nazi concentration camps and in Auschwitz-Birkenau was forced naked into the gas chambers.
Gena and Norman
She was 16 when her hometown of Krakow, Poland, was bombed by the Luftwaffe on September 1, 1939, the first day of the war. Norman had relatives in Chicago, but the family delayed putting plans to move there into action, and Poland was quickly conquered by the Germans.
In the Jewish ghetto of Krakow Gena lost two brothers fighting against the Nazis. She was then sent to Plaszow concentration camp, where she survived for two and a half years until her transfer to Auschwitz. There she survived numerous experiments conducted by Nazi “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele.
The most surprising part of her story is that she did not realize she was in a gas chamber until another prisoner told her. “Do you know what just happened? You were in a gas chamber!”. said Gena: “I never realized I was in the gas chamber… It must not have worked.
The “Krema 1” gas chamber at Auschwitz.
Here is how she described his path to the gas chamber,
“We went into that room with the stone floor and holes in the ceiling. We were shivering, it was very cold, and we were waiting and waiting.”
In Auschwitz, “the water was undrinkable and we lived mainly on beet soup,” she wrote. “Everywhere we went the horrible stench of the crematoria followed us.”
The time spent in Auschwitz left its consequences. Since then, Gena wore her perfume to forget the smell of the camp.
After two months in Auschwitz, as the Red Army advanced toward Auschwitz, she was sent on a “death march,” first to Buchenwald concentration camp and then to Belsen, where she shared a barrack with Anne Frank and offered herself as a nurse because of her knowledge of German. When Belsen was liberated by the British, she showed a young army officer, Norman Turgel, the hospital where she worked.
In October 1945, she and Sergeant Turgel were married in Lübeck, Germany, in a synagogue that the Germans had used as a stable during the war. She was 21 years old at the time.
Mr. Turgel died in 1995. Mrs. Turgel is survived by her three children, eight grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Gena Turgel died on June 7, 2018 at her home in England at the age of 95.
This story is true, but you don’t have to trust me: feel free to do your research on the internet.
Local grocery store where my niece worked for a while. One day I saw a sale on my favorite ice cream that I could not believe. It said on the sign 5 for $2.00. Wow I thought, that’s either a bad mistake by an employee misplacing the numbers, or just maybe the ice cream was out of date. I check dates and they were fine. So I grabbed five of my favorite flavors and headed to pay. I was fully expecting to pay $5 for two of them, which was still a bargain.
At the self checkout I rang them up and sure enough they were $5 for two. No problem I had taken a photo of the sign, and call the cashier over. I explained the situation and the sign. The lady then calls over a manager, who I explain again about the sign and the pricing. She does some button pushing, some things pop up on the screen, and she leaves saying she will go correct the sign. I said I was perfectly fine paying the $5 for two, but just wanted to let them know it was confusing. All went fine so I thought. They were nice and courteous as usual.
I get home and pack my 5 delicious pints of ice cream into our freezer. I was just curious what they charged me for the single pint, so I grabbed the receipt to have a look. Well, the only thing I could find for ice cream was that single $2.50 pint. Apparently the manager had deleted the other 4 from the que. I just got 4 free ice creams! I started thinking about it and I remember the employee had bagged up the ice cream herself as the manager punched away at the screen.
I called the store and explained the situation, saying I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. I was told well it was an honest mistake and they didn’t take food back, so enjoy the sweets on them. I most certainly did enjoy those free pints which seem to taste better knowing they were free.
Know what? I’m homeless. I live in the driver’s seat of my Chevy Aveo.
I got there because my mom owned the house I was living in and paying her my house payments. I lost my job and she immediately told me she was going to sell the house. Keep in mind that I hadn’t missed a payment, and I offered her my 401K, which was ten months’ of payments to give me time to find a new job and keep things steady.
I have severe depression and anxiety, and this threw me into a severe depression episode where I talked about suicide. One of my friends freaked out about this and called the police who entered my house without permission and forced me out and into a shitty hospital. (That’s a whole other story. I came out in worse shape than when I went in.) While in the hospital, my family came and got my keys so my cats could be taken care of. Instead, they took my cats (who are at a foster home right now) and wouldn’t let me back in the house. They found a flipper, who paid $8,000 for my house and sold it for $80,000 after throwing out all of my possessions, putting a fresh coat of paint on everything and remodeling the bathroom.
I was left with my car, and that’s it. A friend took me in for a year, but he wanted to rent out the room I was in so I got kicked to the curb. That was 2 days before Thanksgiving.
I currently work 2 jobs but still don’t make enough to get a place to live. (Yay low wages.) I tried to take advantage of low income housing, but after a year and a half of filling out forms, there just isn’t anything, so I gave up. I’ve heard too many horror stories about shelters that I would rather sleep in my car when the temperatures get to 12 degrees than go there.
Quit trying to blame the poor and homeless people for their problems. Most of them would gladly work to pay for their own care and shelter. Until you’ve been there yourself, you’ll never understand because you just don’t want to see what’s really going on in this world.
I’ve told the story before, but an ex-friend of mine called in a panic 10 days before her wedding, telling me the caterer had cancelled. I was the only one she knew with catering experience and could I figure something out for the wedding?
We worked out a deal. If she could hire me two chef temps to help and pay for the food items, I’d give her the labor for her wedding gift.
Big mistake.
I spent a week and $1500 of my own money (that I really didn’t have) prepping food I’d bought wholesale, under the assumption that help would be arriving and that I’d have the money paid back.
The help never arrived. She said they wouldn’t work for an individual. That was blatantly false, but by this point I was scrambling.
Come the day of the wedding, I was frantically trying to get my home made pasta, bread, meatballs, sauces and sides to the venue. The venue employees were absolute angels who helped out in any way they could.
By the time it came to plate the food, we were a well oiled machine and it was amazing. And they even sent me home, telling me it was in their contract to clean up when it was all over. (I later learned this was my job, but they had already figured out I was being scammed and felt so bad for me.)
Two weeks later, the bride and I met up to settle the food payment. In fact, she suddenly changed the story, and said she was there for her wedding gift.
What.
The.
Fuck.
When she figured out I didn’t have one, she called me a terrible friend and stormed out. I had a bad feeling something was wrong. I called several other mutual friends and they came to the cafe I was at within the hour.
We hashed out what had happened to us. In fact, we all had wedding industry or industry adjacent jobs/skills. And she’d scammed all of us for our talents and money.
All in all, by telling us someone had cancelled and could we please do this and she’d pay us back, she got
Catering
A cake
Photography
Alterations and all three bridesmaids’ dresses sewn
Most of the venue payment
Decor
Flowers
She got what was essentially a free wedding from all of us, by conning us all.
We did get our money back eventually, but it took small claims court, a debt collector, and a few years of frustration.
Baked Ravioli and Cheese
Ingredients
1 (50 count) package frozen cheese ravioli
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups cubed American cheese
3/4 cup crushed potato chips (optional)
Instructions
Cook ravioli according to package directions; drain.
Meanwhile, for sauce, melt butter in a large saucepan. Stir in flour. Add milk; cook and stir until slightly thickened and bubbly.
Add cheese; heat and stir until cheese is melted.
Salt and pepper to taste. Add cooked ravioli; stir gently.
Spoon into an 8 inch square baking dish.
Sprinkle crushed potato chips over.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes or until edges bubble and top is golden brown.
I was in my 9th grade math class. One of my best friends brothers (he’s a year older than me) was sitting next to me. In front of me was another guy and we were in the back of the class in the corner.
The three of us are shooting crap, talking and messing around. We had finished an assignment and had a few minutes.
All of a sudden our principal comes over the loudspeaker.
“Teachers and students. I don’t know how to even start to say this. There’s been a shooting at Columbine.”
Everyone in the class went silent.
“We are on lockout until further notice. No one is to leave the school grounds and students who are off campus will not be allowed back in. Please, turn on the TV’s in your rooms for more information. I don’t know how many times I can say this out loud.
We are safe. Pray for Columbine.”
We were all in shock.
Columbine High School was about 10 miles from our high school.
My dad worked at Leawood Elementary, 2 blocks down the street, where the first kids ran.
Now, my dad normally worked nights, but he worked that day (and I don’t know why, maybe his boss was a closeted pot head, all I know was my dad was there that day.)
My dad was my first thought, since they didn’t know what was actually going on yet. Is my dad okay?!? What’s going on?
My second thought was about my mom. She worked at the central district office. What in the world was going on there? Then, my thoughts turned to my friends. Names I was lucky to not hear later on the news.
I know this sounds like it took minutes to think of all of this, but it was mili-seconds.
The whole class was in shock when the TV was on.
It showed the building that I had driven by every Friday night to take my dad dinner (Columbine). Another building….that my dad was in. The kids running away from the building with their heads covered.
We were all staring at the TV. Hoping that we’d recognize a face so that we would know our friends were safe.
Some kids cried. Others were in shock. No one spoke for what felt like hours. We just stared at the TV. Hoping it was just a dream, or a prank.
The bell rang, and we were dismissed to our next class.
That was the only time in my 4 years at my high school that the hallways were quiet. Once in a while you’d find a group of kids crying and holding each other. It was surreal.
I made it to the band room and was able to call my mom. It was a zoo at her office and my dad was safe, helping families who were coming to pick up their kids. He was in for a long night.
The day went on. Same thing. At 2:00 PM The principal gave us an update and let us know that we weren’t on lockdown anymore. You could tell he had been crying.
We went home that afternoon to watch the horrifying news unfold.
We know how the rest of the stories goes.
PS (if you’re interested)-I only had the courage to ask him (my dad) once about that day. It was about 7 years afterward.
I had only seen my dad cry 3 times in his whole life, and that was one of them.
He said that parents swarmed the school, searching for their children as the kids were brought to the school (I think by bus).
As the afternoon turned into evening, more and more parents were leaving, thankful that their kids were OK. There were parents of children who were injured that left with police officers and escorted to the hospitals.
There were parents whose children never showed up that afternoon.
My dad said it was about 8:00, one by one the parents were called into the office. They all knew what it meant to be the last parents there.
Some walked out crying. Some were in shock. Some screamed the most wretched noises he’s ever heard.
My dad was never really the same after that.
None of us were.
Abandoned $5.5 Million MEGA Mansion | Everything Left Behind
My father had a boyhood “best friend”. His name was Zeke.
He used to tell me stories. They would go fishing together as boys. They would do things. They would get drunk, and they would live their lives on “Polish Hill” a Polish-American suburb in Pittsburgh.
He was Zeke’s “best man” at his wedding. And he knew both Zeke and his wife quite well as they all were High School friends.
One day…
…I was perhaps 16 years old at the time, and having a long-distance, relationship with my girlfriend. With periodic phone calls, and weekend visits to her home in Lower Burrel, PA.
One day…
My father was crestfallen. He came home (from work) and was pale as a ghost.
It turns out that his buddy Zeke had an argument with his wife. It was pretty bad. And the wife took out a pistol and shot Zeke in the face.
BLAM!
It apparently blew most of his head off, and he was buried in a closed-casket.
It really shook my dad up, and I don’t blame him.
Now, myself, being much older… has had good long time “best Buds” Childhood friends dead… yeah I know what it is like.
Robbie… drug overdose. Marcus… Suicide by shotgun blast. My cousin Sincere’ … Coronavirus.
My brother, Daniel… I just don’t know… he doesn’t answer any e-mails. It’s been over a year now.
Life moves on.
People.
Life is too short to die over an argument. If you and your spouse are not getting along… then leave. No one needs to die over anything.
At the age of 39 I had it all. A loving wife, two fantastic kids, an apartment in New York City, a house in the country, new car, nice vacations and a high paying job as Creative Director of a hot creative advertising agency.
Everyone wanted to be me.
Except me.
On the outside I was the poster boy for Happy Successful Man Who Has His Whole Future Ahead Of Him. But deep down inside I was miserable.
I began to assault myself daily with that five word mantra. The one that so many of us begin muttering when they find themselves wandering through that unfamiliar, unsettling neighborhood known as midlife.
Is this all there is?
We don’t ask ourselves that question when we’re 25. It’s still too early in the first quarter of the game. We caught the ball on the five yard line and we’re making our way up the field.
But at 39, it’s halftime. Do the math. The average man is going to live till the age of 78. I was on the back nine.
I know — your actual mileage may vary. You could get killed falling off a ladder at age 60. Or at the age of 100 you could fall off a hooker. There’s a lot of latitude in The Middle. But somewhere between 30 and 50 you’re halfway done. It’s up to you to decide when to look at the face in the mirror and say:
Is this all there is?
No. There’s a whole lot more. And I’m going to tell you how to get there. Tonight I’m going to send someone to your house. He’s a teenager, about 17 or 18. He doesn’t know much about life — what teenager does? But he knows what’s cool. And after talking to you for a couple of hours, he’s going to be able to zero in on what’s a cool new direction for you to head in.
In fact, by the end of the evening, this kid is going to completely outline and plan the second half of your life. And that’s what you’ll do. Trust me, it will be cool.
What’s that you say? That’s the dumbest damn thing you ever heard? Why should you let some teenage kid with no world experience plan the second half of your life?
My answer is, why did you let him plan the first half?
This rut that you’re stuck in, this life that you’re trapped in, who planned it? Not you. Not the YOU you are now. Most of us form our life’s plans shortly after high school. Maybe we’re 16, maybe we’re 23, but for the most part we’re still kids. And then once we make a plan, we stick with it.
That was my insight. I was pushing 40 and still living the dream of some teenage kid.
That kid didn’t exist anymore, and yet I was still following the path he laid out for me. Most kids can’t project past next Saturday, much less conjure up what your life could be like 25 years down the road.
That was the moment I decided that the 40 year old me should start planning the life of the 60 year old me and beyond.
I was at the top of the ladder, and I suddenly realized I didn’t need one more rung. I wanted to find a new ladder.
I did. Climbing that ladder was at times terrifying, but never boring. Today I have all the things I had at the age of 39 and more. But this time around I’m deliriously happy with who I am and where I am. I still have dreams for the future, but I no longer wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and ask is this all there is?
My Act Two was conceived, written, produced, and directed by an adult. And I’m grateful for the insight that convinced him to take on the job.
EDIT – JANUARY 30, 2017: Dear People of Quora. I am overwhelmed by your response to my post. Not because the number of views and upvotes have skyrocketed, but because most of the comments and the private messages have asked me for more. Lots more.
One commenter, Traci Amick, said it like this: “Marshall, Marshall, Marshall… You can’t leave us hanging! When you made the decision to redirect and change your life what and how did you do it?”
There was a reason I left you hanging. I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, let me give you a brief (and I do mean brief) overview of what happened after the light bulb went on.
Here I was, pushing 40. At my core I’m a writer, but somewhere along the way the ad agency that hired me to write ads promoted me and paid me more money to stop writing and start managing. I wore suits, spent a lot more face time with clients, and I supervised a hundred other people. And while it was often gratifying, I realized that my career had stolen the one thing I loved doing most. Writing.
My solution was to start writing on my own. Over the course of countless nights and weekends I wrote a play, Squabbles, a comedy. Two years later it ran for eight weeks in a dinner theatre in Kansas City. (Since then it has played in thousands of theatres around the US.)
Shortly after Squabbles opened, ABC-TV asked me to turn it into a pilot for a sitcom. It didn’t fly, but now I was an accredited pilot writer, and for the next 6 years I kept my day job as an advertising agency Creative Director, and developed TV pilots for the networks on my own time. It’s unusual for a pilot to get picked up for a series, but two of mine did. I was 45 when the second one got picked up, and I decided to make the leap. I left advertising for TV.
I went to Hollywood, but it wasn’t fair to uproot my wife and kids to chase my dream, so they stayed in New York. I flew home as often as I could, which wasn’t often enough. Many of you asked if my quest for a new career wrecked my marriage. Just the opposite. After two years, despite the fact that I was on the fast track, I left Hollywood and came back to what was most important to me — my family.
There were some TV writing opportunities in New York, and I wrote a movie script which I sold and produced, and then — out of nowhere — a whole new creative avenue opened up. The Internet.
I caught the wave early. I opened Compelling Content, an Internet advertising agency, sold it five years later, and eventually zeroed in on the final frontier for every writer. A novel.
That took five years, and in 2006, I published The Rabbit Factory, my first crime fiction novel. Today I’m a #1 best selling author, with five books of my own, and the coauthor of the NYPD Red series with James Patterson.
I didn’t mention that in the original post because I didn’t want to be thrown off Quora for shameless self-promotion.
I’m not on Quora to sell my books. I’m here to exchange information, to share experiences, to give and take bits and pieces of life magic. I love this forum, and I’m grateful that one of my posts could resonate with so many of you.
One final note: Eight days after my original post I have a quarter of a million views, 3300 upvotes, and over 100 comments and messages. In the beginning, I responded to the comments, but I’ve reached the point where I no longer can. I wish I could, but I have to get back to my day job. Writing.
At the moment, I’m working on NYPD Red 5 with James Patterson. But this experience on Quora, especially your comments and messages, has made me realize that there are a lot of people out there going through the same mid life career angst that I went through. And that the 60,000 word version of my story just might make an interesting book.
EDIT 2 – FEBRUARY 15, 2017: One million views. Humbling to say the least (and I’m not exactly a guy who’s world famous for his humility).
The subject of life change is a hot button for most of us, but more often than not it’s the story of someone stuck in a dead end job who is looking for a better way. My experience wasn’t that. I walked away from a successful career that was stifling me, and today I’m thriving in the one I had been dreaming about.
I get a lot of head nods when I share my story in person, but I’m amazed that it resonated with so many people across this global forum.
Thank you for your eyeballs, your upvotes, and your feedback.
I was able to answer every direct message, but because of a Quora Quirk it’s extremely difficult to respond to the hundreds of comments. There’s no logic to the order in which they appear and no way to reorder them so the newest are at the top. That means I have to click on “comments,” scroll through five or six, then click on “more comments.” Eventually, I get to one I haven’t read yet, but as soon as I send a reply, the site takes me back to the top of the comments, and I have to go through the process all over again.
EDIT 3-MARCH 18, 2017: For those of you who wanted more details (really — it’s not my ego; some of you actually asked) I’ve expanded my answer into an article on Medium. Thank you for the encouragement. Here’s the link: The Thrills and Perils of Switching Careers
I rented the ground-level apartment in my friend’s split level for a few years. The guys who rented upstairs owned a party lighting company, and as a result they usually came home from work around 3 AM. I worked a nine-to-five job, and I’m a fairly light sleeper. When they came home from work, they’d occasionally turn on the TV, and usually fairly loud, which would of course wake me up, but most of the time I could drown out the noise by turning on a fan in my bedroom.
This was annoying but I could deal with it……until one of their girlfriends moved in upstairs. This nasty such-and-such had no problem with turning up the volume on the TV all the way, in the middle of the night every night, and watching for hours. This was the early years of flat-screen TVs and they had a big one, so likely it was verrrry expensive. When I knocked on the door to ask them to turn it down, I was told ‘this is when we get home from work and we’ll do what we want’. Even having my friend, their landlord, intervene, had no effect.
Well, a few nights of one or two hours’ sleep made me downright ingenious. I remembered that once, while microwaving my dinner, I had started vacuuming the floor and having both appliances turned on tripped the circuit breaker. I crossed my fingers that we were on the same circuit and during the next morning’s 3 AM showing of Willy Wonka, with the girlfriend screaming “I love this movie!” and turning the volume up even louder than usual, I turned on the microwave and the vacuum. Five seconds and poof! Blessed silence! I heard a little shuffling around upstairs, then one of them went down into the basement and reset the circuit breaker.
The power came back on, and so did the television. I waited about a minute before turning back on the microwave and vacuum. Poof! Silence! They reset the circuit breaker again, but this time there was no more TV. I went back to the most blissful slumber ever.
My friend later told me that they complained to him about the power going out because it was such an expensive TV and that could damage the electronics. I told him that if they kept the volume to a respectable level then I wouldn’t have to do anything about it, but I wouldn’t hesitate to if it happened again. The microwave/vacuum trick was only necessary a couple more times before they got the hint and kept the noise down in the middle of the night.
Chinese believes in owning assets and keeping a healthy cash flow. As a Chinese origin I do find western lease or rental mindset difficult to comprehend but it is a cultural thing.
Chinese people feel compel to own things and to not let others dictate lease terms to them. Westerners feel that buying assets when you can lease them makes more sense. But to me it is cultural. China is a 5000 years nation, the west like the U.S, Canada and Australia are merely 250 years or so. They are a warrior type mentality that fights all the time. I guess it impacted their mindset.
Chicken Scaloppini with Rustic Tomato Olive Spaghetti
The ingredients are married perfectly to enhance the chicken.
Ingredients
4 ounces multi-grain thin spaghetti
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 large leek, white and light green parts, thinly sliced (or 1/2 cup chopped sweet onion)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced fire roasted tomatoes, undrained
1 cup Lindsay® California Ripe Pitted Olives, halved lengthwise
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 egg whites
1/4 cup dried Italian seasoned bread crumbs
4 (4 ounces) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, pounded to 1/4-inch thickness
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
Instructions
Cook spaghetti according to package directions.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Sauté leek and garlic in oil 2 minutes.
Add tomatoes, olives and pepper flakes; simmer over medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, beat egg whites with 1 tablespoon water in a shallow dish or pie plate.
Place bread crumbs in another shallow dish or pie plate.
Dip each cutlet in egg mixture letting excess drip off. Dredge in bread crumbs to coat each side lightly.
Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add chicken; sauté for 3 to 4 minutes per side or until golden brown and cooked through.
Drain spaghetti; transfer to four serving plates. Spoon tomato sauce over spaghetti; top with chicken and garnish with basil.
Prep: 15 min | Cook: 15 min | Servings: 4
Nutrients Per Serving: Calories: 401, Calories from fat: 132, Total fat: 15g, Monounsaturated fat: 9g, Cholesterol: 73mg, Sodium: 683mg, Total Carbohydrates: 33g Dietary fiber: 4g Protein: 33g
I asked AI to make a Music Video… the results are trippy
Pol Pot (real name Saloth Sâr) was the dictator of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, taking power at the end of the Cambodian Civil War. As soon as he took power, He and his administration transformed Cambodia into a one party communist dictatorship. Over the next 4 years, he and his administration committed various human rights violations and carried out what is now known as the Cambodian Genocide. To go into more detail, Pol Pot and his administration:
• Forced the Cambodian population to work without pay.
• Made the Cambodian population live in the country side by forceful removing them from their homes in the cites.
• Destroyed Cambodia’s legal system and replaced it with re-education and interrogation centers. If they thought that you were guilty, you would have been very hard pressed to convince them otherwise.
• Caused much of the Cambodian populace to starve, many times to death.
• Killed anyone they either felt didn’t fit into their new society or deemed to even slightly be a threat to their regime. these included: people with connections to the previous government, Doctors, Lawyers, Intellectuals, Journalists, Business Leaders, Vietnamese Cambodians, Chinese Cambodians, Thai Cambodians, Christian Cambodians, Cham Muslims and family members of prisoners who were thought to be a threat to the regime. Even wearing glasses or being able to speak multiple languages could get you killed.
• If you were to be executed (which was very likely), you would have been taken to one the various “Killing Fields” and would most likely be killed with a pickaxe, so that they did not waste any bullets.
By the time they were overthrown during a Vietnamese invasion, the Cambodian life expectancy was about 18 years old.
As bad as rulers such as Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin and Mao Zedong were for their people, I believe no one was as brutal as Pol Pot was.
I feel like their motto put it best:
To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.
This doesn’t qualify as disgusting, but many years ago, I was involved with an Internet startup. They spent all of their time having meetings which achieved nothing, and were a complete waste of everybody’s time. One day, I was asked, no told, by the CEO to prepare a lengthy report on something that I considered ridiculous. I wrote 3 pages of it, and then decided to see what would happen if I didn’t finish it off, so I added 35 more pages of Loren Ipsum (Latin), and handed the report in. At the next meeting when everybody was present, I made a point of asking the CEO if the report was what he had wanted. He said “Yes, it was great”. I stood up, and told the entire room that this very important report that I had handed in, and which the CEO thought was great, actually contained 35 pages of Latin, proving that he hadn’t actually looked at it. I said “I quit”, and walked out of the door. The company went belly up 6 months later.
I don’t know if it was disgusting, but it was rather a unique trick. I used this a couple of times on drug dealers.
When I worked undercover in narcotics I would be asked to buy street-dealer weight in either cocaine or Heroin. The designer drugs weren’t around yet and this new stuff called crack was just making its way onto the market.
One problem every undercover faced was the hand to hand delivery of the drugs. During the actual purchase, you needed to be able to testify that you gave the money directly to the seller and they directly handed you the drugs. ( AKA hand to hand purchase).
Drug dealers were wise to this. When an informant would introduce me to the seller they would take the money but they would only give the drugs to the informant and not to me directly.
I couldn’t testify that I got the drugs from the informant. That would require me to identify the informant and have them testify. No way I would do that. So I came up with a cool little trick.
I would give the dealer the money and he would pass the drugs off to the informant who gave them to me. I would look at the package and say it was light (not the correct weight) and throw the package back directly to the dealer saying I wanted my money back. Drug dealers are not in the business of giving out refunds.
I’d move in close seemingly to get my money back, but we’d talk a little and I would agree to the light package if he would agree the next package would be a little overweight.
As soon as the dealer agreed, I’d reach out and take the package back directly from the dealer, sometimes almost pulling it out of his hands, thus completing a hand to hand transaction.
We would let the case sit for six months before we made the arrest, so they would not remember what informant walked me in. But my little hand to hand trick worked every time.
What is the craziest military tactic ever used?
Viewer discretion is advised… Imagine you’ve time travelled back to the 7th July 1944, and you’re now a squad leader on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands with the 105th Infantry Regiment of the US Army. As your cutting around giving the ‘grunts’ on the .30 cal Browing machine-gun their ‘arcs of fire,’ suddenly, multiple blood-curdling screams across the battlefield could be heard – BANZAIIIIII!!!!!
The Japanese have just launched a massive banzai charge, leading from the front are their officers, brandishing their samurai swords. Just behind the officers are thousands of Japanese soldiers with bayonets fixed, and as the sun glints down on the cold steel you feel the sweat beads across the forehead form. You lift your helmet and wipe the sweat with your sleeve as you wait for them to get in range. . . you wait. . . and wait. . . RAPID FIRE!!!
Your M1 Garand’s barrel is glowing red, the .30 cal is clattering away bursting your eardrums. As one of the enemy Japanese soldiers falls another one takes his place. They have now broken into your position and the hand-to-hand fighting is fierce. . . all of a sudden you’ve been brought back to the present, you don’t know why, but grateful that you’re now safe. . . I’ve dramatized, but I want to try to put you into the same position (‘foxhole’) as the defenders.
The Battle of Saipan and the US forces had pushed the Japanese back so far they had nowhere to go by 6th July, so the commander of the Japanese forces Yoshitsugu Saitõ made plans for a final suicide banzai charge for his soldiers and the civilians on the island. Saitõ said:
“There is no longer any distinction between civilians and troops. It would be better for them to join in the attack with bamboo spears than be captured.”
Why the Japanese soldier didn’t believe in surrender, was because they believed in the code of ‘Bushido’ the samurai code of conduct:
Honour was a samurai’s life. Upholding one’s honour through suicide was regarded as a virtue. Loss of face was regarded as an insult that had to be avenged. Surrender was unforgivable sin that resulted in exclusion from civilized society. Dying in battle is what a samurai aspired to achieve.
The Japanese would try to swarm the enemy in a mass frontal attack which the allies called a banzai charge. This was shortened from, Tennõheika Banzai “Long live His Majesty the Emperor.” This tactic was classed as an honourable suicide which was against well organised, dug-in troops with machine guns and artillery support.
The American soldiers/marines who fought at the Battle of Saipan were some brave men, they had “balls of steel.” This is what Wilfried ‘Spike’ Mailloux of the 105th Regiment facing the Japanese Banzai charge at Saipan, said:
“I was scared as hell,” said Mailloux, then a 20-year-old corporal from Cohoes, a mill town north of Albany. “When you hear that screaming — ‘banzai’ — who wouldn’t be?”
To me, the Japanese soldier’s banzai change of World War 2 was the craziest military tactics used.
JEFFREY SACHS FULL INTERVIEW ABOUT CHINA – U.S RIVALRY CONTINUE ? AND MORE
Oh my God. A deep madness.
Subtle Change in Ukraine Blame Means Deadly Trouble for Americans
OPINION-EDITORIAL — A very subtle change in the words coming out of the Russian Foreign Ministry signals the FINAL step before the annihilation of the United States. We have now reached the final step . . .
The wording used by the Russian Foreign Ministry was very subtle, but its implications are anything but. See if you can pick-up the subtle change in this excerpt from RT:
The US and its citizens are complicit in the deaths of the Ukrainian POWs who were killed last week when the Russian Il-76 military aircraft transporting them was shot down by Kiev’s troops, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, has said.
On Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee released a report stating that the cargo plane was destroyed using two US-made MIM-104A missiles fired by a Patriot air-defense system. The Il-76 came down in Russia’s Belgorod Region last Wednesday. All of those on board – 65 Ukrainian POWs, three Russian troops, and six crew members – were killed.
Russian investigators stated that Ukrainian troops fired the missiles from a staging area in Kharkov Region, not far from the village of Liptsy, some 10km from the Russian border. They based their conclusion on 116 missile fragments found at the crash site bearing inscriptions in English.
Responding to the report, Zakharova said in a Telegram post that US citizens “need to know where their money is going,” arguing that President Joe Biden and his administration have made Americans “complicit in a bloody tragedy.”
Did you catch it? Did you pick up the subtle change in the language they used? It’s right there in front of you!
Here, let me focus it for you:
“The US and its citizens are complicit in the deaths of the Ukrainian POWs . . .”
Then again, in a later paragraph:
” . . .arguing that President Joe Biden and his administration have made Americans “complicit in a bloody tragedy.” “”
This tiny and subtle change points the finger not just at the US Government, it also points the finger at . . . . YOU. And me! Individually. Personally.
This is a point I have made repeatedly on my radio shows in the past two years. I have earnestly pointed out that what our GOVERNMENT does, is being done IN OUR NAME.
Remember, this nation celebrates Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address wherein he posited that we have “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Ergo, when the US Government does something, it does it in OUR name. You and me.
The Russians have now made clear who it is they hold responsible for what the US Government is doing: YOU and ME.
You see, we . . . . you and me . . . . ARE in fact, to blame!
We sit back and do nothing while our government runs roughshod over the whole world. Sanctions on this one and that one. Military action here. Military action there. And whenever our Government engage in that activity, people we don’t know, in lands we’ve never been to or maybe haven’t even heard of . . . . die.
Oh, and while our government is doing all this crap to people all over the world, you and I sit back and do . . . . nothing. We don’t make a phone call to our members of Congress or the Senate. We don’t write a letter or send a fax. We don’t even fire-off an email. We sit on our asses and do absolutely . . . . nothing.
The Russians are now making clear it is YOU and I who are doing this. YOU and I who are to blame. Directly. Personally.
You know what? They’re right.
WE are to blame. We elect these people then sit back and tacitly approve of what they’re doing by our own, personal inaction. They slaughter people all over the world. They bomb countries back into the Stone Age. You and I sit back and do absolutely nothing. Or worse, we sing idiotic Beach Boys Parody songs like “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran . . . .” as if somehow what we’re doing is good. It isn’t.
A Russian guy I know cited US Senator Lindsey Graham the other day to make a very valid point to me. He showed me what Lindsey Graham, posted on “X” (formerly Twitter) wherein he said the following:
Then the Russian guy asked me “What if some member of the Russian Federation COuncil (i.e. a Russian “Senator”) Posted this exact message on VKontake (Russian Social Media) only changed the countries involved, like this FAKE SAMPLE:
FAKE RUSSIA SENATOR
In case the Putin Administration is wondering, it is abundantly clear to the United States and everyone else in the region, that the Administration doesn’t want war. But it will be difficult to tell the families of the fallen soldiers that the United States is not at war with us.
The United States is at war with Russia on multiple fronts through their proxies (Ukraine). Weak talk and weak action are putting our service members [in Ukraine], at risk. If the United States doesn’t pay a heavy price after the deaths of our service members, and the wounding of many more, then the Putin Administration is derelict in their duties to protect Russian personnel in harm’s way.
To the Putin Administration: Stop the weak rhetoric and respond with strength to protect Russian interests and lives. Your current approach to United States/NATO aggression is not working. Change while you can.”
Same words as Lindsey Graham. Same logic.
So I have to ask YOU, the Reader, if Lindsey Grahams words about Iran are good enough to warrant the US attacking Iran, would the FAKE Russian Senator’s exact same words about Ukraine, justify Russia hitting us?
Why not. Same situation!
You see, this is a big problem for my fellow Americans. We view the world as being ours to do with as we please. We never once stop to think how other powerful nations, might decide to use OUR logic, when dealing with . . . . us.
Now, some of you will react by saying “They wouldn’t dare.” Oh no? Why not?
And you would respond “Because we would nuke the living shit out of them.”
Really?
Because they can also do that to us.
Oh.
Yes.
Reality sets in.
And those same reactionary Americans who would say “They wouldn’t dare” would then likely say “They won’t, it would mean the end of the world.”
Yes. It would. And we would have done it to ourselves by the way we are behaving around the world.
Why should Russia sit back and allow us to supply arms to Ukraine, which are now clearly being used to kill Russians?
Why shouldn’t Russia tell the United States (again) to stop supplying weapons that are killing Russians and then add, or Russia will start hitting the United States?
Why shouldn’t Russia make it direct? Blunt?
Well . . . . turns out, they just began making it blunt. At the top of this Op-Ed, they have now begun blaming “American citizens.” You and me.
Where is this leading? Let me explain it this way:
What is the difference between “Killing” and “murder?”
Murder is the unlawful killing of an innocent. But “Killing” is allowable if it is “justified.”
For instance, if a guy is aiming a gun at you, and you do something which kills him, that is “self defense” and not murder, even though the guy is now dead.
So there is a difference between killing and murder. One may be allowed while the other is not.
Same thing with countries.
The U.S. is supplying weapons for Ukraine to use to kill Russians. Russia has repeatedly told the US and NATO to stop, but we are not stopping. ERGO, it would be “justified” for Russia to kill us in self defense.
Thankfully, the Russians have good morals and they know that perhaps the innocent American people ought not be harmed because of our evil government. SO thus far, they have not killed us.
I think the change in Russian Foreign Ministry wording mentioned at the start of this Op-Ed, tells us that’s about to change.
The official Diplomatic Corps of the Russian Federation is now openly, and publicly, laying the blame for the deaths of Russians, upon “the American people.” Me and you.
Having repeatedly told us to stop, the only thing left for Russia to do is to make us stop – by killing us.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has now begun laying the historical groundwork to justify exactly that.
By changing their statements to lay blame upon “the American people” they are building a record to justify killing . . . us.
Wise-up folks.
Unless we reign-in our wayward government, and stop them from running roughshod over the whole world, you and I __can__ be held accountable. You and I __can__ be stopped.
The clock seems to be ticking.
Now, you can either step up and start being an active and engaged citizen, and start telling your elected public servants to knock it off, or you can go right back to sitting on your ass and doing nothing until the brilliant white flashes start. Then you can feel sorry for yourself as you vaporize, except God already knows: You brought this on yourself by not getting off your lazy ass and stopping your own government while you still could.
No pity for you and me.
FEARFUL EUROPE! Europe Slows down De-Risking from China
I had my fairly new license and was driving my parents car when a deer darted out in front of me. I swerved and put the car into a ditch. Not hurt.
I find a phone and call a tow truck. Get back to the car and there is a police car there. I explained I’d stayed with the car for 15 minutes but knew there was a gas station nearby.
He gives me a ticket for speeding because in his opinion that’s the only way this could have happened.
Now this is a small municipal court for traffic tickets. My license was from my parents home 3 hours away. He was expecting me to just mail in the fine rather than contest it. He approached me before court to “refresh his memory about the event” and naively I did. He gets called and testifies that I was speeding.
So, I asked him where he was when the accident happened and was able to witness me speeding. He said he passed me going in the opposite direction.
So, I asked: if you saw me speeding in the opposite direction & saw me wreck my car, why did I have to walk 20 minutes to the phone, call police headquarters to report the accident, and walk back before you wrote the ticket?
The judge stopped things at that point & dismissed the charges.
This will not go down well with the electorate and, moreover, with the soldiers of the Ukrainian forces:
A poll published by the Kyiv Institute of Sociology in December found 88% of Ukrainians supported the top general. Zelensky’s approval rating, though also high, was considerably lower at 62%.
It is far from clear that any new commander will be able to improve Ukraine’s difficult situation on the battlefield without significantly more forces and weapons — precisely what Zaluzhny has demanded of Zelensky, adding tension to what was already a fraying relationship.
Zaluzhny’s popularity — both within the military and among ordinary citizens — makes his removal a political gamble for Zelensky. It also poses strategic risks at a time when Russia has intensified its attacks and Western security assistance for Kyiv has slowed. The general has built strong rapport with his Western counterparts and has often been able to advocate directly for certain materiel and seek counsel on battlefield strategy. … Both Budanov and Syrsky are considered favorites of Zelensky and Andriy Yermak, the chief of the presidential office and Zelensky’s closest adviser. Nearer the front, however, there seems to be little appetite for change.
“My personal opinion is you can’t do something like this right now — Zaluzhny is someone 80 percent of the military considers a good authority,” said Oleksandr, a battalion commander fighting in eastern Ukraine.
“For what is he being removed? It’s not clear. And who will replace him? Syrsky? God, I hope not. No one in the army likes Syrsky,” Oleksandr added.
The Bild publication writes that Zaluzhny wanted to withdraw troops from Avdiivka a few weeks ago, but Zelensky refused him this and on December 30 he personally went to the city to the front line to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters.
So all the coffins that arrived from near Avdeevka to Ukraine since December 30 are solely on the conscience of Zelensky and his passion for narcissism.
Avdeevka is nearly surrounded and any attempts to hold onto it will cost many valuable lives of soldiers for no discernible advantage. But, just like with Bakhmut, Zelenski wants to hold on to the city to be be able point his western sponsors to some ‘successes’.
My hunch is that, after Monday’s kerfuffle in Kiev, the decision to fire Zaluzny was still hanging in balance.
The change now only happened after the noeconservative destroyer of Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, had landed in Kiev.
When asked by a journalist whether Nuland had learned about Kyiv’s plans on the battlefield, she replied that, in her opinion, Ukraine would achieve great success.
“I have to say that I leave Kyiv tonight more encouraged about the unity and the resolve, about 2024 and its absolute strategic importance for Ukraine. I also leave more confident that, even as Ukraine strengthens its defenses, Mr. Putin is going to get some nice surprises on the battlefield and that Ukraine will make some very strong success,” the U.S. Under Secretary of State emphasized.
This hint does not foresee success on the ground but asymmetric operations within Russia or the Black Sea. More to the like of this which has happen last night:
Ukraine sinks Russian ship.
During a night attack by drones in the Donuzlav area, the Black Sea Fleet lost the Ivanovets MRK, built in 1989, 493 tons of displacement, armed with Moskit missiles.
Sinking that ship will do nothing to change the outcome at the battlefront. Nor would any attacks on Russia oil and gas infrastructure change anything.
Nuland’s remark also hints that the replacement of General Zaluzny will not come in the form of Army General Alexander Syrski, who is disliked by the troops for unsuccessfully holding grounds in Bakhmut and elsewhere at too high costs in men and material.
Nuland’s hint towards asymmetric operations points to the elevation of the Chief of Military Intelligence Directorate Major-General Kyrylo Budanov as a incoming replacement for Zaluzny.
Budanov has been responsible for some daring, if mostly unsuccessful, terror attacks on Russian land and interests.
Back in June 2023 the Economist explained why Zelenski might seek to elevate Bundanov:
Aides huddle close when the general speaks. Under his leadership, Ukraine’s main directorate of intelligence—HUR—has become a plucky, autonomous authority that punches above its weight. It resembles a gang. “Before we had managers, now we have a leader,” says one veteran officer. Oleg, an operative who has known General Budanov for decades, speaks approvingly of his ability to infect others with his fervour, comparing him to a snake “hypnotising you before he comes in for the kill. Restrained, measured, never panicked. You do anything he asks.” … As a confidant of the president—those in government call them kindred spirits—General Budanov is understood to be playing an ever-bigger role in behind-the-scenes peace negotiations. Sources say he is a conduit to secret talks with the Chinese, and he has also been in contact with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s mercenary Wagner outfit.
In conversation it is clear that General Budanov has been thinking hard about post-war Ukraine. Last winter there was talk of him becoming defence minister. He insists his only ambition is victory. Yet secret polls conducted by Mr Zelensky’s office show they are thinking about using the cult of their hero spymaster to counterbalance a perceived rivalry emanating from Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s likeable and independent commander-in-chief. General Budanov’s colleagues say they are convinced he is destined for a big political role once peace comes—if he lives that long.
To the TV producers (Yermak) around the former comedian actor Zelenski it is all about ratings.
Budanov may be good at marketing his image as a successful terrorist.
But he has zero experience of leading any size of unit in combat. You can not lead a company, battalion, brigade or army by ‘huddling close’ with aides. It needs long term strategic thinking just as detailed attention to all kinds of day to day logistics.
Leading an army is like conducting a huge orchestra through a four year long Wagner epos. Having played the first fiddle in a chamber quartet does not qualify for that.
I am sure that U.S. military is not happy about this move. While there were some disagreements with Zaluzny about the right strategies those were between military professional who allowed for diverting opinions. Zaluzny was seen as an experienced professional soldier. Budanov is seen as a spook who had never been in command of any real military. He well not be talked to at the same level.
According to one source, Zaluzhnyi’s senior staff are also expected to be removed from their positions.
With the new inexperienced leadership the situation on the ground will soon become a catastrophic mess for forces of Ukraine. There will be wrong priorities, miss-allocations of resources and large scale losses of men and ground.
On the other side terror attacks on Russian targets, industrial equipment as well as population centers, are likely to sharply increase.
The larger U.S. aim of all this, first announced as a 2019 RAND study, is still unchanged:
The study at that time recommended the arming of Ukrainian’s army as the best way to unbalance Russia. We have since seen the escalation of that strategy. The move from the battlefield to the realm of terror is a response to the degradation of the first by empathizing the psychological effects of the second.
The foreseeable outcome though is unchanged. Ukraine will be smashed, Russia’s power will increase and the global view of the U.S. as a reliable partner will be diminished.
Posted by b on February 1, 2024 at 14:48 UTC | Permalink
I exposed a huge scam by my local gas distributor (cooking gas).
This is a typical cooking gas cylinder in India.
As you can see (not very clearly though), on the neck of the cylinder, net weight and gross weight are clearly mentioned.
Recently, I read an article in ‘The Hindu’ that revealed that a lot of gas agencies/distributors/delivery persons in India are stealing cooking gas. They take out about 1–2 kg of gas from each cylinder and sell it separately in black. The loss in weight is too small for an unsuspecting buyer to notice. But in terms of money, this translates into a loss of about 60 INR per cylinder. The article cautioned everybody to get their gas cylinders weighed before paying the delivery person (Delivery persons are mandated to carry a portable weighing scale along with them by the Govt.)
At first I laughed it off. My agency was trusted. It would never do that. But then on a whim, I decided to try it out. When the next cylinder was delivered to my home, I casually asked the delivery boy to weigh it. The color on his face instantly changed. He started stammering, started insisting that there was no need for this because the bond of trust we shared! I immediately grew suspicious. I pressed him. He then started making excuses that he forgot to bring along his portable weighing-scale.
Luckily, I had my own weighing scale at home. I immediately brought it out and weighed the cylinder myself. The gross weight printed on the cylinder was 29.5 kg, whereas the scale read 27 kg. A difference of bloody 2.5 kgs.
The delivery boy started begging me not to register a complaint against him. And that he wouldn’t repeat the mistake ever again.
Apparently, this is a huge scam going on all over India. If you are reading this answer, please get your gas cylinder duly weighed before paying for it.
Not exactly fired, but we thought it was a great reaction.
After a recent merger between two rather large companies, it was necessary to reduce personnel, so each department was asked to cut staffing by a certain percentage.
To encourage volunteers, management offered to give a full week worth of salary and paid medical benefits for each full year a person had worked at the company if they took early retirement. And anyone who qualified for a pension also got the full pension as if they had not retired early.
One member of our team was about 14 months away from his planned retirement date when he would start receiving full Social Security and pension payments.
He had worked for the company for 45 years. After some simple math, we all strongly encouraged him to take the deal.
He got 45 weeks of full pay, a whole year of benefits coverage (negotiated with HR), his full pension, and they also bought out the almost two months of accrued vacation time that he had been saving up in order to retire a few months early.
He basically got a 12+ month paid vacation with full benefits. We will be having a retirement party for him on his original planned retirement date in a couple of months. 😀
I imagine that wasn’t what management had in mind when they made the offer, but everyone on our team was very happy for him to get it!
The Duran: NATO Crossed Putin’s Red Line and Russia is Ready to FINISH It
Yesterday, I was working with an Orthodox Jewish woman around age 25 on sparring.
Let’s call her Chaya. It was her first day training and I was taking her under my wing to mentor her a bit. (Yes, I have reached the level of being able to slightly teach others. Not much)
Chaya was very sweet, and found it hard to hit. She was so kind and shy, she found it so difficult to get up the anger to hit.
I was holding up the kick shield for her to practice on. (For those who don’t know, this but with punching)
She wasn’t hitting the body shield bag hard enough. She just couldn’t summon the anger needed. She kept giggling and being very gentle and kind.
I tried to rile her up. “Come on, Chaya. Imagine the teacher you hate most? Imagine being cut off in traffic? Imagine your air conditioner breaking on the Shabbat.”
Nothing. She just had no anger.
So I had to be a ***** and I knew exactly what to say. So I said “Imirtza Hashem by you, dear. Have you tried being less picky?” Which means “With God’s help by you,” in reference that she needs divine assistance to find a partner, something Jewish singles (especially female) hear ALL THE TIME AND IT DRIVES US ALL CRAZY! It’s condescending, it’s shaming and it’s really salt in our wounds. And we hear it from well meaning busy bodies all the time.
Chaya’s eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened with sheer rage. She punched the bag so hard, I was knocked back several steps. “See, I knew you had that in you,” I said triumphantly. “Now, you know you can punch.”
She delightedly thanked me and we exchanged worst date stories.
Sometimes, you just need some motivation and if it takes using evil, so be it.
No. But may I highlight a dirty trick by a phone soliciter?
I’ll take that as a yes.
A neighbor of mine was a saleman for Sam’s Club. The guy who makes a pitch to your boss, offering a discount to any of his/her employees who’d like the group membership, put on sales presentations at state fairs etc., cold-calling as well.
Then I moved halfway across the state. He calls me one afternoon, disguising his voice and acting as if he’s calling on behalf of some worthless telemarketing offer. Of course I, not recognizing him, utter some choice words before hanging up. He calls me right back, identifies himself and proceeds to ask me why I couldn’t be more polite in declining whatever it is that’s being offered.
I told him why. Said my peace and then we chatted about whatever he had really needed to talk to me about.
Many years ago I was in a chat room of a group with hundreds of members. Predominantly adults but, there were older teens. I don’t remember what was being discussed but, this kid (older teen) started making rude comments then started making bizarre comments about school shootings,violence and basically hinting he was going to do something. Quite a few people ignored it or told him he was being inappropriate and that he would be reported to moderator. Most in the discussion didn’t take it seriously. I went to his profile which fortunately wasn’t locked down. So concerning posts and was able to figure out the state, town and high school he attended. And his actual name. So I called the police in that town. Explained what I had seen, sent screenshots etc. While I was on the phone with a detective they got a call from one other man who had done the same as me. Surprisingly, the detective called me back a few hours later and while he didn’t give me many details he did say, that between myself and the other man they were able to locate the boy and that everyone was safe. I confess to stalking the FB profiles later and saw that he had been hospitalized so hopefully he got the help he needed. I worried I was doing the wrong thing but, I just kept thinking how hard it would be to live with myself if I saw news the next day of a school shooting and HADN’T called.
Candies in a box
“I know that I have less to live than I have lived.
I feel like a child who was given a box of chocolates. He enjoys eating it, and when he sees that there is not much left, he starts to eat them with a special taste.
I have no time for endless lectures on public laws – nothing will change. And there is no desire to argue with fools who do not act according to their age. And there’s no time to battle the gray. I don’t attend meetings where egos are inflated and I can’t stand manipulators.
I am disturbed by envious people who try to vilify the most capable to grab their positions, talents and achievements.
I have too little time to discuss headlines – my soul is in a hurry.
Too few candies left in the box.
I’m interested in human people. People who laugh at their mistakes are those who are successful, who understand their calling and don’t hide from responsibility. Who defends human dignity and wants to be on the side of truth, justice, righteousness. This is what living is for.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch the hearts of others. Who, through the blows of fate, was able to rise and maintain the softness of the soul.
Yes, I hustle, I hustle to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. I’ll eat all the candy I have left – they’ll taste better than the ones I already ate.
My goal is to reach the end in harmony with myself, my loved ones and my conscience.
I thought I had two lives, but it turned out to be only one, and it needs to be lived with dignity.”
Brilliant Anthony Hopkins
and free interpretation of Mario de Andrade’s poem
We had a dishwasher that wouldn’t latch, darn thing wasn’t more than 20, 24 months old. Called the repair guy. He “fixed” it, I paid the bill and off he goes. Well the darn thing starts leaking about two days later from the middle of the door at the bottom. So he comes back, takes the front of the door off. I can see the paths of the water leak from the “newly replaced latch” all the way down the insulation ( soaked by the way) to the spot where it leaked onto the floor. He informs me that we need a new door, over $450, we only paid $560 for it. So I informed him I wasn’t paying for a door, the latch was obviously installed wrong. Oh non, says he, the latch is fine. Oh no, say I, you broke it I’m not buying anything. So he leaves. I call the repair business office, they send a higher up, supervisor or some such ro lookat it. I show him the paper work, he looks at the machine and, Lo and behold the latch is incorrectly installed and the door needs to be replaced. New door for free, and no labor charge. He even refunded the work for the latch.
The greatest threat to the U.S. is your mostly brain dead population created as a result of 75 years of U.S. media propaganda and spin by the US media to glorify the U.S. and demonised those that refused to be submissive and subservient to them.
I have been a business mechanic of sort for years on end till my retirement, and in my view, the first part of any change is recognition and acceptance of the need to change! In the case of the U.S. you guys don’t even know you are in life support and that your U.S. economy is one humongous Ponzi scheme!
There lies the US problem. If you don’t want to know that you are haemorrhaging cash due to forever wars and you cannot afford your defence spending. If you refuse to accept that Chinas has lapped you guys! You ain’t gonna fix it! There lies your problem. Americans must be the most ignorant and naive people on planet earth! You media has made all of you believe in your so call “exceptionalism”
You still think Chinese lives in caves with bats and Russians are Slavic underachievers! And you are 10 foot tall genius! Many here in QUORA still thinks we are in 1945 when the 2 world wars ravaged all other major powers! And the U.S. share of world economy is 52%.
China and Russia don’t need to lift a finger, Americans will implode the U.S!
Please note that the antonym for Democracy is not Communism. It is Dictatorship. There is no logical contradiction between communism and democracy, as many in the US seem to believe. It is a ridiculous, gross misconception.
Is America a true democracy? In my opinion, there is no true democracy or true dictatorship in this world. Every country lies somewhere on a continuous spectrum between these two extremes. If America were a true and pure democracy, I should be able to look into Trump’s tax records and no one could stop me. Note I am not criticizing the American system, but only saying that you cannot call it a true and pure democracy in the sense of the word. It is just closer to the democratic end of the spectrum than some other countries.
I am from Taiwan, not China. I have not lived a single day under communism, but I have lived many years under an anti-communist dictatorship, and that was BAD. You cannot equate democracy with anti-communism. It is simply wrong.
It is very strange to me that communism is such a dirty word in the supposedly free and open-minded American public psyche, as if it were some kind of voodoo witchcraft. I find it totally anti-intellectual and closed-minded, not worthy of a true and free democracy.
I lived in a townhouse with one shared wall. When I moved in, the neighbors were a very quiet couple, never heard a peep out of them. They moved out a year later – and 3 single male construction workers moved in. They played obnoxiously loud music at all hours of the day and night. Complicating matters – I had a 3 year old, and was pregnant with my second child. So sleep was a need.
My wusband (nicer than saying ex-husband because he WAS my husband at the time) politely went next door to ask them to turn down the music – several times. It got to where they wouldn’t answer the door when he went over there. We called the police several times – and they wouldn’t answer the door for the police either.
The situation was wretched – and I began looking for ways to get the message across. One night – they left their garage door open during a particularly loud jam session. I had already gone to bed, and was wearing a huge maternity nightgown – because – I was hugely pregnant. I quickly snuck into their garage, and flipped the breaker switch. And scurried back to my side of the townhouse quietly. They figured it out the next morning. And did their party thing the next night – and I repeated the process. After that they left the garage door shut.
Around this time, I had the baby I was expecting. My wusband and I decided to take the kids and visit a friend for a few hours on a Saturday when we knew all of the neighbors were home sleeping off their Friday night party. Before we left, we moved both of the stereo speakers over to the shared wall, and turned on some super loud heavy metal music to share with said neighbors. And left. We did this several more weekends.
The construction workers broke their lease and left a couple of months later.
Many years ago I had a strange neighbor that lived with his mother next door. I did not speak with them but I would wave if I saw them to be polite.
A few years later I had fallen asleep on the couch and heard this weird noise by the window like scratching. I thought it was my cat and started checking, I see the screen going up in the window and two arms, I started screaming get the f*** out of here and slammed down the storm window.
I woke my son up and called the police, unfortunately my description was two arms of a Caucasian male. This was in the country so not a lot of people around. Four police cars later and after getting my story they went next door. I figured they were asking if they saw anything, but no they were hauling out the guy next door. They found him hiding under a car in the garage. They told me they knew this guy and he had been in trouble before. He had actually broken into my house when the people before me lived there. That would have been good to know before…
So we go to court and you can tell this guy is not right in his mind when he talks to the judge stating he doesn’t understand: so after my victim impact statement, they hold him over but say I can go but not to worry he will not be back.
I do not know what happened but he was back two weeks later and now I have to live next to this guy.
All I could think of was this, my neighbor he knows when I am home or at work so what exactly were his motives to break in knowing we were home? Scared me to death and I had two kids to think about (my daughter was not home the night this happened luckily).
So I called my brother and he came over with a shotgun to teach me target practice. I printed off pictures of this guys mugshot to use for target practice in my backyard. When I was done, I posted them around my property so he would get the message…
Not sneaky but hopefully scared him off. I never had trouble for the next year I lived there but I also never leave a window or door unlocked at night either. Even in the summer months.
Luckily I have much nicer neighbors now and a much better gun to protect myself with if the need arises.
Opening Incredible Garage-Found Gun Safes After 8 Years | What Will We Find Inside?!
Update 4/12/17- Many, many folks have asked me to identify the hotel chain. It was a Hyatt!
I was on a road trip and needed to stay overnight suddenly because a fast moving snow storm was blowing in.
I could see the logo of a hotel chain I occasionally use a few blocks away. I called them and asked if I could have a room on short notice? No problem. Note that between the time I called and the time I appeared at the front desk was maybe 20 minutes!
Here is a portion of my front desk (FD) conversation-
FD- “Mr. B. thank you for staying with us on such short notice. I see you have our affinity card so you have a room on our priority floor. Please remember that we have complimentary coffee and breakfast on that floor beginning at 6:00 am.”
Me- “Thanks but I’m leaving early tomorrow and I’ll be gone by 5:00 am.”
FD- “I understand Mr. B. Have nice night.”
So I trundled up to my room and there on the desk was a small pitcher of ice cold milk and three fresh chocolate chip cookies along with a note. The note was handwritten and addressed specifically to me and thanked me for staying on such short notice. It was signed by the manager. I was very impressed but the best was yet to come!
The next morning my alarm went off at 4:30 am as I planned on leaving at 5:00 am. The message light on my room telephone was blinking but the phone never rang! Of course that would have disturbed me.
The message was something like this-
“Good morning Mr. B. We noted that you were leaving early this morning and couldn’t take advantage of the amenities on our priority floor. We took the liberty of placing coffee and breakfast pastries outside of your door. We didn’t know if you preferred regular or decaffeinated coffee so we included a carafe of each. Have a safe trip!”
You know guys, sometimes I get the biggest belly-laugh when I read some of the answers here. Either they are terribly deluded, or they are immensely ignorant.
…
Here’s a REAL answer.
First of all, let’s throw out some FACTS to “set the table”, so to speak.
China has the largest Navy in the world.
China’s navy is not spread out all over the place (like the USN), but are concentrated at the projected battle fields.
China’s navy is also the oldest navy in the world. It was operating CENTURIES before the first organized navy in Europe.
China’s navy has been restructured, and operates NEW ships with cutting-leading-edge systems and technology. Many of which are unique and unknown to the West.
Were a war to occur between the USA and China, a Naval war would be the lest of the worries of the American “leadership”. Economic, social, and financial collapse would all be in free-fall.
But, let’s answer this question.
Can the United States Navy sink the Chinese Navy?
Here’s my answer…
Yes, the USN has the ability to destroy vessels, aircraft, bases, and people of the PLAN.
It is highly unlikely, however, that they will be able to completely destroy the PLAN.
It is likely that in the process of this destruction, that the USN would suffer great losses in men, material, weapons, and vessels.
Both sides will likely take great losses.
But this is 2024. China’s city-destroying munition capabilities are global. The consequence of a United States (or proxy) war against China will result in the people of the attacking nation being hurt.
Thus…
American major cities will also become targets for destruction.
…
Remember, boys and girls, China is a peaceful nation…
…until it isn’t.
…
Never forget the great losses that the United States incurred the last time they fought the Chinese.
Look at the BIG PICTURE. Not the tactical issues, but the strategic issues. Then faced with this reality, project the highest probability outcomes.
They are not pretty.
JUST NOW…States Under Attack NEED National Guard Deployed IMMEDIATELY
Modern architecture in Nigeria is built with total convenience in mind. We have more toilets and bathrooms in our houses than bedrooms. I’ve built two myself, although not opulent in any way, but it was unthinkable to construct a four-bedroom home with just one or two bathrooms.
When I travel and hear people or real estate agents in developed countries boast about their six-bedroom houses with two baths, the Nigerian in me can’t help but feel puzzled. In Nigeria, such a setup would be considered ridiculous.
I understand that building in developing countries like Nigeria is quite cheap, but just how much extra is it going to cost for a decent bathroom in every bedroom?
The unwritten standard amongst Nigerians is that each bedroom must come with its ensuite bathroom, just like a hotel, ensuring privacy and convenience. Additionally, there’s always a separate toilet for guests by the living room.
This practice in Nigeria also stems from practicality. With sometimes large families, the idea of waiting in line for a bathroom in your home seems absurd. To think that one would have to walk the entire hallway to get to the toilet, especially at night. This is unimaginable in a home with several boyfriends and girlfriends.:D
Our homes are designed to ensure that everyone has their own space, minimizing inconvenience and maximizing comfort. Building a bedroom without a space for a toilet, accessible only from the same bedroom is a great disservice to whoever is to occupy that room.
While mostly rich folks opt for homes with extensive bathrooms in developed countries, it’s intriguing to note that such a luxury, sometimes at a lower standard is a standard feature in a modern Nigerian building.
P.S.
In the comment section, some people have shifted focus to Nigeria’s poverty, rather than discussing architecture. About 23% of Nigerians, over 50 million people, belong to the middle-upper class, and many in this category can still afford to build their homes. This number alone is more than the population of many rich countries. Nigeria is a land of both immense wealth and poverty. If you’re looking for stories about poverty in Nigeria today, you’ll have to keep scrolling or better still, write it yourself! This post focuses on the architectural styles prevalent among Nigerians who have the means to build their own homes based on my observations!
Poverty is a real problem in Nigeria and it’s getting worse, but there is so much wealth in Nigeria too. Sadly, talking about Nigeria’s poverty and scams is more acceptable and beneficial to many westerners that we can’t even talk about anything else without backlash.
Oh, boy, did I! My mother still blames him for my hatred of math 35 years later!
I had an Algebra teacher get it in his head that A students will always get an A, B students will always get a B, etc, regardless of the grading scale. If and A was 90-100%, A students will do the work to get above 90%, and if an A is 95-100%, we would do the work to get a 95%, etc.
So he decided to make his grading scale A= 98–100%, B= 95–97%, C= 92–94%, D= 90–91‰, below 90% is and F.
So what had been an A/B student (me) would instead fail. Yeah, we hated him. And it only took 1 semester to get him onto probation, and he was gone after the second semester.
He really screwed up by doing this to my class. Out of 52 kids in my graduating class, almost 10% were teacher’s kids, plus one was the principal’s kid! In rural Wisconsin, many normal kids had parents that were uninterested in grades or intimidated by teachers, but when the parents ARE the teachers and principal, that factor disappeared, and they had no problem pitching an absolute FIT until it was fixed.
But I still hate math, the damage was already done.
Papa Vento’s Sicilian Chicken
Like Chicken Parmesan, my father made this for us all the time while we were growing up.
Ingredients
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup olive oil (+ more for frying)
1 1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan
Ground black pepper
6 large slices mozzarella cheese
1 large can (32 ounces) crushed tomatoes (regular or Italian seasoned)
1 medium onion
Instructions
Pound out chicken breasts between wax paper to 1/2-inch thick.
In a shallow bowl, combine breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. In another shallow bowl, pour 1/2 cup olive oil.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Dip chicken breasts first in olive oil, letting excess drip off, and then press into breadcrumb mixture. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium / low heat. Sauté chicken breasts until golden on both sides.
Arrange chicken breasts on bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Pour crushed tomatoes evenly over chicken. Halve the onion and “sliver” cut it, sprinkling them on top of the tomatoes (quantity depends on your taste ). Lay 1 piece of cheese over each chicken breast and bake for 30 minutes until cheese starts to turn golden and sauce is bubbly.
My father makes this with pounded round steak and non-seasoned tomatoes but we love this version. You can make it either way and make up your own mind.
When I was born my parents lived in a flat (apartment ) in quite a rundown area as they were struggling to make ends meet.
My Dad worked 12 hour nights and came home to my mum in floods of tears. Shed been cooking a curry and the “skinheads” on the next floor didn’t appreciate the cross cultural culinary efforts that my mum was whipping up.
They kicked and banged at the door screaming “it stinks of f***ing P***s in here” and other derogatory and racist remarks. All while knowing full well there was a young mother and baby inside.
My Dad came home, and after mum told him what had happened, he decided to visit the chap upstairs.
Knocking was done via my Dad’s shoulder on the flimsy little Yale lock (Dad was a rugby player, Prop to be exact!) and upon entering the was confronted with the offender, in his underpants, swinging a mase at him. Dad kindly removed the offensive weapon from him and told him what a silly man him and his friends had been. Then, upon exiting, Dad noticed this guy’s new stereo system and it reminded him that he’d also had enough of his crappy music at all sorts of hours.
Dad informed him that “I’ve had e-f***ing-nough of this too” and proceeded to throw the stereo system out of this chaps window, which was obviously shut because Dad wouldn’t waste time like that.
Job done, Dad goes back down stairs to enjoy his curry. Then there’s a knock at the door and matey boy has phoned the police. My Dad was honest and willingly accompanied the officers to the station to attempt to resolve the matter.
Fast forward and it goes to court. Now there’s breaking and entering, GBH, criminal damage and………. burglary. This guy had had the audacity to say Dad had stolen his precious stereo system and, during questioning the Judge asked my Dad “so, do you know the whereabouts of the said stereo system”
My Dad replied “Yes your Honour, with all due respect I believe the stero is still in the f***ing tree”
The courtroom burst into laughter and after the judge reminded my Dad to watch his language, decided to send a constable to investigate my Dad’s claim.
After the proceedings resumed the constable concluded to the court
“Yes Your Honour, it would appear that the stereo system is still in the tree”
I believe the chap upstairs was done for wasting police time and moved not long after.
My Dad has always got plenty of these stories from his younger days and whilst I don’t condone any of his actions, they’re bloody epic!
Chinese penchant for knowledge and continuous improvement means that Chinese will always become smarter that Americans in general. Americans in general are cursed by the perception that they are exceptional. Starting from this premise makes them think they are better and smarter than the rest.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. The U.S. became overwhelmingly strong due to the coincidence of history. The 2 world wars wrecked all the major economies and left the U.S. with one eye but the rest of the world has lost both their eyes! The became the king of the blind.
Confucianism ethics in every Chinese person mean they focus on being educated and learning. They will stop at nothing to give their children the very best education money can buy. Diligence and hard work is among the traits that gives Chinese the edge. This means apart from having a higher and better education that is at least 3 full years ahead of the west, the Chinese race never stop learning.
American has this feeling of entitlement and it thinks the world must be submissive and subservient to them and they can always be the best by hook or by crook. These days mainly by crook! Given any task Chinese will start faster and work harder at it and in the end Chinese will be more successful.
Candice explains why it is important for wives to be monogamous
Chinese lower -cost cars are the result of EV’s and they need batteries which China has the raw materials to make unlike the US so low cost EV’s represent the future of international relations between the trading Nations which has developed into a competition between two trading blocks.
Bipolarism has taken the world by storm BRICS led the way as the Russian Special Operation guaranteed retreat to be forbidden, the World post February 24 – 2022 will never be what it was from 1991 to 2011, I know that end date is not universally accepted it was when Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi refused to be cowered into submission and took on the British and French Arab Spring which had to be save by Obama coming to their rescue bombing Libya and alienating Russia, Vladimir Putin saw the need to jump into the Presidency again because Demitry Medvedev was too far gone supporting Obama, now Demitry Medvedev is an anti Western hawk compared to Putin, that’s how different things are in Russia today compared to 1991 to 2011.
After 2011 Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad followed in Gadaffi’s footsteps and unlike Muammar Gadaffi the Syrian leader remains alive while military Keynesian economics has conquered the United States of America after getting up to full speed under Obama in 2011, now the US economy is swallowing Europe using the pretext of war with all credible sources pointing to the modern times unprecedented threat coming from the Southern Powers China and Russia which is alarming the US, Britain and EU.
This international predicament developed from the US, British and EU’s 1991 complete victory over the entire political and economic landscape within which China has risen in that 33 years to reflect the exact opposite as the goods arranged on supermarket shelves are coming from China taking the place of Japan as the manufacturing centre of the US, Britain and EU’s operations, on top of that China as part of BRICS is now the largest exporter of cars to what is now becoming known in political and economic narratives’ as the Northern Group associated with the pattern of wealth acquisition in the North American continent and poverty in the Southern American continent.
BRICS represents the South and have gained control over a significant portion of the World’s economic landscape which the Northern Group of Nations the US, Britain and EU can’t afford to allow China’s belt and road initiative becoming the turning point of the Northern Groups 1991 to 2011 political and economic control of World affairs, one way the Government’s of the US, Britain and EU can reign in BRICS as they did Japan is to make China’s products economically non viable by pushing up the prices compared to the competition from other parts of the World that do not challenge the economic dominance of the Northern Group the US, Britain and EU.
Import duty is one way the Northern Group are pushing up the prices of what China has to offer, this Government policy does have limitations as the Northern Group manufacturers become protected and take advantage by pushing up the prices of their cars.
1, In 1991, US pharm industry promoted opioid-related drug by saying opioid is harmless. Doctors could prescibe it to patients & drug stores could sell it. From 1999-2017, 200,000 Americans died from opioid. Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of OxyContin was sued & fined for $8.3 billion in 2020. Purdue is owned by a Jewish American family Sackler.
2, In around 2010, OxyContin was hard to get. People turned to heroin which is cheaper but stronger. It also uses an ingredient from opium. In 2010-14, CDC reported that the death rate due to heroin has risen more than 200% among “white” & African Americans.
3, The 3rd wave is fentanyl which started in 2014. It also contains an ingredient from opium. In Aug 2021-Aug 22, 100,000 Americans died of drug overdose. 2/3 were fentanyl.
Capitalism & politics
In the book “Death of Despair & Future of Capitalism”, economist Anne Case & Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton point out the collusion between pharm capitalists & politicians. Their deep collusion makes it difficult to control drug.
Politicians receive donation from pharm capitalists. Hence politicians will never come up with an effective law to control drug.
British Guardian reported in 2017 that, for the past 10 years, US pharm industry spent $2.5 billion in lobbying politicians. 90% of congress-persons & 97 out of 100 senators received political donations from pharm industry. At least once.
The fight between the 2 political parties is another reason. While both parties swear they would fight drug crisis, no party wants to cooperate with the other to effective beat drug abuse. No party wants the other party to become a hero.
scapegoat
In order to show they have done their part in fentanyl battle, USA blames it on China.
China adopts zero tolerance on illegal drug & is very strict on drug control. China is ahead of United Nations to classify drug into fine categories so as to effectively catch drugs that do not meet the requirement.
Since Sept 2019, US customs has not caught any fentanyl from China. But US politicians keep telling Americans that China exports fentanyl.
In 2023, USA sanctioned a Chinese police unit & lab that inspects for illegal drug. Perhaps USA is upset that China is too strict & US customs did not find any from China.
USA also sanctioned companies that produce LEGAL chemicals & equipment that can make fentanyl. The chemical is legal because, if used properly, it can be used to make pain killer for, say, cancer patients. The equipment is legal because it is a tool to make pills.
US politicians are not serious about solving problems.
Look at poverty: any theft below $950 is not a crime. ie USA encourages open robbery.
When USA loses jobs due to Clinton’s globalisation program, Trump said China steals US jobs.
Instead of curbing gun violence, USA militarizes teachers & babies.
If one day USA collapses, it is the collusion of US politicians & capitalists.
How do you start a business? You must have these two.
Business concept.
Capital.
Do you have a great idea, or you have money to invest, or a little of both?
If you have money, this is the scariest part in China. Because if you are asking on Quora (instead of Chinese social media), you are likely a foreigner who aren’t familiar with Chinese language and society.
Like with any society, it’s not wise to advertise your willingness to spend your money. You are just ringing the dinner bell for scammers, more or less. There will be hundreds of people being very willing to become your best friends.
Isn’t China very safe? Very. But while police can protect you from criminals, police can’t protect you from yourself and your own bad decisions, persuaded by scammers.
If you have a great idea, you may think of ways to safeguard your ideas, trade mark if you can, so the people you pitch your ideas to will not simply steal your ideas and lock you out of any profit.
Chances are there are millions of people in the same boat as you: having great ideas, wanting investors.
What to do to start your dream business in China?
Starting a business requires more commitment than a marriage. You have to be ready to give 200%.
Need money. Unless you are lucky enough to have a financier, you need some initial capital to invest in your idea, to create some kind of a working prototype, to have something for show. This will put you above the millions of people who simply got ideas.
Get to know China.
China is like any society. There are honest people and there are really shady people. You can’t simply see it on their appearance alone.
If you are a lone warrior, your first investment is to live in China, even a few months at a time. Get involved in Chinese daily life, get involved in the industry you want to be in. Find a part time job there?
Or seek out an existing support network you can trust.
If you are Indian, seek out other Indians already working in the industry you want to start business in. They are likely more sympathetic to befriend and show you the rope. They may even find you a job.
But beware, even your own compatriots can scam you, or mislead you. Don’t be too trusting.
This is all I have for a Quora answer.
With only a very vague question, this is all you are going to get. Being an entrepreneur is full of risk. Your first lesson is not to get rich quick, but learn risk management. I rather you lose a few thousands today for a hard lesson, than to lose a few millions 10 years later for this same lesson.
Pro-Tip: Find professional legal consultation for second opinion.
Say you are about to engage in a business deal, whether with local Chinese or your compatriot, secretly go outside to find paid consultation services. They will know Chinese laws and regulations more than anyone. They can smell a fish from miles away. You can’t save money on this.
Pornstar’s ABANDONED Mansion ~ You Won’t Believe What We Found Inside!
Malaysia man’s viral stunt of planting banana tree in pothole gets road repaired within hours
Public works department blame continuous rain as reason behind delay in road maintenance
Frustrated over the authority’s inaction, a Malaysian man planted a banana tree in a pothole on a road to draw attention to the problem.
Mahathir Aripin from Jalan Sandakan-Lahad Datu village in Sabah posted a photo of the banana tree standing almost in the middle of the road on his Facebook page.
The base of the tree was covered with some soil to ensure it stood erect.
He also posted a message expressing his concern for those using the road and humorously suggested he might use tar next time.
“I feel sorry for the road users. I’ll cover it with tar next time,” he said on 29 January.
Seeing the response to his Facebook post, the local authorities responsible for road safety – the Sabah Public Works Department – started work to repair the road.
Reports said the pothole was filled within hours of Mr Aripin bringing attention to it.
The public works department blamed continuous rain as a reason for delay in the road maintenance.
This method of highlighting road repair issues is not unprecedented. There have been cases reported in Kedah in the country, and even in Florida, US.
Mr Aripin’s post sparked a conversation on road conditions in Malaysia.
On social media, several commentators commended his effort to bring attention to the problem of road safety and maintenance.
One jokingly said that he should have planted a durian tree whose fruit is notoriously foul-smelling instead of a banana tree.
Others responded with the laughter emoji while some called his attempt to plant a banana tree in the pothole “naughty”.
The pothole’s location was about 500m from the spot where a recent accident claimed the life of a 4-year-old girl, believed to have been caused by a pothole.
According to Malaysia’s Road Safety Plan 2022-2030, the country aims to reduce road deaths by 50 per cent by 2030.
In police work, there are many things you see that you would rather have not seen. Suicide by firearm seems to be at the top of my list. I only experienced this once in my career.
Sure I have found people a day after the person lost their head, sort of, with the blast from a shotgun — what a mess. It’s very inconsiderate to the family members or even first responders who have to deal with this.
But only once, when I was responding to a call of a man with a gun was I quite close when the shot was fired. I was out of my patrol car with a partner and running up an outside staircase which led to the man’s apartment when we hear the bang. He is sitting on the landing at the top of the stairs with his back against the wall, looking at us. He had a small caliber handgun still in his hand, and the barrel remained in his mouth. He was alive for the moment, but it was apparent he wouldn’t survive.
My partner took out a pair of latex gloves because there was blood, and started to put them on. I didn’t wait for gloves and grabbed the gun with both hands and first peeled his finger off the trigger. I then peeled the rest of his fingers from around the gun and handed it to my partner.
I wasn’t sure how this man felt about the police, but I was going to be sure that he didn’t take one of us with him. The man expired while we were at the scene. There were skull fragments and white and gray brain matter against the wall behind where he was sitting. Even after shooting himself he remained upright and seated.
A crime scene was immediately taped off, and detectives were brought in to investigate. The first unique discovery was that the handgun was fired twice. The first bullet was later found flattened but still in the brain cavity. It must have struck the inside of his skull with sufficient force to fracture it but did not exit. The second bullet was found underneath the man’s body.
Something I learned from detectives that night is that it’s not uncommon for a person considering suicide by handgun to fire a test round to make sure the gun is working properly. The noise from the first shot was reported by a neighbor and drew us to the scene.
Had our arrival hurried this man’s final desperate act? That’s something we will never know. I would have loved to have had the chance to speak with the man and perhaps change his mind. But that wasn’t to be.
I was permitted to enter the man’s home with the detectives and found a neat and well-organized apartment. He had this entire event meticulously planned out.
On the dining room table were a series on neatly organized envelopes lined up in a perfect row. Three were separately addressed to family members, while one was marked Funeral director and last one simply said: Police. Inside the envelope, marked police was a neatly handwritten letter. The first thing I noticed was that the letter was dated with today’s date. The letter explained that he had taken his own life freely. He went on to explain that he suffered from a very painful and debilitating terminal illness which would lead him to a more painful state before his eventual death.
He provided us with the names and contact information for several doctors who were treating him. He also asked us to make sure we contacted the funeral director first, so his family members would not see him in his current state. He went on to ask us to hand-deliver the other letters to his family members and provided their addresses, which were all local. He closed his letter by apologizing to us for any mess his act may have caused.
We next opened the letter to the funeral director, as it was unsealed and only identified with the words funeral director. Again, we found a neatly handwritten letter reminding this funeral director of his pre-paid funeral contract. The letter advised that one of his children had the written agreement. He went on to provide significant detail on his final arrangements, down to the suit in which he wanted to be buried.
The final three letters were to his children and were sealed which is how our officers delivered them to his loved ones.
A cursory search of the apartment which is standard in any crime scene identified two more, nearly exact sets of letters. Each set of letters were also handwritten but had different dates on them. Each roughly a few weeks apart. It was clear that the man had planned his demise on several prior dates and but hadn’t or couldn’t go through with it, until tonight
We reviewed these earlier letters because they were not in envelopes or sealed. The letters to his children were very loving and apologetic; asking for their understanding and forgiveness for his decision. They also spoke of the hopelessness of his medical situation and the difficult decision of letting go.
I never met this man until that night, and yet I feel like I knew him. In reading his letters, I believe that he was a decent man confronted with an impossible problem with no good solution. His final written thoughts were of comforting and reassuring his family and seeking their forgiveness for his decision to end his pain and his life.
We Found A Abandoned Safe In The River. What’s Inside The ABANDONED SAFE? (OPENED)
Obviously, I mean OBVIOUSLY, they have never been to China and have no idea how fucking enormous it is.
If you hop in a car, and start driving, it will take you days… DAYS… passing huge apartment buildings full of hard working, militarized families, studying… working… training…
…building after building. Mile after mile. Kilometer after kilometer. Over and over and over.
One enormous giga-complex housing thousands of families… after another… and another… and yet another.
China is HUGE.
Simply enormous.
…
China is not the third world cesspool that the Western “news” says it is. It’s a nation thirty years in the future. It is proud. It is strong. And it is LETHAL.
It is a dragon wearing a cute panda-bear suit.
You all in the West are unaware.
Backwards. Retarded.
Fed garbage; not just figuratively, but literally. Most American doesn’t even know where California is on a map, or how many States there are, or how much 5 + 8 is.
When I say “stupid”.
I mean it.
Meanwhile in China…
I started using facial recognition and QR to pay back in 2013. That was ten years ago. I haven’t touched a coin or paper money in all that time. Using paper money is so 19th century.
My car is electric and it talks to me, and only turns on when my voice recognition software allows it to.
It self parks, customizes the interior with a rotation of interior motifs, plays my morning jazz tunes, and gives me a nice warm back rub as it links to the toll road and carries me off to my office.
In my office, my staff brings me my coffee and turns on my systems for me. Sometimes they might have a kid or two with them, being sick or what not. No worries, though, they are their next to their parents doing their studies next to the desks.
Lunch is paid for all my staff. It’s one of the state mandated laws, and after they eat a huge healthy cafeteria meal of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, they go take their normal naps.
…
That’s just the first four hours of a typical day in China.
…
There’s a bunch of dunder-heads that think that the USA can invade China with D-Day style Naval assaults, and the threat of nuclear war.
Troll?
Moron?
Buffoon?
Ignoramus?
They believe that proud and powerful aircraft carrier will lay off the coast of China and launch cascade after cascade of fighters and bombers into China.
They think that stealthy submarines will sneak up and start bombing China. All this unopposed, and the Chinese will take it. Smile and say “… can I have another, master?”
They believe that the proud troops will be easily resupplied by Australia, Japan, Korea and Philippines. After all, that is the on-going American construction activity. Billets. Barracks. Supply depots, and large investments in bordellos for employment for the locals.
Fantasies. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
NEVER going to happen.
…
I am here to tell you that World War started in 2008.
Oh, sure, the elements started far earlier. But historians will write that the date of the war began was in 2008.
It peaked in 2020 with the bio-weapon(s) that the USA launched on China during CNY (John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo brilliance there), and fell back towards conventional war with the NATO conflict began in Ukraine.
It hasn’t gone that great though.
Wars don’t go to plan, and this crop of brain-dead, pathological psychopathic oligarchs are dangerously deluded.
Take Ukraine. Ah. The “war in Ukraine”.
What they mean is the unreported hostilities used to counter the Russian “special military operation”.
Over 3000 American soldiers (with countless more NATO gents) are dead. Just because the American “news” isn’t reporting it, doesn’t mean that it is not going on.
Dead Americans are all over the place. I have photos and photos. Movies and movies. But if I put them up, they get pulled. It’s “news you can use”, but that is bad for the Westerners to see.
Good men. Soldiers. American men.
Dead.
Over what? And why?
It is sad.
I cry for the widows at Fort Lenard Wood.
As that phase winds down with a European collapse (economic, social, industrial, and military) a new phase opened up.
All to schedule; a disruption of the middle eastern shipping lanes.
Ah… that’s gonna teach China a lesson!
In their wet dreams, perhaps. China is about 3450 steps ahead of the rest of the world. They know what underwear that you will wear two days from now. Long before you even decide to put some on. That’s how advanced China is.
This idea that “China can be isolated” has failed, and is bound to fail, as the Chinese BRI are now proving how far-sighted and successful the rerouting of shipping avenues have proven themselves.
No wonder both Russia and China are screaming forward; an economic gallop. While the collective “West” is mired in inefficiency, lunacy, and insanity.
None of which is being reported in the “news”.
Here’s some more American troops in Ukraine…
Meanwhile…
We are watching the United States collapse in front of our very eyes.
The USA has this dream of opening up a long-desired war in the Pacific over China. Troops, material and weaponry are flooding toward the Philippines, Japan and Australia. All ready to die for “democracy”.
Whatever the Hell that means.
A rally-cry of the moronic who still believe that “their vote counts” and that American culture (woke, red-pill, open marriage, LGBQ+) is worthy of preserving.
Woo! Woo! I’m gonna kill Commies for all that free gay sex!
And when that day comes… “death by cop” will be experienced in America. Up and down the coasts. As the United States will be bludgeoned by many, many, MANY people; and their nations. People who have been ridiculed and marginalized over the decades of pompous, elitist wars and flouting.
America is NOT respected in the world.
It is despised.
It is no mistake the distain that the illegal immigrants show towards American. And they are the polite ones. The USA is poised to get a much-needed Ass-Kicking at a scale of ferocity that is off the scale; in both ferocity, and in long-duration and everlasting pain.
And the United States has lost.
It just hasn’t been reported on yet.
Look around yourselves. The USA has no downtowns. No factories. No hard workers. No functioning anything. It’s just on the long slow crumble…
At this point in time, “war against China” will not be needed.
It’s OVER.
He HOARDED GUNS! I Bought The MOST EXPENSIVE Storage Unit In The Country!
I’ve been pretty busy as of late, and I had another blood pressure scare. I was terribly uncomfortable, and the stress of Tanzhou driving was going to have me pop.
Stage two hypertension. Not a good thing.
But I fixed it on my own.
What I did was started doing arm curls with weights. I do a couple of reps each and every day.
50 reps each arm with 5kg. Nothing too strenuous.
Guess what?
Yup, my blood pressure goes down to that of me in my 20’s.
120 BP
…
I mean, I’m not doing a 20 to 30 minute routine. I am only doing five minutes a day.
Yet… it works!
I’m averaging 120 BP. Rather than the 160 – 170 that I was dealing with.
I also cut out my morning coffee, and all caffeinated drinks. Oh, I will get a coffee from time to time with the Mrs at a restaurant, but the days of the drive-through habit are over.
Motherfucker does not mean what most people think.
Before the American Civil War white males would visit “Pleasure Houses” to have sex with the slaves. As slaves these women would have no choice but to do whatever the man wanted.
But some would, somehow, be more abusive than the slave owner could tolerate. Basically beating the slave to the point she couldn’t be used for a while.
The men who had a reputation for this were only allowed to have sex with the former “Breeding Stock”. The older slaves who had already given birth to several new slaves.
These men were called “Motherfuckers” for the obvious reason. They were so low that slave owners cared more about their slaves (who they didn’t think as fully human) than them.
In WWII the meaning shifted. As Americans retook France, many French women were generally appreciative, and showed the GIs their appreciation. But that only goes so far. There were some guys that couldn’t get laid even by women who would, “Support the troops” so to speak.
For these men they could use the generous food rations the US Army gave to give a starving widow’s family a few days worth of food for a quickie.
So it referred to guys who were such losers they could only get laid if the woman’s choice was to sleep with them or let her children starve.
So the “mother” being referred to in the cuss, is a woman who’s in such desperate straits she would do anything, even sleep with the “motherfucker”. The implication being they couldn’t get a legitimate prostitute to sleep with them.
An American Civil war?
Medvedev:
“The formation of the Texas People’s Republic is becoming increasingly realistic. What I wrote about at the end of the year before last in a joking prediction.
The American administration demonstrates complete incapacity to handle the migration crisis that has erupted in one of the largest states in the USA. Its governor boldly ignores the White House’s position with the feeble old man Biden and starts rebuilding barbed wire barriers. Anything to defend against the influx of migrants who are crossing the southern border uncontrollably. Another vivid example of the weakening of U.S. hegemony, occurring from within due to the actions of Americans themselves.
Official Washington, so enthusiastically supporting Kiev’s neo-Nazis and seemingly noticing nothing else, has shown itself to be impotent on matters of domestic policy. The scholastic decisions of the Supreme Court that migration issues fall under the jurisdiction of federal authorities, not the state, are detached from reality. Due to their inaction, these authorities may finally push the population of Texas, which is already seriously considering secession, to the breaking point. History knows cases where individual states attempted to part ways with the United States and form a confederation. All of this led to a bloody civil war, claiming the lives of thousands and thousands of people.
One way or another, America may face an irresolvable constitutional crisis and plunge into a prolonged abyss of a new, possibly even more destructive, civil confrontation. The Western world will watch with bated breath, fearing the American mess. However, these are their problems.
And although the turmoil in the USA poses significant risks to global stability, the rest of the world, munching on popcorn, observes with some schadenfreude the onset of the bad illness of Pindostan.”
Sinister Parodies Of Classic Children’s Books
Oh baby, here we are going to take a trip down the twisted mind of an artist. He’s got this gig of parody artwork that gave me a few chuckles, and repelled me as well. Anyway, it’s a quaint diversion, and I hope you all appreciate it.
“Bad Children’s Books” or the classic children’s books from 1940’s to 1960’s hijacked by illustrator Bob Staak. Subversive, disturbed, twisted, but full of humor!
Why did Phoenicians start forming the colonies so late? They have been on the Mediterranean since 1500 and developed active sea trade between late Bronze Age civilizations not long after?
Well. There were these guys called the Sea Peoples. They weren’t very nice at all. They raped, killed, pillaged & burned all the civilizations in the Mediterranean c.1200 B.C. They wiped out the Mycenaean Greeks, Minoans, Hittites, Trojans & Ugarit. The only ones to survive were the Egyptians & Phoenicians. It’s kind of hard to build a trading empire with these guys rampaging all over. It’s better to wait & let them fizzle out after a few centuries.
The guys got no marbles
Vulture Mine Tostadas
This is my own creation. I named it for a mine near Wickenburg right here in Arizona. I’ve been making it for a number of years. It’s a good cooler weather dinner. Instead of making the chili as instructed, you can use your favorite chili – even store-bought chili – and prepare the potatoes portion of the recipe, serving your chili over the mashed potatoes.
Prep: 15 min | Cook: 1 hr | Yield: 4 large “tostadas”
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef or ground turkey
1 1/4 cups minced raw onion
1 can pinto beans
1 1/3 cups tomato sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin (comino)
1 cup water
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
8 cups mashed potatoes
4 cups shredded lettuce (optional)
1/2 cup chopped raw onion
3/4 cup grated longhorn or Cheddar
Instructions
Brown ground beef and onion, draining fat. Add pinto beans and tomato sauce, cooking for 15 minutes.
Combine chili powder, flour, water and a little salt; blend this paste into previous mixture. Cook for 45 minutes over low heat, stirring frequently.
Meanwhile, prepare mashed potatoes with butter, milk and black pepper, adding only enough milk to ensure rather stiff mashed potatoes.
To serve, spread mashed potatoes in dinner plate to resemble a 2-inch thick tostada (with a rim around the outer edge). Spoon chili into depression and top with lettuce, onion and cheese.
Ukr Bad Day: Putin Calls Macron Bluff, No West Troops Ukr; Belgorod Disaster; Rus Chasov Yar Canal
What was the strangest way an embezzler was caught?
My father was a store construction field supervisor for The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P Grocery Stores) during the early ‘50s. During his understudy period, his supervisor regaled him with amusing stories of his days with the company that stretched back more than 40 years. One story was about less than expected sales at a brand new store.
Below, a typically thrilled crowd packed in tightly at a new A&P Supermarket Grand Opening:
The new store was a success: larger, better stocked, off-street parking, new and exciting interior. Sales were way up over the old store it replaced, but not nearly as much as other new stores in similar neighborhoods. Because it was at the low end of sales and profit increases, it got extra scrutiny.
Secret shoppers reported that the store was open and thriving during its assigned hours. That the shelves were stocked. That the customers were jamming the aisles. That the shopping carts were being heaped high. That the employees seemed diligent in monitoring for shrinkage, yet shrinkage was determined to be sky high. Auditors were sent in to check receipts. The eight registers were being fully and completely tallied. Secreted observers with binoculars saw no evidence of vehicles driving off with bulk loads of merchandise. Shoplifting seemed to be in line with other stores. The manager was reported to be present, engaged, and energetic in his duties.
The fellow my father worked for was asked to review the layout of the store to see if something was wrong with how shoppers were being navigated through it. He went in and walked the aisles, saw nothing unusual. He followed numerous shoppers through the store and through the checkout lanes and out to the parking lots… nothing amiss. He was standing in line at one of the checkout counters one day about a week into his sleuthing and analysis when out of boredom he idly counted the checkout lines. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Nine. Wait. What?
He left the store and informed his Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company bosses that the store’s layout was indeed the issue: the manager was embezzling by having installed a bootleg ninth line but was reporting only the sales of the authorized eight. My dad’s supervisor swore that he’d told his bosses, “well, either we need to fire the manager or else put up a new sign that says A&P&Fred’s Supermarket”.
They went with “fire Fred”, naturally.
What do you think?
Has a customer ever intervened on your behalf when you were being treated poorly by a co-worker or boss?
No, but I’ve intervened. I was at a Quiznos. The only people there were the owner and a young girl. As she was making my sandwich, the owner kept up a stream of insults and criticism.
By the time she went to ring me up, the poor thing was in tears. I asked her if she was new, and she said it was her first day and first job. I said I don’t usually give advice to strangers, but no one in any job needs to put up with abuse by a boss, and she should walk.
She said her parents would be mad, so I recommended that she explain to her parents exactly what her boss said.
I even gave her my card and said if her parents wanted a witness as to how poorly her boss treated her, to have them call me.
Her boss heard what I said and started giving me shit. I told him he was a horrible boss, and probably a horrible human, and that I’d would let everyone I knew not to give him their business.
The girl walked out with me and I escorted her to her car.
I never heard from the girl’s parents, but the place was closed a month or so later. This was when Quiznos was doing well
What are some mind-blowing facts about food?
1.Potatoes can be used to remove rust. Simply cut it in half, add salt to the surface and there you go. Rub it against any corroded objects.
2.Vinegar, Ketchup, lemon juice, can also remove rust. Basically any food with oxalic acid/citric acid will do. Save yourself some money from buying rust removers.
3. Lemon juice can be used to remove highlighter strains. Get some juice on a piece of cotton, rub it on the highlighted text and the color will fade.
4. Your average apple is a year old. Most apples are picked slightly unripe, treated with chemicals and stored in warehouses for 9–12 months.
5. Banana candies are what bananas used to taste like. Ever wondered why banana candies taste nothing like bananas? That’s because it was based off the Gros Michel banana, which was completely wiped out by the Panama disease (fungus), after that we are left with our replacement bananas.
6. Red bell peppers are simply ripen green bell peppers. Yellow or orange bell peppers are also different stages of the bell pepper. They are the same fruit.
7. Popsicles are invented by an 11-year-old. He invented the popsicle by accident when a drink he made was frozen with the stir stick stucked between.
8. Almond allergens can be transferred through sex. If you have an almond allergy, and your partner have just eaten almonds, don’t have sex.
9. You can make diamonds with peanut butter. Peanut butter is a carbon-rich material, imerge it through enough pressure and it becomes diamonds. I wonder where diamond shops get their diamonds from…
10. The original Coca-Cola contains cocaine. The name basically comes from it’s two main ingredients, Coca leaf and Kola nuts. Coca leaf contains cocaine.
11. Fruit stickers are edible. So is the glue used to glue it. But unless you like eating stickers I’ll advice you to peel it off.
12. Bananas, cucumbers and kiwis are berries, while strawberries, blackberries, raspberries not berries but aggregate fruit.
I’m not stopping
What is the best comeback you used on someone?
I left home one evening to go to the post office and the supermarket after that.
It’s winter, it’s cold, so the car has to warm up a bit, but after a few seconds I put it in drive and got to the post office in a few seconds. I just need to go in, open my P.O. box, get the mail and get back to the car. The engine wasn’t warmed up yet – my dad told me it not too good to turn it off so soon when it’s still cold – so I left it running for half a minute, tops.
By the way, I live in a very small town (village) north of the big city.
Miss Karen Knowitall comes in as I get back to the car and tells me I should have shut the engine off when I got out. She doesn’t like to breathe car exhaust when she leaves the city to go to the country side.
As I got in the car, I just answered: “Ah yes, I know the feeling! I moved to this town to get away from the condescending a$$h0le$ of the city …
But, hey! You can’t always get what you want, ma’am. Right?
And I drove off !
Japan – Tokyo Suburbs: Walking around Yotsugi • 4K HDR
Notice no con-trails. They are just not anywhere in Asia. Only in America and Europe.
It is called mancinella (Hippomane mancinella) and is considered the most dangerous tree in the world, as well as the most poisonous. It is a plant native to the Americas, with particular reference to Florida, the United States and Central America.
Its venom is so powerful that it is advisable to stay a couple of meters away from it. Its fruits are similar to small and tempting apples, but even a few bites could be lethal.
Christopher Columbus had nicknamed the fruit of the mancinella, “little apple of death”.
It seems that this plant drove the horses who ate it crazy. Hence the word Hippomaniac.
The white resin of the mancinella is very caustic and poisonous. A single drop can cause severe skin irritation, with swelling, dermatitis and burns. Even raindrops coming from the branches of the mancinella can damage the skin or even make you blind if they get into your eyes.
Even the bark is toxic. Burning it causes the release of harmful substances that can cause temporary, and in some cases permanent, blindness. The combination of risks associated with the mancinella have allowed it to win and maintain the Guinness Book of Records as the most dangerous tree in the world.
Men Are Oppressed Not Women (They’ve Been Lying To You)
What firearm would you recommend for defense against home invaders?
“What firearm would you recommend for defense against home invaders?”
Paintball.
Yes, yes, I know you’re going to say it’s not a ‘firearm’, but you haven’t thought things through.
If someone enters your house at night and you wake up, you think ‘intruder’ and you fire that Desert Eagle Penile Compensation piece in your dark bedroom — without donning your hearing protection (because, who is going to have hearing protection with that Desert Eagle on their nightstand, right?) — fire that piece in the darkness at the shadow in the doorway, you know what will happen. The noise will replace your hearing with a loud ‘iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii’ and your retina will be sporting these muzzle flash afterimages of your wife crumpling in the doorway. Or, in the unlikely event that it’s not your teenage daughter sneaking back into the house after leaving through her bedroom window, but an axe murderer — you just rendered yourself too blind and deaf to re-aim and shoot again.
Now, reconsider my suggestion and imagine you have a paintball gun on your nightstand.
First of all, no flashes and noise to mess with your night vision and hearing. Just a ‘pffft’ and angry cursing from the shadow in the doorway as he’s trying to wipe paint from his eyes. Because you know that just like you don’t have hearing protection on your nightstand, he sure as hell isn’t wearing paintball protection on his nocturnal visits. Paintballs on your unprotected body hurt like fuck. And the intruder won’t know what’s happening. No muzzle flashes or loud noises, just the sound of a blowdart and getting stung and wet all over — that’s unnerving, man, and I’d like to see the intruder who wouldn’t scamper back to whatever rock he crawled out from under. (Did I say that right? Sounds right…)
And while he runs like fuck from the stinging wet paint, you call the cops and tell them there’s an intruder running around your neighbourhood, a man splattered with purple paint. However incompetent the police are in your area, they should still be able to find someone covered in paintball paint.
Plus, if you make a mistake and confuse family members with intruders, you don’t have to take them to the ER (or bury them), but you simply apologize and help them wash off the paint.
So, forget about all those macho handcannons and just get yourself a paintball gun for home defense. Your NRA neighbour might laugh at you, but he’s going to be the one with the axe buried between his starry eyes from the muzzle flash, while there’s still an almost full magazine in his Desert Eagle.
A lot of people respond that my answer is ridiculous and dangerous. And they might be right — pelting an intruder armed with an assault rifle with paint balls might well result in getting you killed. However, I posted this answer not to promote paintball guns for home defence, but to think ‘outside the box’. In the comments, a lot of people also offered their own alternative solutions — shotguns loaded with rock salt, pepperballs, et cetera — and that was my intention: instead of looking to use lethal force, what alternatives are there?
Also, many commenters seem to believe that I would just shoot at an intruder with paintballs and then wait for them to respond. I guess they haven’t read my other answers and don’t know about my experience with violence. I can’t blame them, but, no, I wouldn’t just stand there like an idiot, but use the paintball attack to close the distance to blade range.
And another edit:
Some commenters say that defending your house with firearms is a Christian duty and that the Ten Commandments don’t say ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’, but ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’. My thoughts on that subject:
I’m raised Christian, but became agnostic because of the hypocrisy of organised religion. However, even if these commenters are right, using a lethal weapon to repel an intruder (99% of intruders are after possessions, not looking to murder you in your sleep) is not exactly ‘Christian’: even a casual reader of the gospel would understand that Jesus Christ himself would not condone the spilling of blood over mere possessions. Therefore, arming yourself with lethal weapons in order to repel intruders is premeditated killing, i.e. murder. There are plenty of effective non-lethal weapons (tasers, for instance) that can be used without killing the intruder.
But what about the killers and rapists?
If there is a high rate of homicidal intruders in your neighbourhood, high enough to warrant the stockpiling of lethal weapons for ‘home defence’, you might want to look into relocating your family. Chances are that the ‘reporting’ on these ‘deadly home invasions’ is merely scare tactics by groups like the NRA in order to sell more guns. In reality, getting killed by an intruder is as unlikely as getting killed by a Great White shark.
In reality, most child rapists do not jump from bushes or climb into the bedroom window — in the majority of child rape cases, the rapist is familiar to the child, i.e. family members, daycare staff, teachers, priests*, and baby sitters. In other words, the people to whom we entrust our children.
(* Personally, I loathe the people citing the Catholic catechism to morally justify using deadly force defending their children from getting raped by intruders. If you want to keep your children from getting raped, keep them far away from Catholic priests.)
Women Got Shocked After Hearing These Stats Of The Ideal Man
My mother lived in a large old house that we called “the manor”. Supposedly it was the home of one of the regional governors of the area back in the 1700’s, and it had servant quarters, a large “carriage house”, a barn, and a row of houses that were the quarters for the servants back in the day.
When she bought it (with her second “husband”), my step dad, it was being used a a mobile home park. And so they cleared out the old mobile homes, and the discarded cars, cleaned up the land. Knocked down some buildings, and installed a pool with a pool house, and placed a nice water fountain with a stature in front.
But…
Off to the side was this big spread of land and Lordy, it needed to be mowed. That’s 11 acres you all. Took me a full day to mow all the grass, I’ll tell you what.
But in the middle of that was a flag pole. And my mother would put up a new flag every Memorial Day.
Now, she always bought smaller flags. This is because they gave the impression that the pole was larger, and thus bigger, than it actually was.
Well, one day in 2002, I guess, I went to get a replacement flag and the storekeeper asked me what size that I wanted.
I told her that I did not know.
So he asked me how tall the pole was. And I said about three stories tall, and he gave me a flag.
When I brought it home, my mother was angry.
She said that it was way too large.
But, since it was the end of the day and the holiday was upon us, she gave me the ok to put it up.
And so I did.
Let me tell you that that large flag was GLORIOUS. Simply wonderful.
It moved with strength in the wind, and it was so gosh visually appealing that cars would slow down as they drove by the house.
So people, when ever you put up a flag, select the largest one that would fit on the pole. You will NOT be disappointed.
And as for my mother… well, she changed her mind about what the size of a flag should be, and always insisted on the large size.
You see, everyone.
Size does matter.
This entire post endured a javascript crash, please excuse it, and manually run the video links at the side. Sorry.
Worst. I worked for a family owned business. I was a Sale Rep/Tech. During that year I was Salesman of the Month 10 of 12 months. I sold over $950,000 worth of computers. The closest salesperson was a great friend of mine to this day. She sold $600,000 worth of computers. The Christmas bonus was a $12 ham. Not a coupon, an actual ham.
Best. I worked for a big HVAC company as a Supervisor for their Network Operations Center. There were 16 of us in the office. Our Boss gave us all personal gifts, in my case, (and yes, I’m a Nerd) a replica of the Star Trek phaser. It cost about $125. This was not a bonus directly, this was out of his own pocket. Each person got something that was special to each person. And I am proud to say that even after not working for him for 20 years, we are still good friends. He’s retired, and I’m jealous.
One February my husband and I went on a couples only trip to Jamaica. My oldest daughter was 20 years old at the time and we allowed her to stay in our home in Maine on the promise of her best behavior. I took my younger two children to my mothers house in Philadelphia. We had an oil furnace in the house and had just filled our 350 gallon tank prior to leaving on vacation. Yes
Because we didn’t totally trust our 20 yr. old, I had locked the alcohol into my bedroom closet and had asked our neighbors to keep an eye on the house to make sure there wasn’t any more than 1-2 cars in the driveway at any given time. Feeling that we had covered our bases, my husband and I proceeded to enjoy our time with friends on a beautiful tropical island.
Seven days later when we arrived back at our house, it was to find all the lights on, the doors wide open to the zero degree temperatures and the furnace completely out of oil. There was a note on the kitchen counter written by a friend of my daughter’s reading: “Morgan is in jail, you’ll need to bail her out when you get home.”
Our living room furniture had multiple cigarette burns, as well as the bedroom carpets and some of the beds. The shower had been ripped out of the main bathroom. My closet door had been removed to get at the alcohol I had hidden away. All of us had valuables stolen. The total for the damages totaled $12,000 and THAT didn’t include our lost heating fuel.
For any who may be curious, no I did NOT bail my daughter out of jail. I did however speak to someone at the jail to find out the charge was serving alcohol to her underaged friends.
She had a difficult next couple of months but ended up discovering some real strengths. During that time, she totally turned her life around and when she finally asked if she could come back home, she was told yes but with conditions. Over the years she filled us in on what actually happened and that people she didn’t even know kept coming into the house because they “heard ” there was a party. She tried to stop it but it was far too out of control.
Jerry Seinfeld DESTROYS Woke Insanity in EPIC Video – Hollywood Goes CRAZY!
TSMC has no plans. It’s a slave to the U.S. The U.S. has plans that failed and will never work. They want to make chips in its country and in its slave nations. They thought it could contain China but China did not only buy from other nations. They do it themselves. Hahahaha.
But the person who post this question ought to ask if China has a domestic market that represents 30% of the world’s market and they make 4/5 of everything the rest of the world or another say 40–50% if these 70–80% don’t buy and used your chips, you are left with 20–30% balance!
You barely need a factory let alone 3–4 countries making these chips! Do your simple mathematics. Chinese are superb at maths. They pretend to be up in arms but this chip ban couldn’t be sillier!
Top 10 Unsettling Signs Of Scary Parallel Universes In History
I had lost my wife of almost 30 years 10 months previous. Her best friend invited me to dinner with her sister who incidentally lost her husband at the same time. My deceased wife’s best friend felt sharing our experience would assist in the grieving process. She repeated the process a few weeks later bringing takeout to my place. The friend shortly after dinner stood to leave, my eyes met her sister’s eyes and I could tell there was more to talk about. They left.
Of course I started taking her to dinner alone and quickly bonds formed.
The false pretense part of the story occurs months after, when we announced to her sister we were getting married. My deceased wife’s best friend was absolutely shocked at the idea, no concept what so ever of us being more than consoling friends, hell I was her best friend’s husband and she was her sister. It’s all too early, it’s been only one year. In fact she quietly became scarce, not contacting either of us for months and months. Slowly she adjusted to the idea her best friend’s husband was now married to her sister. It took a while for our dense heads to realize my deceased wife’s best friend also had to go through the grieving process.
All is well now and relationship back to normal.
Faki Soupa (Greek Lentil Soup)
Ingredients
3/4 cup brown lentils
1 large onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (3 ounce) can tomato puree
8 ounces fresh tomatoes, peeled and seeded
Good pinch of oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 3/4 cups water
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Instructions
Cover lentils with cold water and bring to boil. Drain lentils and return to the pan with 1 1/2 pints water, garlic, onion, tomato puree, fresh tomatoes, oregano and olive oil. Bring to a boil and simmer until the lentils are soft.
Remove from heat and blend, but stop blending before the mixture gets too smooth.
Season to taste.
UKRAINE LATEST: 5,600 DEAD IN ONE WEEK; Matches a Visitor to Ukraine Report
Ukrainian casualties soar: Kiev loses 5,600 troops in seven days – Widespread use of thermobaric shells by Russian artillery.
Ukrainian losses on the various fronts of the war are increasing dramatically as a result of the lack of ammunition that is now plaguing the Ukrainian Army.
On the contrary, the Russian Army has increased the intensity of the bombardments and above all, the use of thermobaric rockets from TOS-1A systems.
Ukrainian casualties increased – 5,600 dead in seven days!
The Ukrainian army has suffered heavy casualties during front-line fighting where Russian forces have the military initiative in all directions, Moscow said on Friday.
The numbers above are a confirmation of an email I received on January 6 from a woman who had just returned from a trip to Ukraine. While I did not publish that letter when it came, I think the news story above cries out for her letter to be reported. Here is her report:
———-
I just got back from Ukraine, where I was visiting some friends.
Everything we have heard about what’s happening in Ukraine is a lie.
The reality is darker, bleaker, and unequivocally hopeless. There is no such thing as Ukraine “winning” this war.
– By their estimates, they have lost over one million of their sons, fathers and husbands; an entire generation is gone. – Even in the Southwest, where the anti-Russian sentiment is long-standing, citizens are reluctant or straight-up scared to publicly criticize Zelensky; they will go to jail. – In every village and town, the streets, shops, and restaurants are mostly absent of men. – The few men who remain are terrified of leaving their homes for fear of being kidnapped into conscription. Some have resorted to begging friends to break their legs to avoid service. – Army search parties take place early in the morning, when men leave their homes to go to work. They ambush and kidnap them off the streets and within 3-4 hours they get listed in the army and taken away straight to the front lines with minimal or no training at all; it is “a death sentence.” – It’s getting worse every day. Where I was staying, a dentist had just been taken by security forces on his way to work, leaving behind two small children. Every day, 3-5 dead bodies keep arriving from the front lines. – Mothers and wives fight tooth and nail with the armed forces, beg and plead not to have their men taken away. They try bribing, which sometimes works, but most of the time they are met with physical violence and death threats. – The territory celebrated as having been “won back” from Russia has been reduced to rubble and is uninhabitable. Regardless, there is no one left to live there and displaced families will likely never return. – They see the way the war has been reported, at home and abroad. It’s a “joke” and “propaganda.” They say: “Look around: is this winning?”. – Worse, some have been hoaxed into believing that once Ukrainians forces are exhausted, American soldiers will come in to replace them and “win the war”.
There is no ambiguity in these people. The war was for nothing – a travesty. The outcome always was, and is, clear. The people are hopeless, utterly destroyed, and living in an unending nightmare.
They are pleading for an end, any end – most likely the same “peace” that could have been achieved two years ago. In their minds, they have already lost, for their sons, fathers and husbands are gone, and their country has been destroyed. There is no “victory” that can change that.
Make no mistake, they are angry with Putin. But they are also angry with Zelensky and the West. They have lost everything, worst of all, hope and faith, and cannot comprehend why Zelensky wishes to continue the current trajectory, the one of human devastation.
I didn’t witness the war; but what I saw was absolutely heart-breaking.
Shame on the people, regardless of their intentions, who have supported this war. And shame on the media for continuing to lie about it.
Maria Mateiciuc 8:37 AM · Jan 6, 2024
American Woman In Asia Discovered Men Are HAPPY Overseas
I trained in and taught karate for about 20 years yet I wouldn’t want to go up against two or more young punks who were assaulting me on the street. Too many chances they’re carrying a weapon or might get in a lucky punch.
My wife and I walk a lot in the evening at our coastal home. Where we live is safe but you never know who might drive by looking for trouble.
So I added a weapon to my arsenal. And I train with it regularly.
Yet, it’s perfectly legal to carry personally or in your car.
You can carry it into a restaurant or movie theater.
You can have it in the bank or the courthouse.
You can take it on a plane or a bus.
It’s inexpensive to buy and easy to learn how to use effectively.
It’s innocuous looking so it would be a surprise to a bad actor.
Yet, it’s devastatingly effective as a weapon.
You can use it to even the odds of more than one attacker and against a weapon.
It’s a walking cane.
But not just any old ten dollar pine one.
It needs to be hard wood like oak or hickory so it won’t break and has some weight.
The ones I carry are Irish walking sticks and canes made of Blackthorn wood. It’s very dense and is the wood used for traditional Irish fighting sticks.
And you need to learn how to use it effectively and practice regularly to become proficient with it.
You can find lots of videos on line about how to use a cane for defense effectively.
Actually, there is are whole martial arts devoted to cane and walking stick fighting. Watching videos on them you realize how devastating of a weapon it is.
So, you don’t want to spend 20 years learning karate? But you still want to have some means of self defense in this increasingly chaotic world?
You’re in luck. Buy a good cane that can be used effectively for self defense.
Then learn how to use it effectively and practice,
Oh, and try to never need to use it. That’s the best self defense.
I had a relative who wanted to borrow money. His vehicle was towed as he failed to pay on a title loan.
As this relative was bad at money matters, I asked how much he needed and who was the lienholder. I wasn’t going to just give him a sum of money, without proof that he actually needed it, and wasn’t going to: 1. Use it to go gambling. 2. Give it to a woman. 3. Use it go on a drunken spree. (He was an alcoholic).
He threw a tantrum worthy of a toddler, calling me, “a selfish bitch”, among other things. This was at my job. He had already borrowed a few thousand from me that he had never paid back.
Needless to say, he never got the vehicle back, although he later apologized about the name calling.
That was the day I learned that you could divorce your family, love them from a distance and stop buying into their bullshit.
He died in London, UK, 1979. We had no family living there, just mom. I was living in Miami, and my sister was living in NJ. My dad and I had a huge falling out when I married a Roman Catholic, but we’d come back together by that time, and my dad and my wife and her family actually had a good relationship.
We arranged the funeral there. It was just my mom, my sister, and me. And my mom had a hang-up about death and funerals. She literally couldn’t even bear to say the words, “death” or “funeral,” and I had never been to a funeral before, or even a viewing. I was 28 at the time. They had friends, but I think only one person came and that was it. I don’t know if my mom even told any of them.
There was no viewing service, no synagogue service. Just the burial at Rainham Cemetery. My sister and I were waiting for the coffin to be brought out, and it was wheeled out on a cart, The thing had three wheels, one of them had a mostly flat tyre, and the thing squeaked loud enough to wake the dead.
It was so surreal, like something out of Monty Python. could barely keep from laughing out loud.
There was this rumor in middle school about this white, tall, blonde girl. She was really mean and kinda rude but she didn’t bully anyone so I just ignored her. But as you can probably guess a rumor started about her at some point, I first heard it in the girls locker room after she yelled at someone for getting in her way.
The rumor was this: She had gotten pregnant by a 19 year old and later when the baby was born her (or her parents) killed it.
Of course no one knew if the rumor was true and neither did I so I brushed it off as a stupid rumor. But you know what’s worse….the rumor was true!
I didn’t learn this until early high school.
In my history class I had unknowingly sat by the step brother of the girl as I was retelling the rumor to another girl as I was talking about how crazy it was. But the step brother interrupted me to tell me and the other girl that the rumor was true (at least part of it anyway). The girl and I were shocked, he told us that the mean blonde girl had gotten pregnant, gave birth to it, and luckily put the baby up for adoption soon after the birth.
What’s worse is that I don’t know if the mean girl was forced to date the 19 year old or if the guy raped her to get her pregnant, even her step brother (who didn’t like the mean girl either) didn’t and wouldn’t say.
Maybe that’s why the tall, white, blonde girl was so mean.
Everybody had to have a Que (pony tail) to show subservience to the Qing. The Qing / Manchus were the top level of society for a couple centuries.
After that? Nobody cared.
EXCEPT for in Hong Kong which was held by Britain until 1997. The clan wars of Guangdong and Fujian between 1855 and 1867 left DEEP scars and well into the 1980s there was general dislike of mixing between Hakkas and Cantonese.
My grandfather expelled one of his daughters for marrying a Cantonese man.
Also amongst many post WW2 types there’s a mentality of don’t marry Cantonese, this died out in Mainland China decades ago but lingered around in the overseas Chinese community. I still remember in the 1980s in the UK being told by my uncles that I should stay away from Cantonese.
Early 60’s, little tiny farming town … Liz was the subject of nasty gossip and rumors. People said Liz was a slut, a whore, a filthy tramp and lots of other names. Liz never had sex until she got married. She dated four or five boys – one date per boy. She assumed the boys asked her because they liked her. They asked her because they assumed she would have sex anywhere with anyone. Liz was modest in dress and behavior, but still was called a dirty slut … not because of anything she did, but because of her three older sisters. All three of her sisters got married at 16 or 17 because they got pregnant. Shotgun weddings, we called it back then. So …. these guys, who had no ethics, who were as dumb as bricks, asked her for dates. Instead of driving to the movies, they drove out to an isolated area and demanded sex. She refused. The boys threatened to tell everyone they got what they wanted. She still refused. The last boy she went on a date with tried to force her. She managed to get out of the car and begged strangers for a ride home. After that, she refused to date. She got lots of insult, ridicule and some physical harassment, because she came from a family “where all the girls were sluts.” Her last three years of school were awful. She was bullied so badly that she had to take sedating medication to keep from crying, to keep from having a breakdown. Both adults and kids were cruel to her. She toughed it out, went to college and refused to ever go to high school class reunions.
Several years ago, I was at Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden at The Mirage in Las Vegas. This was many years after Roy’s tiger accident, but before he passed away. It was Thanksgiving, and we were walking through, looking at the tigers playing and eating melons.
As we walked around, Siegfried himself appeared. Of course, being his exhibit, a number of fans wanted to get pictures and autographs. I’ve been a fan of theirs since I was a kid, so this was a one in a lifetime, completely unexpected occasion.
When he got to me, he did the standard “hi, how are you” nicety that people do without really expecting an answer, but I looked at him and asked, “I’m fine… how are you doing?”
He looked at me through his ubiquitous sunglasses. I could see his eyes measuring me up as he stood about two feet from me. After a long pause, he said “well, Thanksgiving is always a hard time… when you’re an entertainer and everything ends suddenly…” and just talked with me for a few minutes (while everyone else waited patiently). I got the definite feeling like he was rarely asked how HE was doing, surrounded by starstruck fans or associates, and he felt the need to talk.
Thanksgiving Day, Roy injured (and never recovered), I’m sure he felt the need to be around people. It was a special moment, one that I’ll always remember.
Celebrities are just people, and a lot of people forget that.
I was visiting Mom when she lived a good two hour plus drive from my sister’s family (I live out of state). It was probably 1998 and we were chatting in her kitchen. She was silent for a moment and then she said, “Richard”, (you know the way your mom says your name that you know you gotta pay attention?) My ears birddogged.
“Richard, when I turn 90, I am going to stop driving.” (Mom was still a very good driver, but she didn’t want “someone to hit me and then blame the old lady.”)
“I’m going to stop driving and I’m going to give my car to my grandsons…
“I’m going to stop driving and give my car to JR and Mike and I’m going to sell the house and move to (a retirement facility) closer to Sue and my family.” Such a major decision to give up her house and her car. Then she said something that to this day I carry with me.
“And I plan on liking it”, she said firmly.
Now Mom loved to read (especially her Ellery Queen mysteries) but I don’t think she ever read a personal growth motivational book in her life (except the Bible) and here she is framing one of the biggest major life changes ever with positive expectations.
That gave me a glimpse into how she perceived the world and focused on good rather than bad consequences. What a gift she gave me.
Mom passed in 2019 at 110 years old.
I think Mom was full of good intentions and had a very strong moral compass and truly lived the life of a good person whose influence spread wider and farther than she could have ever imagined, as good a definition of badass as any.
CALLISTO -1940’s Retro Pulp Science Fiction by Skyward, Action, Music, Total Mayhem, Runway Gen-2
Users are almost never right. Go shadow them and get the real story.
Understand 100% of the problem, design to solve 90% of it.
The last 20% effort is 80% of the engineering cost.
When designing, make it survive 3–5 years. You should be rewriting it by then anyways.
Software engineering is a process. Don’t overfit the initial requirements, you need to stay flexible for future readiness.
First pass is to solve it. Second pass is to clean up and learn. Third pass is to deep design using what you’ve learned.
CPU is cheap. Don’t over optimize.
Focus on enabling people to do more. 1 hour of work should become 10 hours of output when you enable humans.
When prioritizing consider the models of (1) attacker (2) defend it (3) bandaid it (4) clean it up. Each one has an associated operational cost, solve permanently cost, and a cost to perform. You need to pick your battles.
If only you can fix it, then only you will babysit it, forever. You can’t move on to more interesting things.
Edit: These are MY golden rules. They do not have to be YOURS. Please share YOUR golden rules. 🙂 We can learn from each other. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, is that I have learned everything, EVERYTHING from others. Mentors, peers, and friends. Some random written article should have zero social pressure on you to conform. My knowledge probably applies between 2007 to 2025? Then some other pattern will take hold.
NOTE: This is a true story, I’m not making it up or taking the piss. The episode I’m about to describe was not tongue in cheek or satirical in anyway.
Before my wife and I moved to Australia from the U.K. I assisted my in-laws in purchasing a laptop computer. The idea being that we’d be able to make skype calls etc to help them stay in touch. As they were both totally computer illiterate I set the laptop up for them and tried to give them an understanding of how to use skype, email & internet explorer (as it was back in the day).
For internet explorer I showed them how to open the program, told them about the “tool bar” and some of the basic functions on it. I explained about search and how they could find any information they required or shop for anything they needed using it. All seemed to be going reasonably well when I popped out to pick my wife up from work for fifteen minutes or so.
At this point I should mention that my father in law is a joiner (carpenter) of many years.
Anyway, I returned after picking my wife up to find my father in law at the laptop with internet explorer open. After a minute or so of watching him staring at the screen in a perplexed manner I asked him if he was having a problem that I could help with. “where are the saws?” he asked me.
“I’m not sure what you mean John, if you’re looking for something you’ll need to type it into google” I explained.
“Yes, I need a new saw. You said I could get whatever I needed on here & I’ve been looking at the tool bar for five minutes and I just can’t find the saws!”….
Fortunately, they were able to get skype working through their sky TV shortly after we left.
I shit you not. This really happened. My father in law couldn’t buy a new saw because he couldn’t find the ‘saw button’ on the ‘tool’ bar.
When I was a senior in high school, I was about the size of Rosie Greer—6’5″ and 250#, and like most people my size, I was extremely patient and gentle with “little people,” but being gentle was perceived by stupid people as being weak or a coward. Horrible mistake.
One day after school, I was walking to my car. That required me to walk between cars full of students waiting to get out. The space that I chose to walk through was in front of a junior who drove three eighth graders to and from school, and he wanted to show the younger kids how tough he was, so as I was walking between his car and the car in front of him, he pulled up and hit my shins with his bumper. And these idiots were laughing.
I walked over to the driver door, and tried to open it, but the stupid child smiled and pointed at the locked door, obviously thinking that he was safe from retribution. He was safely in his 1968 VW Beetle.
I smiled back at him, and put my hands together like a sledge hammer, and starting with the roof, I pounded every piece of sheet metal with my “sledge hammer” fists once—leaving the car covered with dents. Then, I walked to the driver’s door again, still smiling (he wasn’t) and I bent down, grabbing the frame and lifted the left side of his car so that the left tires were eighteen inches off of the ground. (Actually a lot easier to do than it sounds with the help of adrenaline,) and I calmly said, “Idiot, if you ever mess with me again, I will break your f~<#ng neck.” Then, I dropped that side of the car back on the ground.
Word quickly got around about what had happened, and even though I remained a patient and gentle person for the last six months of my senior year, 1973, nobody tried to show how tough they were by messing with me.
And yes, I know that I could have ignored the light tapping of his car and walked away, but I didn’t feel like it that January day.
Did I bully him? Perhaps, but I frankly didn’t and still don’t care.
This one’s about a friend, but it’s worth sharing:
I used to work at a tutoring company, where one of my coworkers (nicknamed “Minty”) used to tell all our students that he was six years old.
The preschool class actually believed him, because those little four- and five-year-olds didn’t have any real concept of age. Minty convinced them that he was just a really big “big kid.” In fact, he pulled this off so successfully that he even became close friends with a couple of the students.
Whenever kids claimed they didn’t believe him, he’d just look at them with indignation and said, “I just drink all my milk and eat ALL my vegetables!”
Once, a kid said suspiciously, “I bet you have a wife!”, and Minty replied, “Will you please tell me what she looks like, then? Because I’m still trying to find her.” (He was 21 and single.)
And so on so forth.
Then, a few months into the school year, he caught one of his favorite students staring at him out of the corner of her eye.
After a while he said, “Hey, what’s up?”
She said, accusingly, “I think you’re a grown-up!”
Turns out he’d forgotten to shave that day, and a little bit of stubble was showing on his chin. So then the whole class started staring and saying, “You’re a grown-up?!” in tones that ranged between awe and betrayal.
After that, the cat was out of the bag, but it was really entertaining while it lasted.
The 17th defense policy coordination talks between China and the United States were held in Washington on Monday and Tuesday, China’s Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday.
In a statement, the ministry said the talks were co-chaired by officials from the Central Military Commission and the US deputy assistant to the secretary of defense.
The Chinese side said in a statement that it is willing to develop healthy and stable military-to-military relations with the US on the basis of equality and respect, and jointly implement the military-related consensus reached by the two heads of the states during their meeting in San Francisco in November.
The statement said that the US should acknowledge China’s concerns and do more to promote the development of bilateral military ties.
China also reiterated its positions on the Taiwan question and the South China Sea issues.
It said it will never make any compromise on the Taiwan question and demanded the US side to abide by the one-China principle, implement its relevant commitments, stop arming Taiwan and oppose “Taiwan independence”, the statement said.
China also urged the US to reduce its military deployment and provocative actions in the South China Sea and stop providing support to certain countries that are infringement on its territory and causing provocations.
The US should fully recognize the root causes of maritime and air security risks, strictly restrain its front-line troops and stop hyping up problems, the ministry said.
China has also made clear its solemn position and major concerns on issues concerning China’s core interests and international hotspot issues, it added.
Time-Traveling with The Jetsons: Futuristic Nostalgia
A few years back I took over running a significant IT project at a bank which used Oracle who had just shafted the bank’s IT director. He had got board level approval to upgrade and unify all the different databases which was serious money. Oracle then decided to double the price, he resisted but facing unsupported systems he gave in. That altered his career somewhat.
I didn’t know that when Oracle turned up to negotiate price for our systems, since I was an interim project manager and quite low in the food chain.
In this situation I never dress to impress vendors, indeed I tend to talk down my understanding of tech as well, to see if they are being straight with me.
I took along the guy I’d just hired as development manager and I ran the conversation. These tend to be one of two patterns. Either the management guy does all the talking and the techie just puts in points or the techie runs it and the manager blesses the outcome..
Oracle wanted more than list price.
I was bemused by this, also the trading system didn’t need very advanced features since it just logged things and ran reports, but the Oracle rep said we would only be allowed to buy the most expensive version because you’re a bank.
To which I responded but it’s the same binary Mary Pat.
Because these reports would be seen by many people in other firms she also demanded that we buy hundreds of client licences.
At the binary remark she looked at my non-great suit and then at my development manager’s and started talking to him, literally ignoring me since she had decided that he was my boss because I was only a techie.
He has dressed up for the meeting, actually put on his tie for it, since he thought that showing Oracle that you had money was good thing. It’s not.
He looked quite bemused, I’m not sure he’d ever bought any software for a firm and certainly wasn’t going to start now. I literally moved myself and stuck my head in the way and said are you going over my head Mary Pat ?
Yes she was and it didn’t stop there. I indicated that I was buying Sybase which was vastly cheaper and did not run the risk of an Oracle punitive licence audit.
Days later the head of the division spoke to me about what happened next. This system would pass billions through it and so the bank was quite keen that it worked well. Oracle had somehow got to a board meeting and demanded that I be fired, that I was damaging the (abusive) relationship they had and that I was buying a cheap and unreliable system which would destroy the firm.
for those not in IT Sybase has been used for decades for banking systems, it may or may not be right for you, but it’s not an insane choice.
The system would go on not just to work, but would end up being used by the British Government to manage their rather large debt mountain.
One version of the meeting which reached me later was that she literally stamped her foot. That was how entitled Oracle was with my firm. This may sound unusual to you. Ask anyone who’s done business with Oracle,
The board were very impressed. Not with her, but with someone in IT standing up to Oracle bullying. So the edict came down find Dominic and give her a job. So I ended up Head of IT for that division.
My first job was working at Woolworths, in the UK. I worked there from the age of around 15 to 18 years old, from 1993 to 1996. I did Saturdays and evening shelf stacking.
Woolworths in Britain famously opened the first self-service shop back in 1955. It was distinctly different from Woolworths in other countries. At the time, it sold household items, like pots, pans and Tupperware, sewing items – the dreaded haberdashery (the hardest thing to do a stock take on in the known world). Its famous pick-and-mix sweets included things like Cadbury’s Roses chocolates, where you could see which ones were everyone’s favourites by what was left in the container*. It also sold children’s clothes, records, CDs, tapes, and lottery tickets.
It closed for good in 2009, unable to survive the financial crisis, and in my opinion, as someone who worked there but hardly ever bought anything, for failing to offer anything unique or better than other lower-cost stores. The quality of many of the products was decidedly average. The Ladybird brand children’s clothes and the pick and mix were good but weren’t enough to keep it afloat.
My first Christmas working in retail was Christmas 1993. That was when the magic of Christmas died.
We, the hard-working, little-paid workers of Woolworths, arrived on Christmas Eve 1993 at 7.30 am, the shop opened at 8 am. We worked until 10 pm. We had four tills, and queues of around 15–20 customers were present at each till the entire day. Once a till had around £5000 in it, we emptied it to the back office. They were each emptied 4–5 times that day. We stood at the tills. Standing for 1–2 hours is tiring, but standing for 12–14 hours is hard work.
At the end of the shift, we are all knackered, it’s 10 pm on Christmas Eve, and the boss brings us each out a bottle of Babycham. For those who have never had “the pleasure”, Babycham looks like this:
A tiny bottle of “sparkling perry” which is a mildly-alcoholic cider made from pears. Named to somewhat pass itself off as baby champagne. Which it tastes nothing like, whatsoever.
Christmas bonus 1993, after a 14-hour shift, where we, as a fairly small store with 7–10 employees, likely took £100,000 (£200,000 today – $250000) was a tiny bottle of pear-cider, worth at the time around 59p (it could have been less, I cannot find out the price of a 75ml bottle of Babycham in 1993).
Merry Christmas.
I still miss it, the people I worked with were a good laugh, and some are still my friends today.
*Talking of the pick and mix, we would refill it with huge bags of sweets. They were 7 kg bags (15 lbs). One memorable incident involved me and a 7kg bag of Smarties (like M&Ms but British), which ended up being spilt and going all over the floor at the front of the shop. It was like a cartoon when the characters spill marbles, and everyone falls over, except we only fell over laughing and ate quite a lot of smarties. Maybe things like this explain the boss’s reluctance to offer a decent bonus.
My wife and I had a friend, an MD, who was having issues with his wife – not sure what they were, but he seemed to be a gentle and meek soul. Perhaps too meek with his wife, I don’t know, but here’s what happened to him;
His wife was seeing a psychologist for help with her depression, completely supported in these visits by her husband. Turns out that, unknown to him, the psych was a lesbian who had started to fall in love, or become infatuated, with the wife. Of course, she should have excluded herself as a therapist at this point, but she developed a better plan.
The psych convinces the wife to bring in the children (2) for additional counseling, separate sessions from the wife. Again, unknown to either our friend or his wife, she starts to place into the mind of the kids, one daughter and one son, that their father has been sexually abusing them. Both kids are young, under 6, and it isn’t difficult for her to place some ideas and then doubts into the minds of these naïve and gullible children. Over a few months of weekly visits, they are slowly coached by the infatuated lesbian psych, into being able to recount some stories of how this non-existent sexual abuse occurred, along with enough details to make their stories believable.
The psych then encourages the kids to tell their Mum some of these coached stories. The Mum, our friend’s wife, is naturally outraged to hear that her kids have been molested by her husband. She confronts her husband who denies it all, but she has fallen under the influence of this demented psych. She discusses the supposed molestation with the psych who encourages her to call Child Protective Services (CPS) to report the abuse.
Naturally now, the wife does so and an investigation is launched. The husband is prevented from seeing his children, has to move out of the house he shared with his family, and is allowed only supervised visits with his kids on every other weekend. Dependent upon the outcome of the inquiry, he now stands to be charged with sexually abusing his kids and quite possibly sent to jail. The kids will tell their coached stories, supported by the wife who now believes that it’s all true, and the final nail in his coffin will be this crazy psychologist who has discovered his “crimes”.
He’s now separated from his wife, and the psych makes her big mistake. Before the completion of the investigation, she is so in lust for his wife, that she successfully seduces her client, and they move into an apartment together as lovers. This is suicidal for her plan. The investigation team is informed of this development which is improper behaviour professionally. She is suspended of her license to practice, the wife leaves her and returns home. Finally, perhaps as long as 9 months later, the kids recant on their coached stories since they are no longer under the influence of the psych, and are finally visiting an impartial therapist.
The story ends wonderfully, the husband forgives the wife and the children are allowed to move back home. But this was hell on earth for the husband who was innocent from start to finish.
Just started putting stuff in the corner of the basement, with the intention of dealing with it later.
and soon , the corner of the basement was full.
and then, another corner.
Then, the work room started filling up.
Then the garage.
Mostly old clothes that the kids had out grown and then there was the stuff that we used to use but didn’t anymore, but couldn’t bear to throw away.
We fully planned to purge all this shit.
Rent a dumpster and get ruthless.
Then my wife got sick.
And sicker….
And then terminally ill.
And that took up all my energy.
And then I was a widower.
And the kids had moved out.
And I was either at work or out with friends or on a trip and the basement became a series of paths around a canyon of old clothes and stuff.
And so it remained for a year or two, slowly increasing.
I thought, “In just don’t have the energy or time to deal with this”
And then…………..Covid.
And my neighbour sold their house and the guy who came in wanted to gut the place, as it hadn’t been looked after in years.
And he brought a big ass dumpster.
And I saw my sign…..
I asked him and said, if I went in halfway with the dumpster rentals, could I use them to dump my shit in as well?
Sure, he said.
So, over the next while, I emptied everything out.
I could have spent hours sorting out the useable from the trash, especially in clothes, but I feared that if I did, I’d get bogged down in decision paralysis.
She died of a heroin overdose a few years ago. It makes me sick when I think about it.
For the purpose of this story, I will refer to my bully as HM.
When we were freshmen in high school, HM and I started off as friends. We were part of the same loosely organized network of friends, and we were in a few of classes together. Everyone said we could pass for twins — we were both short with dark hair, light colored eyes, round faces, and cutesy noses. Our birthdays were even only like a day apart or something. So we became friendly, but we never became super close. This was mostly because of me — I was secretly judgmental of her because she was very promiscuous and not very bright. Maybe she could sense that in me, and maybe that contributed to how she very suddenly started to hate me.
One day, a mutual male friend of ours asked me to go out with him, and I turned him down because I wasn’t interested in him in that way. He was upset that I rejected him, and sought comfort from his other female friends, HM being one of them. This flipped a switch in HM’s brain — she went from being my casual friend to hating me mercilessly.
On the first day, she screamed at me, cursed at me, and called me a slut in front of everyone in our gym class. She harassed me all the way from the gym to the locker room until one of the gym teachers finally told her to knock it off and change.
Initially I didn’t defend myself because a) I was really meek and mild mannered at this point in my life; b) I do not handle confrontation well at all; c) I was a religious catholic at the time, and truly believed in turning the other cheek; d) I was an avid karate student, and I believed it was dishonorable to fight in this way; e) I was kind of nerdy, I was in marching band, and I thought defending myself would make me a bigger target to others; and f) I was honestly shocked by how she was acting. I mean, she was like really in my face screaming with spit flying from her mouth and everything. It didn’t make sense to me that she would be mad about something that had literally zero effect on her life.
Needless to say, I went home that day very upset, but I figured that it was an isolated incident. I figured, ok we’re not friends anymore, and that’s that. But I was wrong.
The next morning, she was waiting for me by the entrance of the school. She never once touched me. She just followed me to my locker cursing at me and calling me names. We were in the same homeroom. She told every person in homeroom that they shouldn’t talk to me because I was such a slut and bitch. Any time a person would talk to me, she would physically insert herself between me and the person and tell them not to talk to me. She also started telling people vicious lies about me sexually.
She followed me from homeroom to my first class cursing at me and calling me names. When I left my first class, she was waiting for me down the hall ready to verbally harass me again. She continued to do this throughout the day. During classes we had together, she took every opportunity she could to alienate me from others. This occurred mostly in gym and english class, both of which were loosely structured by lazy teachers.
At this point, she was being fully aggressive to others in order to keep them from talking to me. Like physically grabbing them and pulling them away from me kind of thing. She did this for weeks. I continued to do nothing. I just walked faster when she was near me, and tried not to look at her. I took advantage of moments where she was distracted, and slipped away from her before she saw me.
Eventually I had basically not a single friend left in my grade. Nobody wanted anything to do with me. In retrospect, I guess they just didn’t want to be involved with the situation. The teachers were also unhelpful. We were in a very crowded school, so many of them possibly didn’t notice, and the ones who did notice were terrible teachers. I was alone, miserable, crying every day, and I didn’t want to go to school anymore.
HM’s torment became a regular part of my life for a couple of months. I was starting to become numb to it. Maybe she sensed that her words weren’t having the same effect that they used to, so she decided to change things up. She started to threaten me with physical violence. It was mostly variations of “I’m gonna kick your ass,” or “I’m gonna f*ck up your ugly face.” One day in english class, the teacher asked HM to lend me her book for the day (there was a shortage of books), and she threw it at me and then snatched it out of my hands when I picked it up (the teacher did nothing because she was also a terrible human). HM also started slamming my locker shut whenever she walked by.
I don’t remember what specifically drove me to my breaking point, but very soon I had had enough of the situation. HM had made my life a living nightmare, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had a green belt in karate, so I knew physically I was capable of fighting and that I would probably win. I still had reservations about it because of spiritual/philosophical reasons, but I was at my limit.
One day she came up to me at lunch, and she again threatened to beat me up. So I calmly said, “Ok HM. When and where? I am ready to fight you whenever.”
Well, that was the game changing moment. As I stood there quietly waiting for her to set the date and time, she bounced around like a rabbit, yelling about how she was really gonna let me have it. “I am ready when you are,” I said. She got more and more agitated, and just kept making threats. The bell rang, lunch was over, we went to our next period. I didn’t see her for the rest of the day.
The next day, she started again with the physical threats, this time while we were in the hallway before homeroom. I said, “So just come for me already and let’s fight. I want to get this over with.” She looked at me like I was stupid and said something like, “Pshh not right now I don’t want to embarrass you in front of everyone. But when I do kick your ass, you’re gonna wish you were dead.” In spite of myself, I laughed and said, “Ok fine HM. Let’s do it today.” And then I told her exactly when and where we were gonna fight. She said “OH I’M GONNA BE THERE, YOU’RE GONNA BE SORRY!” before running away from me.
Later that morning, I had a class with HM’s bff. I approached the bff and said, “HM should know that I take karate regularly, and I recently earned my green belt. I’m stronger than I look and can probably seriously hurt her. I am not going to be easy to take down, and honestly I might accidentally kill her. You should tell her that before we fight.” That last part was only a small exaggeration. I did know 2–3 potentially fatal moves but there was no way to do them “accidentally.” Anyway, I didn’t say this as a threat, but as the truth of the matter. I had already thought of several ways to take her down, and I had already anticipated some of what she might do and had an idea of how I would handle those situations. At the end of the day no matter what, she was gonna end up being seriously injured, and I would probably be mostly unscathed.
The day went on. I didn’t see HM at all in the hallways or at lunch, and she skipped the classes we shared. I was starting to feel really pumped, and honestly really powerful. People all day were asking me about the fight, if I was scared, did I really know karate — stuff like that. They were excited, like Romans going to the Coliseum. After months of being a pariah, I ate it up and was loving all the attention. Finally, the last bell of the day rang.
I went to the place we were supposed to fight. A few people were there, waiting for something to happen, but they left after 10 minutes so they could get on their buses. I waited for almost an hour. HM never showed, and I went to marching band practice.
Maybe I should have left it at that, but I couldn’t help myself. The next day, when I saw her in homeroom I (LOUDLY) asked her, “What happened yesterday? You never showed up.” All eyes were on us. She muttered angrily, “We’ll do it today, same time.” I agreed to it, but my gut told me she was gonna be a no-show again.
I went again to the meeting spot. This time, there were a lot more people waiting to see what was gonna happen. But again, HM didn’t come. I waited for a while when finally HM’s bff came up to me and told me that HM went home early because she was sick. I shrugged and said, “Then in that case, I guess we’re done here. Tell her to leave me alone from now on.” HM didn’t come to school for the rest of the week. On the following Monday, she didn’t even cast a glance in my direction.
Life moved on, years rolled by. HM mostly avoided me after that. Sophomore year she tried to rekindle a friendship, to which I was like, are you f*cking serious? With every year that went by, HM became more and more of a social pariah. Finally it was our senior year. HM was pregnant. By the time spring arrived, she had a huge baby belly. Whenever people would ask her about it or ridicule her, she swore up and down that she was just getting fat.
And I took a lot of pleasure in this. Right now as an adult, I am not proud of this, but at the time I was LIVING. She was miserable, everyone made fun of her, and I thought she was just a huge loser. I loved it, I relished in her misery. And then one day when we were all changing after gym class, I took a shot at her.
She was trying to change in a way that her baby belly was covered up at all times. One of the other girls noticed this and was like, “Wtf are you even trying to do?!” HM said something about being self conscious of being fat. I laughed, and said, “HM everybody knows you’re f*cking pregnant so stop pretending like you’re just fat. Do you even know who the father is, ya dumb slut?” And I walked away laughing at her. It took me about 2 years to realize how super messed up it was for me to say that. And now it makes me sick to remember it, to know that I’m the person who said those words. In the end, I was no better than her.
About two years ago, she popped into my head for no reason. I decided to look her up on Facebook, and saw that she had died of a heroin overdose. The weirdest part was that the day that I looked her up was also the anniversary of her death. Chills ran down my spine. She had left behind two children, and before she overdosed she had been sober for 6 months. I have so many weird-sad emotions about it.
First off, by a random coincidence of life I had 2 doppelgangers in high school — her and this other girl who I was friends with, and both of them died from drug overdoses. I know it’s sh*tty for me to make their deaths about me, but their deaths make me feel really weird in a way that I have trouble describing.
Second, HM was obviously a troubled person, and almost everything she did was coming from a place of pain. I feel guilty that I couldn’t see that and instead I played along like a cardboard character in a crappy high school movie.
Third, I hate that the last thing I said to her was something vicious. It makes me upset that my hatred has the power to warp me into such a mean person. I hate that my hatred was so strong back then that the ghost of it reverberates within me to this day. Every now and again, I can taste that dark disgust in the back of my throat. Which leads me to my final weird-sad emotion.
Fourth, even though she has passed, I love retelling this story. It feels like it was the one moment in my youth where I was fierce and powerful. However, I drive myself crazy with guilt about that pleasure. I mean, wtf is wrong with me; she is dead, she left behind children. It’s weird and messed up that I’m here, alive with my whole life in front of me, and instead of trying to make peace with this, I’m enjoying the toxic fumes of an ancient memory because it boosts my self-esteem.
Idk what the moral of this story is. I’m still trying to figure that out.
Another Active Duty NATO Officer KILLED in Ukraine
One of the Active-Duty Officers in a NATO Command has been killed inside Ukraine.
Italian Army Lt. Colonel Claudio Castiglia, who was part of NATO Command structures, has been killed fighting in Ukraine according to the National Association of Bersaliers.
The Bersaglieri, singular Bersagliere, are a troop of marksmen in the Italian Army‘s infantry corps. They were originally created by General Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora on 18 June 1836 to serve in the Royal Sardinian Army, which later became the Royal Italian Army. They can be recognized by their distinctive wide-brimmed hats decorated with black western capercailliefeathers, which is worn with the dress uniform. The feathers are also applied to their combat helmets.
Why was an Active Duty NATO Officer fighting in Ukraine? Are we at war with Russia?
Sh*t happens. Life can be difficult. It can be uncomfortable. Some days I have every reason to feel depressed and give up. Some days I just want to stop, I need a break — yet the difficulties keep on coming and coming.
I used to complain about it. “Why is it so difficult? Why has this happened to me … again? I hate this situation! Why don’t they do something about it?”
One day, I realized that the difficulties of this world will never end. Never! This is when I finally understood that if I wanted to improve the quality of my life, I was the ONLY one who could change it! No one would ever be able to do it for me!
Change is inevitable and never-ending. I used to face change with the wrong attitude. I hated it because it pushed me out of my comfort zone — today I understand that it’s challenges which actually make my life better! I’m growing, I’m improving, and growing and improving are what make life a life worth living.
So, to answer your question: What life goals should you have?
Live outside your comfort zone!
Your comfort zone is the death zone.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.
Here’s a quote from GE’s CEO Jack Welsh that I like to remember.
Yes and it was the best thing that ever happened that I knew in advance, so I was ahead of the game even though I knew it was coming and I couldn’t stop being fired. This is an important lesson for people to learn, be aware of what is going on so you are not caught out.
You know when you are not fitting in or they are downsizing. It is almost impossible to miss the signals if you have your antennas out. Here is what happened to me.
It was 1992, the China market was booming and I had a big job based in Hong Kong. We had a house paid for by the company, American Club, car, kids in private school, annual trip home, highest salary of my life at that point but nothing was going right. (First signal there were ‘anonymous’ complaints about me relayed via HR). No matter what I did I was wrong and I was headhunted away from another job so I know I was doing a good job but I could feel it was probably about ‘fit’.
They kept telling me, accept 7% growth, don’t push for more, I didn’t listen (2nd sign to watch for, not listening and overplaying your hand).
One day I was feeling like things were not going so well, but my position was, hey I was a Director for the Asia Pacific with a US$100 million budget, no way they could fire me without cause. And I was giving them nothing no real cause in my view so I felt safe or perhaps not?
I thought, I need to check this out, so I went in early to the office and the EVP (later CEO of DHL) had a letter right in the middle of his desk about me stamped CONFIDENTIAL.
I will never forget it. It was all about, how can we handle getting rid of Greenfield as while he is doing a good job, we would like to save money and get rid of his package and a couple of people complained about him. The question was, was it enough to fire him for cause.
It was a fax and the answer by the EVP was, he had already thought it through and they could make my severance nil if they could get someone to make a complaint about me which he could arrange.
Armed with this knowledge, I got all my ducks in a row, went in that day before anything else could happen (3rd rule, if you know it is coming, be preemptive as if you wait it will be worse, trust me on this) and said I thought it might be time for a mutual departure as it wasn’t working out as we had hoped, now 3 years into the contract.
They were pleasantly shocked, gave me a good deal which allowed me to start over with another company and a new life without completely crashing my entire life.
My suggestion? Be watchful, if you can do it, get someone on the inside to let you know if things are not going well and you might be cut for whatever reason. At all costs, do not be caught flat footed thinking everything is ok when it is not.
You can feel it, it is what life is all about these days, anticipate, keep informed, don’t be paranoid and always and I mean always have an exit plan or as they say, Plan B in your back pocket. Especially if you have kids a mortgage and a lot of expenses and as in my case, a spouse who was not working but living a very nice lifestyle which she expected to maintain.
She did but I took a lot of pain and pivoting to get out of Dodge before the hammer fell and just in the nick of time.
Exohiko
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
2 pounds lamb leg
2 onions, chopped
1 cup butter
1/2 pound kefalograviera cheese
Salt and pepper
6 sheets puff pastry
Instructions
Cut the lamb in portions. Simmer the onion in a frying pan with a little water. Add a teaspoon of butter and brown lightly.
Add the lamb and salt and pepper and brown for a few more minutes. Turn the element off, add the cheese and separate in portions.
Butter each sheet of pastry and use them to wrap each portion. Place in a buttered pan, top with the rest of the butter and bake in medium low oven for 1 1/2 hours.
I went to Best Buy about 10 years ago because my computer monitor had gone out and I needed to replace it. I had a warranty which allowed me a free replacement, but I wanted a larger one and I readily agreed to pay the difference.
As the rep walked me to the front of the store to check out, I heard a man literally screaming at the top of his lungs. Not just yelling. This man must have gone through the dictionary on his way to the store to refresh himself on every profane word and phrase he could find. As I got closer, I could see the middle-aged man yelling at this girl (couldn’t have been more than 18) behind the customer service counter. Apparently, his coupon for a $30 discount on a digital TV antenna was expired (not just expired; expired by months!) and he expected her to honor it anyway. She kept explaining that the coupon was expired and there was nothing she could do. The man continued to scream and pound his fists. I could see that this was going nowhere, so I just said, “Sir, I’m sure this young lady had nothing to do with preventing you from getting to the store before your coupon expired.” He looked up, startled, and before he could start yelling at me, I said, “STOP.” I turned to the girl and said, “Please put that antenna on my card.” I went over to the man, picked up the antenna, placed it in his hands and said, “I really hope that you can enjoy some good TV with this thing. After that, please go out and use the money I just saved you on some good anger management or at least a session of yoga or two.” The man stood there with his mouth hanging open, not knowing what to say. I just waved my hand at him and told him to “run along.” The girl mouthed, “Thank you.” The man “ran along” I completed my purchase, well, purchases!
That most of my undergraduate education didn’t do much if anything to prepare me for medical school. To be honest, My bachelor of science in zoology was far less helpful than being a paramedic for nine years.
That I would make some of the best friends of my life there. I would have cherished them and the experience more I think.
That I was smart enough. I spent a lot of time worrying that my peers were going to be smarter than me. Turns out emotional intelligence is more valuable in the long run anyway.
I would become so good at emotional distance that it would impair me on some level.
That a certain degree of hypochondria is fairly normal. I had classmates that had “leukemia, parasites, heart disease, tumors and aortic dissections.” Of course, they were all just fine. Oh, and I didn’t turn out to have a gastric ulcer either.
A great deal of what I was going to learn would be obsolete prior to ending my medical career. A fair chunk was wrong before I finished residency.
Competition creates problems. There were a fair number of people in my school that we would classify as “gunners”. For them, it was not simply good enough to do better. It was critical that you do worse than they did.
Some of the smartest professors I would have in medical school were the ones with the strangest personalities. A lot of the younger students would tend to blow them off. That was a mistake. They turned out to have a LOT of quirky wisdom.
Just because you got accepted to medical school doesn’t preclude you from having a personality disorder. I trained with some people with some pretty significant impairment. A few were incapable of empathy or even sympathy.
That the experience would fundamentally change me. I had a professor that said fundamental personality change can only happen from experiencing combat, motherhood, psychotherapy or medical school. I have not experienced the first three so I cannot say he is right. However, I can attest to the fact that medical school and especially residency changed me in some profound ways. That was hard to come to terms with early on.
They are everywhere in 800 odd military bases worldwide. To me they are wasting money that they really don’t have. They certainty cannot afford it overtime it will implode their nation and bring misery to its people.
They are there to war monger and trouble make without getting much in return except disdain and hate. This in turn means that they need more resources to defend themselves hence it is really a deep and endless money pit. China and Russia should goad them everywhere to burnt their own house down. Yet many fools think that having many bases is good for them.
It’s all over by 30, and it’s the women not men that are now saying it.
Yesterday, I took the family to a theme park in Southern Zhuhai. It’s the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. We paid 3500 rmb (roughly $500) for two days with hotel, and two buffet meals. (For us three.)
Now, you must know, everything in China is HUGE.
Not Texas huge.
“Universe” huge.
The facility included FIVE theme parks. Each with it’s own hotel, and passes to each one. Each theme park is “Disney Park” in size. So it is an ENORMOUS complex.
Just mind-mindbogglingly large.
When you buy the tickets, the ticket seller will warn you to take one day per theme. Other than that you are wasting your time.
And there is no way you can do more than that! Lordy!
We chose to concentrate on the “Penguin life park”, and the “spaceship future” park. Both were fun and cool, and my little girl enjoyed every second of the excitement.
My little girl loved it!
Animals. Excitement. Bright colors. Rides. Many playgrounds.
And the hotel room was super kid friendly.
We stayed at the Circus hotel, and she had her own bed that looked like a lions cage on wheels, had her own kid-sized robe and slipper. The television only played kids shows, and the commode was kid friendly with a kid style insert. The shower had a kid sized lower tier.
Well thought out.
The only problem was that on the last day I caught a “bug” and spent the entire day vomiting and spending time on the shitter. I had water-cannon high volume vomiting.
36 times. Thirty Six vomits!
Each time I just emptied out.
Wholly crap!
Then went home to sleep. And sleep I did. Like the dead.
But I am up now, and shaky but functional. I am taking medicines and it all seems to work. I am drinking coffee and I am able to hold it down. So that’s good. Right?
It reminds me that I am still alive and functional. Yay!
That one sentence was spoken by myself, to myself, in my car, as I pulled up outside my house, February 3rd 2016.
I have suffered from depression for 35 years. I can go months, sometimes years, without an episode, but in 2013 my wife, my soul mate, my best friend, left me after 15 years, which plunged me into the worst episode of my life.
Now, whilst depression is a living hell at times, I never actually feel sorry for myself. It’s a different emotion altogether, as anyone who suffers the same will testify. But this particular day, I was feeling sorry for myself. My business had gone to the wall in the first 12 months of separation. In the second 12 months I was struggling to pay the bills. By the end of year 3 I had £2 in the bank, was in desperate arrears with my mortgage and my new business was bringing in barely £200 a week.
I pulled up outside my house at 5pm, knowing the rest of the night would, yet again, be spent sat alone, in the cold, with the constant memories of my wife and children walking around the house, ghosts of their laughter echoing around, heart and mind being tormented by all that had gone before. There was little food in the cupboard. No credit for gas on the meter and low credit for electricity on that meter.
And this was the lowest point, it was 3 years of decline to this moment. I had no way of getting out of the mess I was in. No way I could figure, anyway. For the first time, this time I felt sorry for myself and literally said out loud, “man, I’ve another 50 years of this shit.”
That was the moment everything changed. I turned the engine off and lit a rare cigarette. I continued to talk to myself in the car – partly out loud, partly in my head. The conversation (with myself) went along these lines…
“50 years… ha, great… and I’m 50 years old next year (2017). Well, hang on… if I’m 50 next year, then I am only half way through my life. If I do live to be 100 – and why not ? – then next year, my 50th birthday, is the start of part 2. Mmmm… well if that’s the case then :
1 – I don’t need to buy a house – already bought one, only 5 years off completion (if I can find a way to keep the reposession order at bay). In 5 years, I will have property worth £130,000. Fully paid up. Hey, imagine if I had that when I was 5 years old, how cool that would have been for a start in life !
2 – I don’t have to go to school for 15 years – I’ve done that, I’ve got an education, done college, done university… I’ve got a head start !
3 – I don’t have to get married and have children – I have 3 wonderful children who are doing well and I’ve had the snip, so no need to have any more… no stress and strain of raising babies. Ace !
4 – I don’t need to buy a car or learn to drive – already sorted.
5 – I don’t need to worry about making friends or being popular or liked – I have a fantastic circle of friends who love me and I love them.
6 – I don’t have to worry about my parents leaving me, I already have had the sadness of losing them.
7 – I don’t need to worry about a job. I have the potential in my new business to make a comfortable living, if and when I am mentally strong enough to fully apply myself.
… and so on and so forth…”
Now I am having this conversation with myself in my car and I can literally feel the stress, the pain, the depression leaving my body. I am getting genuinely excited at the way my mind is working. I go into the house and continue this conversation whilst making a coffee. I get a notepad and make notes of what I am saying. Every note, every little idea, is scribbled down so as not to be forgotten.
As the evening progresses, I find myself going through each room in the house, removing any trace of my wife’s existance. Every memory gets either boxed up for the children to enjoy in the future, or goes in the bin. The kitchen gets emptied – I keep 3 cups, 3 plates, 3 knives, forks etc, for me and the 2 youngest children when they visit. The rest of the clutter gets binned. The living room is re-arranged. The bedroom is rearranged. The bathroom is rearranged. This carries on through to maybe 5am…
… For the first time in 3 years, I go to bed with an exhausted smile and wake up a few hours later with that same smile. I carry on where I left off. I borrow a couple of hundred pounds off my brother to get rid of furniture and replace with cheap “get by for a while” furniture, that has no trace of my marriage attached to it. I carry on writing notes.
Well, over the next 2 -3 months, remarkable changes happen. By the end of the 3rd month, at my medical check up, I am taken off my blood pressure tablets, my BP being normal for the first time in 3 years. The following month, after slowly cutting back, I am off my anti-depressants, also for the first time in 3 years, the longest I have been there in my life. I have lost over a stone in fat. My business is taking off as I am able to focus on it and money is coming in again.
By November, 9 months on, I have cleared my debts and I have £4,000 saved. My friends tell me I have a “happy house”. That they feel the positive juju the second they come in the door. They want to know (part jokingly, and part enviously) why I now walk round with a permanent smile, like a village idiot. More than anything though, they are genuinely delighted that they have got “me” back.
But let’s go back to Part 2.
The whole trigger for this was the realisation that if I live to be 100, I am only halfway through my life. So I started adding to the notes I had already started. This time, not marking down things I didn’t have to go through, but things that I am going to do. Each page of things to do is broken down into what I need to do to get there. There are wild things that I may not be skilled enough to do, like publish a novel. I may never be as good as Jimi Hendrix on the guitar. But what is there to stop me doing the best I can do with both ? Then there are totally achievable goals, like buying a campervan and spending 3 months on the road, enjoying life and writing that novel ? Getting married again, now that my heart is mending and I am meeting lovely ladies again – why not ? Decorating and renovating the house. Expanding the business. Getting fit. Losing a bit more weight. Learning to fly a plane. Doing a new degree in something I really enjoy. So many places to visit, to enjoy, to experience.
It’s all there and it’s all ahead of me and I know it’s all down to me. But most importantly, after the 9 months that have just gone by and how my life has already changed so much, I know it’s totally achievable !
So… “man, I’ve another 50 years of this shit” is the single, most important sentence that has changed my life, hopefully forever. Because I’m proving it wrong. And life has rarely felt better.
(I have missed out a section about a girl, I’ll call her “W”, who added a lot of fuel to this fire right at the beginning. She may read this and/or some people may know her, so I shouldn’t mention her by name. But, without knowing it, she made me want to be a better person (thanks Jack Nicholson) too. We never dated, or anything like that… but she is one of the most beautiful souls I have come across. Thank you “W” for your inspiration.)
Best wishes all of you reading this. I wish you a long and happy life.
Rob.
Chicken Gyros with Dill Sauce
Chicken Gyros with Dill Sauce is a traditional Greek sandwich.
Ingredients
1 cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill
2 large garlic cloves, finely minced
1 teaspoon + 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 pound skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
4 fresh pita bread rounds, heated
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Instructions
In small bowl blend together yogurt, 2 tablespoons dill, garlic and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken with oregano, 1 teaspoon dill, salt and pepper. Sauté until browned and cooked through, about about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon oil to skillet and sauté onions until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
Return chicken and any juices to skillet. Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Stir until heated through, about 2 minutes.
Top pita rounds with chicken mixture. Spoon dill sauce over chicken and serve. This sandwich is folded in half and eaten. Pass the extra sauce, as desired.
We are decoupling from China and, a fortiori, from its technology and the 130 countries in its currency, trade and defense alliances. Highlights from 2023 suggest that we far behind and the gap is widening.
Economy
In 2023, China’s economy grew by $1.6 trillion, more than the rest of the world’s combined – while the USA borrowed $3 trillion to fund $300 billion GDP growth. Real wages grew 4.7% and demographics will remain healthy through 2043. 21 million tourists flew during Golden Week and spent $3 billion in Xinjiang alone. Hangzhou hosted more athletes at the Asian Games than the Olympics and domestic brands Anta and Li-Ning outsold Nike and Adidas.
Research
Young Science became the world’s #3 journal and is rapidly overtaking incumbent leaders Nature and Science. With a $228 billion corporate R&D budget, 3 million Chinese scientists applied for almost as many patents as the rest of the world combined, and utterly dominated the top 1% of most influential papers. Huawei’s R&D budget alone is larger than the US CHIPS and Science Act.
Scientists created the first graphene semiconductor, while Betavolt began shipping an atomic energy battery that powers consumer devices for 99 years.
Huawei mastered 7nm chip production (Intel still has not), replaced WiFi with 6x faster NearLink, took Apple’s #1 spot in the world’s largest market with a phone using 90% domestic components. Chinese chip foundries bought 62% of machinery equipment domestically this year, vs. 47% last year, and produced the first integrated neuro-memristor and the first 232 layer flash memory. Researchers set a record for high-rate quantum key distribution, showed off the first ambient superionic hydride ion conductor, the first primate brain-computer interface and an integrated neuro-memristor chip that will make circuit boards obsolete.
Macro inventions included the first waterless nuclear reactor, the most powerful solid-fuel rocket, the first liquid oxygen/methane rocket (it lifted 6 tonnes into sun-synchronous orbit), the world’s only Mach 30 wind tunnel, lasers generating high-energy beams indefinitely, and the first high-orbit Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite for 24×7 weather observation.
The country installed 80 million kW of PV and PV generated 300 billion kWh nationwide, 30% above 2022. CATL’s EV batteries get 400 km on 15 min. charge and 700 km. on a regular charge at all temperatures. In addition to installing 290,000 industrial robots – more than the rest of the world combined – it put AESA radars on $8,000 farm drones (only four countries can make them – for fighter jets). Its 800 million 5G subscribers are served by 3.2 million base stations and integrated 5G industry applications into 67 economic categories with 100,000 application cases. Tibet’s 5G service surpassed California’s.
Environment
In the wilderness that covers 42% of China’s landmass, conservationists counted 70,000 Tibetan antelopes, 3,400 Przewalski’s gazelles, 5,000 golden snub-nosed monkeys and 1200 Snow Leopards…
I dated a lady, who was already dating someone else. Except I didn’t know this when she asked me out. They weren’t living together, so it wasn’t something that jumped out at you.
It was only on our 4th date, that the guy got suspicious , and followed her to our restaurant, and caused a scene that I had a clue. She dumped the guy, in the restaurant, and made it seem like it was no big deal, as they were a short term casual couple.
I found out from her best friend about a month later, that they had been seeing each other regularly for a year. But I was hooked by then.
After 9 months she asked me,to ask her, to marry me. Yes, I know, confusing right?
I said I needed to think about it. Immediately, she was busy on Friday nights, but still up for Saturdays. She said it was work related.
I recognized the pattern and decided not to follow her to whatever restaurant and bar she was going to. I didn’t need to have a big fight in public. Instead I waited until the next day, and lied to her, and told her I had followed her. She said, well I guess thats it then. Why does everyone follow me?
Implying that I wouldn’t have just been the second person to follow her.
She was right, that was it. Once a cheater, always a cheater, even if they aren’t married or living together.
Wife Started Behaving Like A F**inist And Is Now Having A MELTDOWN That Her Marriage Is IMPLODING
Chinese people are prolific savers. And Chinese as you know are the most practical and pragmatic people on planet earth. They are the opposite of American people who are one of the most wasteful nation on planet earth. And worst the U.S. as a nation and your archaic political system allows wasteful and unaudited spending.
China and Chinese are just the opposite.
Chinese people save 36% of their income, the highest on earth and the US barely save at all. That is a very big difference. The U.S. cannot depend on domestic savings, China can and they do. China saved more the entire UK GDP each year! China used that to fuel the Chinese economy by building up infrastructures and invest in R&D. Hence China is now totally independent innovatively and scientifically.
I know when a person like you who ask such a question you are already fooled by your western media that China is unsustainable but the fact is just the opposite. The U.S. is mightily unsustainable and China is the lowest geared economy. And its real tangible investment are paying off well!
The U.S. infrastructure is dilapidating and you guys burnt cash like there is no tomorrow! 5 trillion in Iraq, 5 trillion in Vietnam, 3 trillion in Afghanistan. And probably 10 trillion in Ukraine by the time this shit ended. Burning cash sending armadas around the world and keeping 800 plus military bases around the world! Your investment is not getting any returns.
China build more high speed railway, solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric power stations then the rest of the world put together!
So grow up Mr. Questioner and Americans and brain dead westerners. China is great and dandy. The U.S. is without doubt collapsing before your eyes. If you open yours!
THIS AMERICAN INSULTS THE ENTIRE AFRICAN CONTINENT. IS THIS HOW A/AMERICANS FEEL ABOUT AFRICANS?
Tiananmen, and the never-ending western media narrative telling outright lies for decades without giving the Chinese the opportunity to set out the facts is the primary motivation for the Great Firewall, and strict Chinese censorship.
A poor and relatively backward China would have been at constant risk of implosion had external forces been able to spread lies as propaganda to bring down the government in Beijing, using Tiananmen as the rallying point.
Unfortunately, the truth is way more mundane.
The students were persuaded to go home before first light, and most of the soldiers deployed to the square were involved in area cleaning on June 4th and 5th.
In sum, the Tiananmen PROTESTS (which lasted for months centered around June 4th) resulted in the deaths of several hundred, with an abnormally high percentage being uniformed personnel. It was at best, a sustained social disturbance.
The Chinese are not stupid, or disrespectful people. No leader will order a massacre at Tiananmen, with the portrait of Mao overlooking the square. The Long March generation had given their lives to free the people from oppression, and it would have been heresy to mow down the hope of the nation under the watchful eyes of Mao.
Dmitry Orlov: Russia and China Melding in a Shifting Geopolitical Landscape
This happened, not to me, but to my younger sister (who’s 16 at the moment). [Too bad I wasn’t with her back then…]
Some Background Details (they’re important in the story): My sister is a beautiful, talented and intelligent girl. She got double promotion in her 6th year so now she’s the youngest in her class. For some time now (around 2–3 years… Whoa, that’s actually a lot!), she has been complaining about her vision. She says that whenever she opens her eyes, everything just constantly keeps morphing and changing forms .
We took her to 3 opthalmologists. None of them could determine the cause of her wavy vision and so they diagnosed it as psychological and referred her to a psychologist who was very well-known (and well-paid) in our area.
Let’s call the psychologist Sarah. So here goes:
(My sister comesin and sits down. Sarah regards my sister condescendingly then proceeds to give her a complacent smirk as if she had just found the answer to all the problems in the universe)
Sarah: “You’re not a very good student are you?”
5 remarks popped into my sister’s head at that very moment:
WTF?!
Is this the first question you ask your patient?
I’m top of my class even after my double promotion.
You’re not a very good doctor are you?
Lady, you just ruined your reputation in less than 10 seconds.
But instead she replied with a simple “I’m moderately good.”
Sarah: “You know, it won’t do you any good to lie.”
By this point, my sister is so shocked she doesn’t even say anything.
Sarah: “Please stand outside for a moment. I’d like to speak to your mother privately.”
My sister just walks out (still unable to process such level of vanity in an adult).
Sarah: “Your daughter is quite obviously making the whole thing up about her vision. And as her parent, it is your responsibility to make sure she studies all day. She gets an F in her tests and at best a D, am I right?”
It took my mother all of her willpower to not get up and slap her full across the face. She quietly thanked the doctor and left, making sure to slam the door especially loudly on her way out.
P.S. After much more research and diagnosis in another country (Australia), it turns out my sister’s wavy vision was due to ocular migraine. It hasn’t got much better yet but baby steps lead the way. 🙂
INVESTIGATORS REVEAL JIMMY LAI MONEY TRAIL
Huge amounts of international money flowed into the bank accounts of Jimmy Lai—and large sums of cash went out to anti-China groups, a court heard yesterday.
The tabloid publisher received HK$2.945 billion in his nine bank accounts in recent years, with deposits coming from the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere. The money is said to have derived “from overseas securities trading”.
But the money didn’t sit there.
Who got the cash?
Chunks of finance went out to multiple China-hostile political groups in Hong Kong, the US, and the UK, the prosecution said, providing a detailed report from financial investigators.
Jimmy Lai’s lawyer Steven Kwan Man-wai did not dispute the information.
Local recipients included the Hong Kong Democratic Party, the Civic Party, the Labour Party, the League of Social Democrats, the court was told.
A wildly critical UK group called Hong Kong Watch, whose members include Benedict Rogers and former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten, received HK$202,000.
Paul Wolfowitz, former US deputy secretary of defence, was sent HK$1.76 million in payments from 2013 onwards, the court heard. Money also went to a right-wing think tank called the American Enterprise Institute.
Cash also went to a group called the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, organizers of an annual meeting to keep the “Tiananmen Square massacre” story, debunked by Julian Assange and others, alive.
The biggest individual recipient named yesterday was Cardinal Joseph Zen, a retired Hong Kong churchman who has fallen out with his colleagues, including Pope Francis, over his relentless China-bashing. The churchman received HK$3.5 million in 2017, the prosecution said.
The court heard earlier that large sums of money from Jimmy Lai’s funds (held by various entities) were paid to media companies, including the publishers of the Washington Post, the Nikkei Weekly, the UK Guardian, and media groups in India.
Jimmy Lai, 76, is on trial for sedition and collusion, offences illegal worldwide. His colleagues and associates have pleaded guilty in related hearings. The trial continues.
Baltic Sea Anomaly, Atlantis, and Underwater Alien Bases | Mysteries of the Ocean Pt 1
Oh, and movies said we’d “live happily ever after.”
And we did, through the honeymoon. Then reality struck.
We suddenly discovered that, well, we’re very different. In just about everything.
And that caused us to clash and occasionally me to wonder, “What the hell is wrong with her?”
And my wife to wonder that about me, only way more often.
Through years of building businesses, raising kids, paying bills. And occasional sleepless nights, sickness and clashes it would have been easy to walk away.
To think, “Well, I guess it’s not meant to be.”
But we just chose not to. We chose to make it “happily ever after.” Period.
So when we didn’t have the happy part we still had the ever after part. And it was going to be a long ever after.
So we might as well put the happy part back in. And we did.
Last week my wife was gone baby sitting our grandson. I was home alone.
No, that’s never a good thing in so many ways.
She came home on Friday evening so we had a late dinner and watched a movie.
As we enjoyed a glass of wine, I thought, “Ah, life is good again. Just the way it’s meant to be.”
I turned to her and said, “I’m glad you can babysit. But I’m really glad you’re home.”
“Yeah, it feels good to be home too. Though I miss my baby,” she responded.
“I know, I’m having to compete with your new boyfriend. But I do have to say, he’s really cute.”
We laughed.
And proceeded to live happily ever after for another evening.
And later, well, never mind.
You get married for the wrong reasons. Then build a marriage for the right ones.
I was failing grade 8 Math and English, and barely passing Science. My parents ran into my Math teacher at a social event, turned out they had distant common friends.
She made it a point to tell them I wasn’t going to get anywhere in life. She suggested they find me a trade, I might do well as an electrician or a plumber (nothing wrong with these professions, except she used it in a derogatory way, as studying is beyond my capabilities).
Ms. Farhana was a real jerk.
I was the shiest kid around and bullied throughout my childhood. However, I was embarrassed enough by that incident that I mustered up my courage and asked the neighbour’s daughter to tutor me. She started from basic and built up from there.
I passed grade 8 Math. Barely, but I passed it.
She kept tutoring me and I did average in grade 9.
My grade 10 Math teacher had a baby. He lived in the neighbourhood so I decided to ring his doorbell to wish him well. He invited me in for cake. Zee never says no to cake. He told me I could be his best student if I just tried harder.
I knew he was giving me an empty compliment, but a part of me thought I could.
So I asked him to help me after school. He said yes.
I got lucked out with a really kick-ass, but slightly racist, grade 11 Chemistry teacher. He broke things down to just Math. I overlooked his passive aggressive micro-aggressions and had him help me. Everything made sense.
I took Finite Math in highschool. The teacher had a bit of a gambling problem, but man did he know his probabilities.
Suddenly Math was fun.
There is a goat behind one of three doors and you pick a door. I open one of the doors you didn’t pick, do you change your answer? (Hint: yes)
I made up different problems with him. I learned Texas Hold’em. We talked about probabilities of different hands.
In grade 12 Advanced Math I got almost perfect, the highest mark anyone has gotten up until that point in that school’s history.
I took Math tests for fun and did well enough at the University of Waterloo’s Descartes test that I got in with scholarship even though my overall marks weren’t that high.
I decided to major in Math (and Computer Science). I finished the first year in Dean’s list, primarily because of kicking ass in Math. I tutored Calculus, Algebra, and Combinatorics and Optimization to pay bills.
Screw you Ms. Farhana, you were wrong.
I graduated and went to work for Microsoft and then Amazon due to my strength in Math.
I decided to run for a local office and despite not knowing anyone, turned campaigning into a Math problem. I reached out to others in the office and asked them for advice. I took their advice seriously.
Heck I read a book, tracked down its author (two-time mayor of a Michigan municipality) and emailed him for advice. He replied and agreed to mentor me remotely.
I won the election.
I started a business. I sucked at it. I ran into someone at a dinner who ran an agency. I asked him for help. He agreed. Eventually we ran a campaign for Nissan.
As a child I never thought I could learn that everyone had something to teach me, outright ask them to teach me, and benefit from this skill so incredibly.
“The Worst Thing Ever”
it was seriously the worst thing ever. I walked into my house and saw my mom hanging from the ceiling fan.
I can’t even put into words how messed up it was. It felt like my whole world just fell apart. I still can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like I’m stuck in some kind of freaky….
I can’t even put into words how messed up it was. It felt like my whole world just fell apart. I still can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like I’m stuck in some kind of freaky dream.
I just wish I could go back in time and stop it from happening. But I know that’s not possible. All I can do now is try to move on and remember her in the best way I can.
The most devastating experience of my life was witnessing my mother’s passing. The sight of her lifeless body on the floor left me feeling as though I had lost not only her, but also myself and my entire world.
Despite my desperate desire to help her, she passed away before my eyes, leaving me feeling helpless and hopeless.
However, as time passed, I came to the realization that I must strive to make her proud by doing my best to secure a successful future. This tragedy has left an indelible mark on my life, but I am determined to honor my mother’s memory by achieving my goals.
Related…
DESPERATE WOMAN RESCUED FROM HANGING HERSELF TO DEATH
Information from reliable source to YIRIMAMBO ADVOCACY GROUP UPPER WEST REGION
indicate that a woman from East District information gathered from Wa East district in the Upper West region indicate that a married woman with six children who allegedly wanted to hang herself to death is battling with problems.
It has been fetched but obvious that she can not do anything else for survival nor her mother to care for her family. It is noted that she is a sickler and her mother a stroke patience.
Despite her poor health condition, she and the husband that are taking care of the family. She is always carrying her mother here and there to help her in movement because of that she can’t do any work for money.
Notwithstanding to this, sometimes it is difficult for them to get even food to eat or clothes to wear and medicines for themselves.
Even though the father with six children, is a farmer but is not easy for him taking care of all of them, he brings only what he gets from the farm and that is all which is not always enough but they have been managing.
So she always sit idle thinking that all these problems cannot be solved and she has been saying which she has always been saying to people. *Ending Her Life By Committing Suicide* On the 31st July, 2019 at about 4-5:00 in the evening, a woman which is about 45years- old by name with-held with six Chlidren, from Ducie in the Wa East district of the Upper West region went out with a rope in a black
polythene bag thinking that nobody have seen her but one of her children who was inside another room before she went out into the bush quickly went to inform some good Samaritans in the community and they also quickly traced this woman to the bush and before they got there she has already tied the rope on top of a tree trying to climb another piece of a tree before she can put her neck on the rope. Then the people who followed her as good Samaritans shouted on her and quickly rushed to save her without doing that.
So on this note we are pleading that if any member can help us with either food stuffs or clothes for these people and health support for them as well, if possible so that we will also try to help this woman with counselling and the materials support from you.
But for now she is a little bit OK with her situation.
With the intervention of yirimambo for the first place with our advice and counseling than before.
SOURCE YIRIMAMBO ADVOCACY GROUP UPPER WEST
Be the RUFUS!
We are a community.
My post on community… on Quora.
What is a Chinese Expert?
I really do not think that this creature exists.
According to the Western / American “news” media, a Chinese Expert is…
A person who accepts American government funding to say bad things about China.
Is associated, or was associated, with American mainstream media.
Has, in their possession, photos of the “expert” with American political personages.
According to the Chinese, a Chinese Expert is a graded, stratified tier system based on experience.
Top Tier
Born in China. Studied Chinese history with exemplary grades. Works on behalf of the Chinese people, and puts the people of China first. Many members of the CCP fit this role, as do many Pioneers, and an entire subculture of Chinese that support the “Chinese Dream”.
Old Hand
Has lived in China for a significant period of time. Understands the various societies, and cultures of China. Is married to, or was part of, a Chinese family. Works on behalf on the greater good for all, but of course, his / her Chinese family and Chinese friends come first. This person is also known as a Chinese wanna-be. And this person supports, and praises, “The Chinese Dream”.
Enthusiast
This person, may or many not have lived in China. But has totally embraced the Chinese culture, society and means. This includes certain individuals out of Singapore, Vietnam, and other places around the globe. Maybe they aren’t an “expert” in a classical sense, but they are certainly enthusiastic for the Chinese dream. These people are perhaps known an “fanboi.”
At best, I (personally) am considered a “China Old Hand”.
I don’t know everything, but I know enough.
…
What is “The Chinese Dream”?
Last weekend, my family and a few friends, went to visit an organizational youth meet in Zhuhai. This group (and there are thousands throughout China), teach independence, pride, self-confidence, and acceptance as part of “The Chinese Dream”. It was astounding.
It’s 100% voluntary. The kids pay a small membership fee.
Really. Amazing.
You will never see anything else like this anywhere. Watch how accepted and inclusive my daughter was taken in. It was like she was “absorbed by the hive”. LOL
“Resistance is futile”. -The Borg
There is a great sense of belonging, and acceptance that I have NEVER experienced anywhere else.
Belonging.
B-E-L-O-N-G-I-N-G
Belonging as PART of a COMMUNITY.
No “lone wolf” bullshit.
…
It’s stuff like this why I LOVE LOVE LOVE China so much.
EDIT 22JAN23
1.3K views. Only 30 “thumbs up”.
I guess you all have bought into the Western propagandized lie that you can be the “lone wolf”. That you can be another “Die Hard” type; another Rambo. Another Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. Maybe a “Professional career woman”… and all that.
That is a lie.
As many are waking up to the reality that humans are social creatures.
We were on a flight to the U.S. from Thailand where we live.
In Taiwan, a disheveled man of around 30 sat down next to me, reeking of weed. After takeoff, he pulled down the tray and filled it with candy bars, nuts, fruit juice and oranges from his camouflage jacket. He turned to me and said, “You can’t trust airline food.”
But when lunch was served, he smashed his food stash under the food tray he was given and ate everything, including the garnish.
Afterwards he wanted to talk and kept pestering me with, “Hey. Hey!!”
He asked where we were from, and upon hearing “Bangkok” he began raving about ‘Thai sticks’, Thai marijuana. Then he asked my Thai husband if he would help him start importing weed to the U.S.
Husband stared at him really coldly and told the man that he was a Royal Thai police officer so “No.” The idiot’s response: “ Listen, I know all Thai cops are corrupt. We could make a load.”
Husband put headphones on and ignored him. I asked the pothead if he was out of his mind. He shrugged, laughed and said husband would change his mind, for sure.
Luckily, he made a friend elsewhere and moved.
But he wasn’t finished with us.
As we lined up for Customs, he got right behind us. As the agent checked our bags, he kept saying loudly, “They’re from Thailand. Great weed there! Oh, look! That’s a weed pipe!” (It was a replica of a silver opium pipe, a decorative item – a gift) “Listen! I still wanna import from you guys!!”
Another agent picked up his bags and escorted him to a separate office, and we never saw him again.
The United States and it’s entire existence is based on the WEALTH OF NATIONS
The inherent belief that Core Capitalism is the only system to deliver maximum benefits to an economy and stability to the economy & a system of the people is the only way to deliver a system with full global peace
That the world will be fully peaceful when every nation is governed by its people AKA is a democracy built on Western ideals
This was a very correct analysis that the US followed for almost a hundred and ten years from 1880–1990
Unfortunately this ideology got corrupted post 1990 when:-
US Democracy slowly became more and more partisan
US Leaders became slowly worse and worse and essentially corrupt demagogues
The US capitalism model deteriorated to an Oligarchy ‘Support the top 1%’ model that is sinking the states
The US model became all about speculation and less about actual progress and growth
Yet today’s US leaders religiously believe this is the winning model that every nation must adopt and regards any nation that is different as a ‘Flawed Nation’
Chinas Economic Ideology unlike the USA has always changed to suit changing times
From Deeply Socialist under Mao Tse Tung where the focus was on Education and Equality and Food Production and Stability
To Gradual Mixed Economy under Deng Xiaoping & Jiang Zimin where the focus shifted to Industrialization
To a Ruthless Capitalist Mindset under Hu Jintao where the focus was growth, growth and growth
To the Common Prosperity Mindset under Xi Jingping focusing on reducing Income inequality, spreading development across all sections of the economy and a sort of hybrid model of socialism within capitalism
It is diametric opposite to the US and it’s Ruthless Capitalism Ideology
US maximizes emphasis on Speculation
China hates Speculation
US prefers to capitalize everything to the maximum
China prefers a strong sense of control on excess capitalism
US prefers coalescing smaller entities into a handful of monopolies
China prefers mushrooming of smaller entities and competition deciding which is the best
Chinas One Party System is also diametrically opposite to the Multiple faction democracy that the US endorses and the West supports
The US believes that one person for too long loses the incentive to serve the people and becomes a dictator
Yet China believes a group of able people can serve the people the best and prevent unworthy individuals from coming to power who can ruin a well established system of governance
The US has always believed that ultimately China will shed it’s different ways and join the US in their perfect model (that they don’t realize they have fully corrupted)
It’s what made Gordon Chang & Peter Zeihan such celebrities
The US has always believed that China would face a massive setback like the USSR did (Or was suckered into triggering a setback like my friend Hoàng Phan establishes in his answers)
They estimated this to happen between 2005–2008
Didnt Happen
Instead China moved from strength to strength to strength over time and successfully endured every US action against it, from the Wolf Sanctions of 2011 to the Raimondo Sanctions of 2022
The US may trigger a wave of propaganda against China but the purpose of this is to STOP THEIR OWN PEOPLE FROM QUESTIONING AS TO HOW CHINA NOT ONLY SURVIVES TODAY BUT THRIVES FOLLOWING DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
As China moves ahead without the seeming collapse, the US are seeing their two hundred year old belief and ideology (Again which they don’t realize they have corrupted already) getting shattered by China
And slowly seeing others start to adopt a similar stance from Turkiye to Serbia to Vietnam to Singapore
The US is beginning to wonder if indeed it’s ideology was flawed and whether it’s gods and idols are false
And that terrifies them
They don’t realize that it is THEY who have completely corrupted a nice good solid system that was giving them the position of world leader and global trust for decades
It is they who have become Satanic Hegemons from Global Leaders
As for China, China is on the right track so far
They MUSTN’T MAKE THE MISTAKE THAT US DID
They mustn’t allow ideology and hegemony to corrupt them the way US was corrupted under Bush Junior, Clinton and so on
They must ensure they keep refreshing their system so that it best helps the people of China
Pepe Escobar: China Issues DEVASTATING Warning to Neocons as Putin and Xi Make History
I was on the beach late one night looking at the moon and the waves.
Out of the corner of my eye along the south end of the beach – I saw something super weird.
What is that?
I squinted, trying to figure it out – it was too far away – but it had to be really huge.
What the heck?
Well, I couldn’t sit there idly looking at the moon and listening to the surf anymore – I needed to figure out what that thing was over there on the beach.
So, I started walking… is it a car? What is that thing? How is it on the beach? Nobody in their right mind would drive a VW bug on a beach like ours… at night…
Closer and closer I walked and larger and larger it looked.
It was a leatherback sea turtle. Digging a hole in the sand.
I was utterly flabbergasted.
I didn’t make a sound, I just stood there, awestruck: feeling truly blessed in the moment to be near such a magnificent being.
I had never been so close to such a large animal in the wild before.
She was utterly oblivious to me – she was on a mission.
I stood beside her as she dug: I definitely got a sand bath that night. She flipped the sand until she was happy with her nest and began to fill it with eggs.
It took a long time.
I couldn’t stay until she was completely finished.
I’m pretty sure it took most of the rest of the night. I left around 0300 and she wasn’t done.
I’ve since swum with green turtles, who are dwarfed in comparison. But nothing has engendered that kind of awe before or since. Stunned is the right word for something which leaves your mouth hanging and your words lost.
Cheese and Honey Pie
Ingredients
Sesame Seed Pastry
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seed
1/4 teaspoon salt
Filling
16 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
Sesame Seed Pastry: Mix all ingredients until blended; press firmly and evenly against bottom and side of 9-inch pie plate.
Bake at 475 degrees F for 5 minutes.
Filling: Beat cream cheese in large mixer bowl on medium speed until creamy. Add remaining ingredients; beat until light and fluffy. Pour into baked pie shell.
Bake at 350 degrees F until firm, 40 to 50 minutes.
Refrigerate until serving time.
Yields 10 to 12 servings.
Done with the bullshit
I had a thought today that I wanted to share with you all, this is my response to a Reddit post I saw about how corrupt and outdated representative democracy is.
I will start with what I think to be the main problems of representative democracy
The elected body of legislators is not a representative sample of the population, looking at the legislature, you’d think the vast majority of the country was white male lawyers that are either Republicans or Democrats. This is very far from the truth, and many voters do not properly identify either Republican or Democrat and their interests oftentimes scope over topics from both parties. Most of the time when people vote they’re just picking the lesser of two evils, and are not in any way completely satisfied with what other party is doing.
Scope of power does not match scope of accountability, legislators may pass laws that impact people that could not vote for or against them. Unless you count propositions in places like california, legislators are able to pass pretty much whatever law they want that impact sometimes tens of millions of people and are in no way accountable to the laws that they pass. The people have no say in the laws that legislators have passed. This very often leads to a corrupt system of the government being able to do whatever it wants and the people having no say in what the government does.
Job security for elected officials is more dependent on fundraising than on whether the politician is acting in his or her constituents’ best interests. This blows the system wide open for large corporations and billionaires to buy off politicians that represent their best interests as opposed to the people.
Lobbying undermines democracy. Lobbying is a mechanism for powerful groups to influence laws and regulations at the expense of the public interest. This results in outside influence, unfair competition and policy capture, to the detriment of effective policymaking. This effectively allows billionaires and big corporations to buy our government and politicians that act in their best interests rather than the interests of the people.
The voting system and general layout of government was designed before it was possible to quickly communicate long distances, so it ignores the possibility of citizens directly participating.
Mass media cannot be trusted to provide accurate information and is very often bias. Mass media often feeds lies and propaganda to the electorate and the electorate is not currently equipped to ensure a representative democracy is acting in the best interest of the people.
The electoral college needs to go, it is not based on popular vote, and it is based on a winner takes all system which is easily susceptible to corruption and allows political candidates to be elected by losing the popular vote. Under the system if you want to vote for your states of losing party don’t even bother voting.
There aren’t enough representatives to accurately represent the people if we’re going to keep our system of representative democracy and not throw out the entire thing. I think the amount of Representatives should be raised to 936, and the amount of Representative districts should also be increased.
It’s very hard to remove corrupt politicians from power. The people should be able to impeach corrupt politicians, the system was not designed to have politicians serving for 30 or 40 years. We need term limits, I think a term limit of 6 years for senators and representatives is perfectly fair, and I think a term limit of 10 years for supreme Court justices is also perfectly fair. This would allow the government to be more in touch with what people want by constantly switching out people every couple of years.
The Monopoly of power that both conservatives and liberals have over the government in their respected Republican and Democratic parties. We need more political parties to better represent the people, it is not the case that people simply think one way or the other there should be five political parties written directly into the Constitution. The government should operate in a European style model of a political coalition if it wants to get anything done, in other words political parties are forced to make concessions and are forced to work with other political parties to pass laws.
So what do I things should be done to fix things? I’ll tell you
Abolish Congress and the supreme Court, and implement a system of direct democracy where every 6 months every single issue that the supreme Court and Congress would have looked at are voted on directly by the people in the form of propositions. Now I know that if we implemented elections twice a year every June and December people will be voting on about 100 different issues, and that’s fine, people’s voices need to be heard and it is a much better system of asking people what they think of certain issues rather than allowing an out-of-touch government to make these decisions for people instead.
Like I said on my previous point, it needs to be a government for the people by the people. This is why representative democracy is an outdated and obsolete relic of the past. In representative democracy legislators are able to pass whatever laws they please and are not accountable to the people.
We need to make lobbying illegal and if we are going to have a political coalition system the people need to be the ones electing politicians not billionaires and big corporations. Money should not be a part of politics. Making money part of politics undermines democracy
Like I said before lobbying undermines democracy and it needs to be banned 🚫. Lobby groups do absolutely nothing for the government except give special interest groups political power that they shouldn’t have and allow the special interest groups to have a voice in our country and our politics and it allows them to buy politicians.
We need to switch to a ranked choice voting system, as opposed to an instant runoff system. The electoral college needs to go, even if that means amending the Constitution to get rid of it.
Mass media should not have a say in our government, as they cannot be trusted to provide accurate information. I think we should have a system of fake news laws that holds these mass media companies accountable for publishing bias or false information
Like I said the electoral college needs to go. Even if that means amending the Constitution get rid of it. We need a ranked choice popular voting system. This would make it so everybody’s voice is heard, and it would allow new political parties to come to the table and it would break up the Monopoly of power that Republicans and Democrats have over the government.
I don’t even think we should keep our system of Representative democracy, but if it needs to stay we need to double the amount of Representatives to 936. This wasn’t even my idea this was the idea of YouTuber Mathew Beat.
We need term limits for politicians. Once a corrupt politician like Mitch McConnell is in power it’s almost impossible to get rid of them. And it should be up to the entire country to elect politicians not just their state. Term limits would allow new people to come to the table and new ideas to spread and it would allow for more political parties to have seats. Every political party no matter how extremist should be able to have its voice heard.
We need to switch to a political coalition system. Everybody should be able to have their voice heard no matter what side of the political spectrum they sit on. There should be five major political parties and many smaller political parties even if those political parties only get 1–5% of the vote. These political parties should be: the nationalist, the conservatives, the liberals, the acella party (progressive party), and the green party. Many smaller political parties such as: the Socialist party, the fascist party, the libertarian party, etc should also get a say. If we have 936 representatives, even if the fascist party only got 2% of the vote, they would still get 19 seats. This would actually heavily benefit minority political parties and give them a lot of power. Let’s say for example that 20% of the population identifies as nationalist, and 22% of the population identify as conservative. This does not add up to 51%, it adds up to 42%, this would still require an additional 9% of the vote for the nationalist and conservatives to get anything passed and they would have to make deals with the smaller political parties to get up to 51%.
These are just my thoughts about our whole busted political system, let me know what you think
2024 Taiwan Election Reveals Shocking TRUTH About USA and China
My camping experiences have uniformly been terrible. No matter what year it is, who I am with, or what my age is… it doesn’t matter what season, time of the year or whatever… it always rained.
And that meant, yeah you guessed it, sleeping in the rain, wet, cold, freezing with no real sleep and eventually waking up to a cold gloomy grey morning before everyone else does.
Sigh.
Never the less, I have romanticized the idea of camping. I imagine how great it would be to merge my “keg parties” and late-night bonfires with the idea of sleeping comfortably nearby.
My bother has become adept at it and loves to hike in the Colorado mountains with his wife and huskies. Which, by the way, they love all the snow.
It’s could out, I know (if you are in the Northern climes), but if you are in Australia, it just might be perfect camping weather. I just cannot imagine it gets snowy, just temperate at night. But, honestly, I’d be afraid to sleep there in the brush. The snakes (I hear) are quite deadly, as are the spiders… the toads… the beatles… the ants… and you are apt to run into a wild herd of wallabies. Yikes!
I’ve seen the you-tube videos… frightening!
Snakes, critters with strange names, and frogs that re inside out and just don’t die. Burrrrr!
But if you are the brave sort, as most Aussies are, going out into the brush is just as normal as downing a pint. A natural part of the ebb and flow of life.
Ah. One day. One day.
Sounds great… if you have a local to keep you out of trouble, but I have to tell you all what…
You won’t be able to get me to drink beer out of a stinky old shoe. No way!
Let me help you guys unpacked how Trump fxxked up Apple. Yes he fxxked up Apple one of the world’s most admirable company.
Step one. Trump and later Biden thought that they can fxxked up Huawei and China. They both didn’t. Expect China and Huawei to survive! Let alone excel. Well they don’t know mathematics for a start. A billion and a half Chinese including me a Chinese origin turn around and patriotically chose Huawei over Apple! And poor Apple got fxxked up! For no reason but just bad politics by their racist government!
One they and their contract manufacturer Foxconn switch just 5% of their manufacturing to India and they both got fxxked up badly. The failure if Apple Phone 15 made in India is so high it lost all trust on their customers. Now Foxconn wants our right away! But India says not so fast. And Apple brand name is already thoroughly fxxked! In Asia the Apple users insist it has to be MADE IN CHINA!
But that is a smaller problem. Now let me introduce you guys a great lesson that doing shit don’t pay! China and Huawei took a mere 3 short years to do what the U.S. thought China has to take at least 30 years! And it actually made a phone better, faster, cheaper than iPhone! Plus a billion people on earth wanting to show displeasure at US and Trump and Biden shit! In January 2024 they decide to teach the west a lesson! Try imagining a perfect storm!
That is what the US is facing. It’s own products are fxxked up, its shit is not working yet it spends billions if not trillions to coerce and bribing nations and companies to do shit! That is the real USA today!
And let me help you. You ain’t seen nothing yet! Decoupling or de-risking from China is the last thing you ought to do!
Nope, the underlying problem reminds the same. US strategists feel they must retain US hegemony and its rules based world order in order to thrive. And Russia/China refuses to accept those rules not supported by the UN Charter.
2023 was a year, US officials feels they must moderate their confrontation with China due to negative headwinds from a losing fight in Ukraine war, a uniting global South dedollarising fast and near record inflation from years of Tbill printing. They fear Chinese aggressive selling of Tbills will worsen the US inflation and Tbill printing situation only. Nothing has changed.
China on the other hand has fears that an over intense US China confrontation can worsen global demand and that can complicate the delicate balance they have in sustaining the Chinese economy without HUGE STIMULUS. China is still preparing to retake Taiwan, and there are still key steps needed including doubling nuke deterrence, training PLA personnel with so many new toys, supplies and economy in case of sanctions. Plenty to do in next few years. So, China is also receptive to moderating tension while work continues.
So, this is a tactical pause only, the strategic picture has not changed at all. USA is hoping to unite West to win, and Russia/China is hoping to unite the global South to push a new world order. And to dedollarise under BRICS+ (BRICS Pay) to burst the US Tbill bubble. THAT IS STILL THE GLOBAL BIG PICTURE, THIS IS A FIGHT FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER.
I invited a very close friend with her sons to come for Christmas dinner. I was a single mom, and so was she. I invited a few other single parents too. Christmas can be a challenge for singles.
I was cooking up a storm all day. I made a lot — she had 2 sons who were big kids and big eaters. She had promised to come this time. The year before she had canceled the day before. My “friend” called an hour before dinner to tell me that she had gotten “a better offer” and wasn’t coming to dinner. (In case you’re wondering, I’m an excellent cook.) I couldn’t believe she was so rude. Plus, she waited so late — I ended up with way too much food left over.
You won’t believe this, but when the next holiday came, she hinted that she wanted to be invited. This happened for years after, but I never, ever invited her for a holiday meal again.
Don’t know how clever it was, but a client of mine had been picked up because he was in a minor accident and had an open container of beer with him. When the cops were taking him to the station, they asked him whether he wanted a breath test or a blood test (Colorado law gave the accused the choice, after which no change was allowed). He opted for a blood test, but explained that he was Russian and had ‘fat skin’ (his term); they’d need a doctor to draw the blood. He was told ‘Paramedics are what we have and paramedics are what you get.’
He sat there patiently while the paramedics stuck him about seven times, never able to draw blood. Finally losing patience, the cop with him told him he was getting a breath test, and my client refused to participate.
Under implied consent, they charged him with DUI and called him an ambulance (he’d suffered minor injuries in the crash. Nothing to make the delay over the testing any issue). The paramedic in the ambulance set an IV with no problems (of course, nobody tried to get blood then) and took him to the hospital.
When we got into court, I got the cop on the stand to agree to the main points, i.e. that the accused had opted for a blood test, he’d been patient while repeated attempts were made to draw blood and that the police then demanded the breath test, which he refused. No problem; the cop admitted each point. I then turned to the judge and said (approximately; it’s been twenty-five years or more), “Your honor, the law prevents the accused from changing his mind after he’s made his choice. If he can’t change his mind, the police can’t do it for him.” Then I shut up.
The judge thought about that for all of about a minute before dismissing the case.
My eldest daughter went into IT in my footsteps. I was so very proud of her when she got a chance to join a start-up that ended up being wildly successful. One of the founders was a bit of an arrogant little prick. One Sunday my daughter was over for dinner and we were talking shop. I asked how it was going, and she said fine except for little prick. She volunteered that the crew had found out he had two panic points. He was deathly afraid of both little people (dwarves/midgets) and scared shitless of clowns. I duly noted both. April 1 was coming fast so good old dad got busy and found…drumroll please….a midget clown stripper. Sent her into the business during lunch on April 1. Daughter said little prick screamed like a girl and ran out of the building. Didn’t return for two days. Everyone said it was the best practical joke they’d ever seen.
Originally Answered: What is the furthest you’ve seen somebody reach to be offended at something?
A few months ago I was in my local Home Hardware picking up tools – a pack of blades, some feeler gauges, etc. Sometimes I forget to put my tools back into the toolbox and they tend to…go for a walk.
While I was there, I noticed a woman and a girl in her late teens staring bemusedly at the long racks of tools. The woman had a list in her hands, and was dubiously looking at the endless choices.
Not at all hard to see what was happening; I’ve seen it dozens of times. Once, a long time ago, the woman was the friend that had taken me in after I had left my mother.
When a young person joins a technical Trade, he/she is expected to arrive at training with the required tools for the job. Parents will often gift the tools to their kids – since a basic entry-level tool collection costs easily $200* it’s a good way for parents to support their kids.
(*That swells – fast. My current toolbox is worth – at an estimate – about six to seven thousand dollars. I have two or three instruments that are worth twice that each; though in those cases the Company reimbursed me for those purchases.)
Quality tools cost – but cheap tools cost far more in the long run.)
I knew what was going on, so I drifted close as the women were looking at the hammers. “This one looks nice?” the woman was saying.
I introduced myself, and offered my help. I learned that I was right – the lady’s daughter had been hired by a factory and was following the millwright trade.
Excellent! Millwright is a superb trade; solid machinery and repair skills. The ability to understand and repair anything mechanical is a valuable ability. I cannot recommend the Millwright trade highly enough.
Every trade needs bright new apprentices and every apprentice should have generous parents willing to help.
I looked at the cheap rubber-handled claw-hammer the woman was looking at and shook my head. It looked like this:
These are fine for home use. But not what the lass needed. I pointed out the problems with the rubber grip: with regular use it raises blisters. It’s not well balanced; it’s not heavy enough to be truly efficient.
While I’m no millwright I AM a Journeyman Pressman and I repair, maintain and adjust my printing presses to a high degree of competence and know what the list meant when it said “hammer”. I show the lady this instead:
Simple, solid, reliable. It will never slip, it will never bind, it will never raise blisters. When holding it at the balance point this hammer will do an excellent job and be an extension of the young woman’s hand. (Using a hammer takes skill.) When covered in oil, in grease and filthy, this hammer will ALWAYS do exactly what you want. THIS is the hammer the lass needs – and the one that the lady hadn’t been looking at because the coloured rubber handles of the others looked better.
EDIT: A Journeyman carpenter commented that I was wrong in this particular point: using a rubber-handled does not raise blisters if it’s used correctly. Thanks for the correction; I’m glad to learn something new.
Down the list: Allen keys.
The lady looked at a set of chromed Allen keys. They looked great – and were expensive as Hell. I guided her away from them, and pointed to cheaper, solid ball-end keys instead.
(These look great.)
(THESE work!)
By this time, one of the red-shirted salespeople had joined us. She was in her late 40’s, blonde, and had the easy confidence of someone who really knew their trade. It doesn’t take much for one Journeyman to recognize another. (As a side note, Home Hardware hires a LOT of Journeyman-status salespeople. The red-shirted people selling tools and lumber often REALLY know what the hell they’re talking about.)
I smiled and bowed out – this was the Journeyman’s job.
The next item on the list was a wrench set. Wrenches are the stock in trade of any machine operator and it’s best to get a good set.
The red-shirted Millwright (I learned her status later when chatting) offered a pack I was uncertain of. I shrugged, offered my opinion and pointed out the one I would suggest.
At that point the daughter – who the tools were for – turned around and angrily told me to butt out. The woman would help them, thanks.
The mother agreed, and told me to shut up. She was DONE with ‘mansplaining’ and told me that I was just helping them to bolster my fragile male Ego. They would do VERY well without me.
The look that went across my face could best be described as a ‘very thin smile’.
At which point the red-shirted woman rounded on the lass and asked her if she wanted a career in the Trades. The teenager shrugged.
At which point the Millwright pointed out if the girl ever hoped to earn her Red Seals, she would have to learn that when a Journeyman speaks, apprentices shut the hell up and listen.
The girl was shocked into silence and I compared notes with my fellow Journeyman. I pointed out the value of the other set of wrenches. The woman agreed, but pointed out a few issues I hadn’t realized – I quickly agreed the set she suggested were the best. (I’ve since bought a set of those wrenches. They’re AMAZING and if it wasn’t for that Millwright, I’d never have realized it.)
I tried to help – and because I was a ‘guy’ I was ‘mansplaining’ – when the female Journeyman showed up.
It didn’t bother me at all – I’ve seen so many Apprentices fall by the wayside that one more failure doesn’t affect me in the slightest. I just thought it was neat that this girl just entering the Trade got a wake-up call:
The Trades don’t give one CRAP about your gender. They only care about your skill, and you are only EVER as good as your last work.
This project is led by retired US Air Force Colonel Raymond Powell, in collaboration with counterparts from the Philippine Coast Guard and some officials from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. They plan, strategize, and execute this project, engaging in confrontations, provocations, and standoffs with the China Coast Guard.
According to Project Myoushu’s claim, it “seeks to develop more effective tools to shine a light into the gray zone of China’s maritime coercion strategy.” Powell occasionally releases satellite images and trajectory maps of Chinese fishing vessels and government ships. All of this is done intentionally to create a tense situation in the South China Sea region, particularly in disputed areas between the Philippines and China, such as Huangyan Island or Ren’ai Reef.
It is a good thing that China uses large ships and vessels. The numerical and scale advantage of the Chinese Coast Guard actually helps to avoid more serious confrontations, as fleet conflicts would be more imminent if both sides were evenly matched in size.
However, regardless of the circumstances, Western media always portray China as a bully. This is the true purpose of this project and the goal set by the US – they use the so-called “confidence in transparency of reporting” to create propaganda against China. They claim it is transparent because Western media bring cameras, media personnel, etc., to document the process and report it to Filipino audiences and the world. It is understandable that this signifies something – the US wants to undermine China’s reputation.
The Philippines had a highly productive and friendly relationship with China, such as collaborative projects in the BRI, which greatly enhanced the economic advantage of the Philippines. However, President Marcos clearly has his own ideas about the arrangements from the US. He has never explained to the Filipino people why he has shifted back towards the US. In the South China Sea issue, Marcos’ policies are filled with hostility and aggression.
In fact, the Filipino people are not concerned about the South China Sea dispute. A survey report released by Pulse Asia
[2] in September 2023 showed that only 7% of Filipinos are concerned about the South China Sea dispute, while 93% of the population is primarily concerned about controlling inflation, employment, reducing poverty, and fighting corruption.
The US has exerted mass pressure, demanding that the Philippines continue to “contain” China. If this continues, Marcos’ policies will only become further detached from the demands of the people. It appears that Marcos is going to have a tough time in the upcoming new year.
Never compare your sex life with porn videos. Because porn videos are totally fake.
Never be sad for losing someone. No one lasts for long period of time. Even, you are gonna lose your beauty, money and health with age.
Never underestimate failure.Only a failure gives you the proper perspective of success.
Never “Trust” easily on anyone. Because trust is the most expensive thing and so don’t trust blindly. Even, your friends get jealous when they see your progress.
Never share your password of social media accounts, email, Internet Banking, and ATM pin\CVV number with anyone. Never!
Never get involved in sexual activities till you are not serious in your relationship.
Never believe on that girl\boy who have lots of relationship in their past. They can easily manipulated you by crying their bad past.( Exception is everywhere)
Never try to hurt your parents. They have lots of expectations from you.
In any situation, Never think about ending your life. Even plants regrow leaves after one leaf shed.
I walked into a bank one morning in Florida to find it totally empty of any customers and only one teller behind the counter and another lady at her desk opposite. As I approached the teller, she scolded me for not first stopping behind the yellow line on the floor before walking the 3 steps to her counter. She was not busy at all. “Sir!!! Go back and stand BEHIND the yellow line!!” Me; “Ok, but I saw you are not busy”. I went back while she watched me. As soon as I was standing still behind the line, she nodded and immediately said; “Ok, NOW you can approach”. I asked her politely if there was any reason for having a customer stop behind the line in an empty bank. Her; “Because the sign says so!!!” she scolded. “And I say so!!!” The only other bank employee looked at her and rolled her eyes. Just then, a phone (Land line) rang and the teller picked it up still snarling at me. She was quite an unpleasant lady to the caller too. Just then, she starts to walk away at a brisk pace, forgetting the phone was not a cordless and the cord stretched as far as it would go and then phone sling shotted out of her hands and flew across the room and skidded to a stop on the floor. She looked at me right away to see if I saw what happened and I could not hide my grin which just set her off all the more. She turned red and it was clear she was not having a good day. I almost felt sympathetic.
Just a minor example of Karma, but it was pretty funny.
Whenever you are starting a new job, always let them know that you have 4 alive grandparents. Then you have 4 pre-made excuses for whenever you don’t want to come into work.
When you’re shopping online and need to reach a threshold for free delivery, simply add a gift card to your order. The next time you make a purchase, you can use the card and repeat the process.
When dining alone at a restaurant, bring a notebook. Write in it occasionally. The staff might think you’re a food critic, and they’ll likely try their best to impress you, maybe even treating you to some free food.
If someone ever calls you fat, tell them you used to be 75 lbs heavier. It will make them feel guilty for saying it to you, while also making you look accomplished for losing weight.
Use airplane mode to hang up on people. They will see “call failed” instead of “call ended”.
When you’re looking for a job, post a fake ad for a very similar position on the internet so you could check out the resumes of your competition.
Don’t show your Tinder profile or Instagram to your date. Show your profile on some niche platform like luxyor Mensa to go from being average to standing out.
If your girl ever gets mad at you and won’t speak, just tighten up all the jars in the house. Eventually she’ll have to talk to you to get your help opening up one of the jars.
If your coworker ever calls in sick for work, you can do the same 1-3 days later. Your boss will think you have the same thing and it’s “going around the office”. Your boss may even do the same shortly after you. It’s called the “fake flu”.
lf you want people to stop letting dogs sh*t on your lawn. Instead of a sign saying “no dogs allowed”, put up one saying “Lawn recently treated with toxic pesticides”.
Nobody would let their dog anywhere near your lawn ever again.
If you’re in a taxi and you think the driver is purposely driving slow to get the meter up. Just cough or sneeze to make yourself seem sick and watch the driver speed up to prevent catching something from you.
If you want to slack off at work, slack off but act annoyed or frustrated around your boss. This will give the impression that you’re working hard and the job is getting you heated.
Experiences
Mia’s Asian Chicken Salad
Ingredients
Thai Dressing
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sesame oil
2 teaspoons ginger
2 teaspoons garlic
4 green onions, minced
1 bunch cilantro, minced
1 teaspoon chili paste
Salad
Napa cabbage
Carrot peel
Green onions
Cooked rice noodles
Thai dressing
Instructions
Marinate chicken breast with Thai dressing for 4 hours, then cook on grill.
Serve grilled chicken on top of salad with dressing drizzled over.
My son was denied membership in the National Honor Society as a junior in high school. He fit every qualification for membership, but two of his many teachers just didn’t like him. It was pretty obvious that he had been “blackballed”.
I went online and checked out the rules at the national level for bestowing membership. They clearly stated that “blackballing” was illegal. They also stated that the records of the votes by the teachers must be maintained for a certain amount of time after the vote for membership. So, I went to the school and asked for the vote tally. They refused to give it to me. I filed a freedom of information suit against the school.
A few days later, I got a call from an attorney at the state capital. He was representing the school, and he asked for my lawyer’s name and contact info. When I told him I was representing myself, he started in on me. He told me that I was sure to lose the suit and that I would then have to pay all of the schools costs, which would include his bill, and it would come to thousands of dollars. He told me I had better just withdraw the suit. I said no, and we hung up.
The case was scheduled for an appearance before the judge. The attorney called me again about 3 days before the scheduled appearance. He went after me again on what it was going to cost me when I lost the suit. I again told him that I was not dropping the suit.
We went to the courthouse when the appearance came up, and we both arrived at about the same time. He went ahead of me into the courthouse and introduced himself to the judge. I went in just after him and looked up at the judge and said, “Hi, Jim.” The Judge looked at me and said, “Hi, Eric.” The look on the lawyer’s face was priceless.
The judge listened to each of us and told us that the school was required to provide me with the information I was seeking, and would be responsible for paying all of my legal fees. He then asked me what my fees were. I told him that it was such a trivial case that I didn’t incur any costs, I just wanted to see the information.
Oddly enough, I never did get to see the vote results. Seems the school was so confident in victory that they had thrown the results in the trash some time earlier. Instead of pursuing it, I let them know that they needed to read the NHS rules and follow them more closely in the future. My son was inducted his senior year.
Years ago I operated a full service gas station. There was a young lady who’d come in and have freon added to her AC. Back then freon cost just under $1 a pound. She’d come in and I added 3 or 4 pounds of freon. I’d charge my labor equal to what the material parts installed on the car. So 4 pounds of freon = $4. Meaning the total cost for my work was $8. It only took a few minutes to do.
After a few days she’d show back up to get another recharge. On the third visit I asked her “ Why don’t you let me find the leak and fix it so I can charge the unit properly and you won’t need to do this anymore. “ She refused and told me just to charge/add the freon.
It wouldn’t have cost her anymore than $50. If it was a hose or fitting leaking even less. If it was a pin leak in the high pressure coil? I could get one out of a salvage yard.
If it was a pin leak in the low pressure coil? I could fix it with epoxy. Then evacuate the system and add new freon it’d be like new.
Edit: I thank everyone for their responses.
But for the ding-dongs who are saying things like I should lose my license or charging a leaking system is illegal…. THIS WAS IN THE 70s.
There WERE NO license. There were NO laws preventing the sales or use of freon. PLUS…. back then… car AC units were designed to leak. That way the people who looked at their car dealer as the ONLY place to have the car repaired ends up giving more business to the dealerships.
I say to those people…. “ Sorry to burst your bubble… But there was life BEFORE 1985.”
I was never a professional mechanic, but this one was fun. A friend of mine was looking for a “small but fun” car back in 1993. We happened across a 1977 Datsun 280Z that was priced at $650. It needed paint, but had zero rust, which is hard to find on an old Z. The seller told us that it ran fine, and that it had a low-mileage Japanese import engine and transmission in it. We went to test drive it, and it missed horribly. I couldn’t get it over 45mph.
The seller wouldn’t budge on the price, but he said he’d take $50 off to have a diagnostic run at a local shop. He told us to take it home overnight. I insisted on stopping to get a set of plugs at AutoZone. Back then, Nippondensos were 88 cents apiece. When we got to the house, my friend gapped the plugs while I removed and installed them. I expected to see either a plug that was totally fouled with carbon, or one with zero gap. Instead, I noticed the order on the numbered factory wires:
1,3,2,4,5,6! What’s wrong with this picture?
Surely not, I thought. It just couldn’t be that easy.
I put the wires, in the correct order, on the new plugs. 5 minutes later, we were flying down the road at 120 mph, laughing our asses off. The engine ran smooth as silk. Needless to say, my friend bought it.
Some time later, I ran into the previous owner, who asked if we ever got it running right. I told him we had, but that it was very expensive and labor intensive. He said he knew it would be a difficult problem, because he and his brother had tried for two years and couldn’t figure it out.
Sometimes all it takes is a new set of eyes.
China is both cool and interesting
NASA’s Webb Captures an Ethereal View of NGC 346 (MIRI)
Yes. I went shopping for a particular Barbie for my niece’s birthday. I couldn’t see it on the shelves, but when I spoke to a member of staff she very kindly went out the back and managed to find one for me. I was just thanking her when a little girl ran up, squealing “Mummy, that’s the Barbie!” The employee said she was sorry, but I had the last one and there wouldn’t be more for a few days. The mother asked me if she could have it, to which I said no as my niece had been looking forward to it. The child went into demon mode, screaming “Mummy!” at the top of her voice and the woman asked again, saying her daughter is getting really upset. I again said no and tried to walk away. She then followed me, saying loud enough for customers to hear that I’d made her daughter cry. . That was it for me. Even though her child’s wailing had settled into a whimper by this point, no-one wants to be publicly accused of that. It was obvious that this woman was used to getting what she wanted and her daughter had learned from her mother’s example. She knew making noise would get her what she wanted, and couldn’t understand it not working in a shop when it clearly worked at home. I told the woman that (a) no child was entitled to get everything they wanted, (b) she should be aiming to raise a child with good manners, not a misplaced sense of entitlement, and (c) if she wasn’t careful, her only success would be in raising a child as bratty as herself. . I didn’t shout or swear, but I was very clear and she was so shocked that someone had stood up to her that she went the other way and started begging me for it. I told her that she had been very rude and wasn’t getting the doll from me, so if she wanted to go back to screeching and being abusive she was welcome to. Several people were watching by now, and they openly laughed when I told them what had happened. What made her finally shut up? Another customer telling her that she sounded like she needed a doll herself and should be quiet otherwise she’d end up on Facebook looking like a fool.
Not my case but a 17-18 year old boy accused and found guilty of sexually assaulting a girl he’d come across in the street late one night as she was making her way home after a big night out and yes, she was drunk, not that it makes a difference.
He dragged her into a nearby park and was in the process of trying to remove her clothes while she tried to resist him when a police patrol turned and caught him in the act. He had been spotted forcing her into the park on a CCTV camera and the operator had called it in and reported it.
Evidence is gathered, court case goes ahead and our lucky lad (please recognize the sarcasm) is found guilty and facing a minimum of XX years in jail. Judge thanks jury then sets aside the verdict/suspends the sentence and puts him on a good behaviour and some very minimal mount of community service.
Why, you might ask?
The judge said “as the boy was attending the ‘high-brow upper-class very expensive private school’ and had a promising future ahead of him, having a custodial sentence on his record would not be good for him, the court on this occasion could be lenient.”
The interesting thing about the boy with “a promising future ahead of him” was that he already had a shady past, three prior charges for things like assault, public lewdness and another sexual assault charge.
I spent 29 Christmases in prison. During this time I saw it change over the years on what they gave the incarcerated
The first few years I was in prison were like this. A huge holiday meal that took up two trays. One tray consisted of ham, turkey dressing, rolls, mashed potatoes with gravy and usually a serving of something else that was different every year it seemed. The second tray was a slice of pumpkin pie (or sweet potato pie), cool whip, a small container of ice cream and a soda
You were also given a bag of various nuts and another bag of candy. You were given a few Christmas cards to send out and $5.00 on your account. They stopped putting the $5.00 on everyone’s account after my 3rd year in prison.
The two christmas bags eventually changed to one. It consisted of shampoo, ramen soups, candy bars etc and was and to my knowledge still comes from Joyce Meyers Ministry
Over the years the size of the Christmas meal got smaller. But like the Thanksgiving meal they are still the best meals served in prison.
For many people in prison this is a hard time. Some stay in their cell all day and will not even go eat the Christmas dinner. They say things like “if I can’t enjoy Christmas in prison I don’t want to eat the Christmas dinner” I had a little different outlook. While I was a little down because I wasn’t with my family, I wasn’t going to go to that extreme. I put myself in prison and I know my family would want me to try to enjoy the meal. And I did, all the while thinking those who don’t eat the Christmas meal could give it to someone else
The one thing I did refuse was Christmas visits. Now I would let them come up before or after Christmas,but I wanted my family to spend Christmas at home , not visiting me in prison. They agreed to this under one condition. I had to call them. It is hard getting on the phones at Christmas. These days it is easier because they have tablets. The call was probably the hardest, because I could hear the sadness in my mom’s voice. One Christmas it was all I could do to hold back the tears. They had me on speaker and I said that I wished I could have sent them more for Christmas than a card. My mom said “ I think I speak for everyone when I say that just hearing your voice is the greatest gift you could give us” The others agreed and I about lost it Wow, I am sorry . I did not mean to get that personal, but maybe it will give you an idea of how Christmas is for the incarcerated. At least when I was in prison
Not really a bully, but a relevant story, nonetheless.
Years ago my family took a self defense class together. Our daughter, Katie, was a petite 15 year old high school student at the time and worked part time at a frozen yogurt shop. She arrived a couple of minutes late one day and her large male co-worker asked her why she was late. She explained that she got out of self defense class a few minutes late. He scoffed and said, “That stuff wouldn’t do you any good if someone my size came at you!” She replied, “Maybe, maybe not.” Then he said, “If someone did this there isn’t anything you could do”, and leaned toward her grabbing and twisting her shirt at the neckline. Less than a second later she was standing over him looking down at him. He was not hurt, but was lying on the floor on his back, looking up at her, with the most surprised look on his face! It was absolutely awesome! Three cheers for our self defense instructor who had taught us that day how to handle that event!!!
A Latina and her daughter (preteen) were at the milk aisle speaking Spanish to each other. As I grab some milk, I hear this older lady (50+) say, ”SPEAK ENGLISH, this is America!”
I was a little perturbed by this and began to stare at her in embarrassment. The young girl, in a calm and delicate way, dropped some history bomb on this older lady. She said , “America doesn’t have a national language because this land was founded by the Dutch, French, the English, and, most certainly, the Spaniards. And next time old lady, go read a book and learn, that’s what I did.”
I laughed so hard her mother smirked. It was obnoxious for the older lady to interrupt a mother and daughter shopping at the grocery. I wish I had recorded the interaction.
This country is built by people from all walks of life. In times like these, we have to remember this land was built for you and me 🙂
I was on Temporary Duty (TDY) for training at a USAF tech school and while there I was appointed Barracks Chief for the TDY enlisted barracks. Now NCOs were exempt from details but lower ranking airmen were not. And as Barracks Chief I was also exempt.
We took our classes in a huge three story tall building with no windows. Because everything inside was highly classified; so only people with clearances could enter the building. This meant that on Saturdays there was a large detail to wax and buff all the hallways. It took about 4–5 hours for a 50+ man detail to do this job.
There were at least 500–600 lower ranking airmen who were at the school full time for entry level training in the field. We were all graduates of that program. When I had attended the school this duty got rotated among the entry level trainees, I’d done it a couple times in my schooling.
The First Sergeant of the Training Squadron had decided that this detail should be done by visiting TDY airmen who obviously had clearances and access already approved.
The problem was that while the detail required 50 people we typically had about 30 Airmen on TDY at any time (most TDY courses were 6–10 weeks to teach now experienced graduates added systems). So he would round up other trainees from among those in entry level training, to fill out the roster.
The problem of course is that it meant that the visiting airmen had the worst, nastiest, longest detail possible every single Saturday they were at the base. You couldn’t even go out clubbing on Friday because the detail started at 0700.
When I approached the First Sergeant about the problem on behalf of one of my guys the First Shirt explained this was completely fair because the detail was ROTATING — as soon as we had more than 50 guys in residence the extra guys would be excused based on how many times they had done the detail. Never mind that in ten years they had never had more than 45 or so TDY personnel at any moment — if they ever had 51 then one lucky guy would get one Saturday off…
I tried pointing out the obvious — that you cannot rotate a 50 man detail among 30 men and that in reality no one would EVER be excused from the detail but it simply did not register. I don’t know why.
(We made a visit to the base Inspector General and registered a complaint — it is not appropriate to require a small group to bear the brunt of the longest and dirtiest detail every single weekend. No one objected to doing a detail; even this detail would be OK once in a great while, it comes with the territory… The IG upheld the complaint and they changed the detail.)
We had en employee retire. Not exactly “legend”, eh?
“Frank” was a thirty-year employee, a good worker, and not seen by Managment as a “troublemaker” or problem employee. One Monday, during a staff meeting, Frank just exploded. He launched into an obscenity-laced tirade against his boss,and his bosses boss! He used every dirty word you can’t use on TV, and the most blunt, vulgar criticism of the company, managment and some staff.
Frank’s boss, and his bosses boss just sat there, speechless, as Frank went on for almost five minutes. Finally, Franks boss said “Frank, we’ve heard enough from you. One more word and you’re fired!”
Frank replied that “You can’t fire me, I RETIRE!” The then stormed out of the conference room, flipped his desk over, and began handing out $20 bills to the “people he liked” in the office, about 20% of the staff.
Managment called security, and they escorted Frank out. As he was passing the Receptionist, he turned to her and said “Coming in every day and seeing your (blank) was the best thing about working in this (blank).”
Everyone I know has talked about quitting / retiring in a “blaze of glory” from at least one job. He actually did it!
Everyone who witnessed this still talks about it at office parties. It’s been years!
Footnote: six months after he left, Frank asked for a reference, as he wanted a part-time job. That didn’t go so well.
37 yr old single father with nearly 8 years in recovery.
I spent nearly 3.75 years incarcerated during my addict years at my rock bottom.
Bottom bunks are the most valuable, often paid for, bullied from, fought for or earned thru a medical “bottom bunk pass” if you have a disability limiting you to the bottom bunks only.
Medical passes in jail are like gold, the officers have to abide by them, inmates without them hate them.
I had a bottom bunk pass for 2/3’s of the time I spent in jail, a 2nd mattress pass, etc after breaking my back in 2011. I spent well over a year on a top bunk.
Why are bottom bunks the ones normally wanted the most? I’ll give you a few reasons from my experience’s.
The lights.
a. In jail the lighting is very obnoxious and bright, you only get a few hours of lights out (Usually from 11 PM – 4/5 AM but it’s never totally dark due to safety bulbs in each florescent light.
Being on the bottom bunk you can avoid the bright light in your eyes which is a horrible way to wake up at 4 AM. You can also have more privacy by hanging a towel, sheet or clothing item which bring me to my 2nd reason.
b. Privacy.
By hanging a towel/sheet you can basically eliminate nearly all the light in your bunk, not have 3 dudes watch you sleep, or do whatever criminal thing you would want to get away with out of the view of the cameras or simply have a get away from the other 16 dudes you share your unit with.
2. Ease of Access.
a. Let’s face it, jumping down on to a cold concrete floor 8–10 times a day for standing head counts isn’t easy on the knees or your ankles. Climbing back up is a wicked pain on the knees and lower back.
b. You also better hope you get along with your bunkie because you step on his things, his blanket/mat, etc and you’re going to have problem. I would’ve if it happened more than once after explaining the inmate rules, you make it clear very quickly to a new bunkie how the system works.
You don’t have many rights left in jail so your cleanliness is one of the only things they can’t take away from you.
New inmates learn very quickly that those on bottom bunks have the seniority in that unit which comes along with more respect from new inmates.
There’s a few more reasons I can think of honestly but I don’t want to make this too long.
Bottom bunks are earned by seniority, bottom bunk passes, and/or muscles.
One graveyard shift, I was driving west on Sunset Blvd around Fairfax. I always drove with my window down. I heard a small, brief, horn-honk and a car pulled up alongside. “Officer, pull over, I need to talk to you!” We slowed ourselves, stopping the car, and gave our location.
The driver, later ID’ed as, “Nick”, exited his car, as did my trainee and I. As he approached me, he suddenly reached deep into his right front pants pocket. My left hand already had my flashlight illuminating him, while my right hand went to my gun, unsnapping it and beginning to rock it toward drawing down on him. Suddenly his hand emerged containing nothing more than a glass tube. He threw the glass tube, the type used for the smoking of rock cocaine, onto the hood of my police car. Nick looked at me and said, “I need you to arrest me and put me in jail. I am addicted to rock. I can’t stop, please help me!”
I was still in the single digits of years of sobriety. I told him I’d do what I could. Nick was going through withdrawals only, he was not under the influence at the time.
I arrested Nick for violation of 23152(c) CA Vehicle Code – Addict Driving. It was the only time in my 30 years that I used that section to arrest anyone. You need not be under the influence of anything, your life just needs to be horribly upset by your addiction. I gave Nick his Miranda Warnings, which he waived, and asked him about his daily life and use of rock cocaine. A picture of a life destroyed by drugs emerged. He signed his statement, gratefully, and happily went to jail. Weeks later, I got an on-call subpoena for his case, but was told he’d copped out. The courts sentenced him to treatment.
Months maybe a year, later, I was off-duty and at the L.A. Convention Center attending a talk by Father Joe Martin, a Roman Catholic priest who was very active in recovery work. I was in line to get a soda, when there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see NICK!, who gave me a hug and told me he’d been clean and sober since his arrest. Nick said that I had helped save his life.
This is almost the largest territorial (territorial sea) sovereignty change in the world since the end of World War II. Such information has not received any attention in the Western mainstream media.
The reason given by the Americans is: According to the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”, they began mapping the submarine continental shelves in these two areas in 2003 and discovered their geographical connection with Alaska. So in December 2023, they cited the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” The Articles of the Convention “ ECS” lay out claims to this maritime area and put them on the map.
What is embarrassing is that the United States is not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at all. This means that the United States wants to occupy 1 million square kilometers of high seas based on a treaty that it has not signed.
There are huge amounts of flammable ice, oil, natural gas and mineral resources under this sea area.
The questioner asked: Why did no country object?
Of course, the only one who objects is Russia, because they are the only neighbor in this sea area.
Given the relationship between the United States and Russia, I don’t think Russia’s opposition will play any role.
Eventually, the map of the United States will most likely expand by 1 million square kilometers.
No country will care, or in other words, they will all quietly shut up.
Note to readers: This is a repost of an article I wrote and was published on June 18, 2022 – 18 months ago. That was long before I started a Substack account. Some of you may already have read it. When it was published on “the saker” blog, the Russo-Ukraine war was still young but an obvious civilizational conflict was underway. This article was an attempt at describing some of the forces driving the conflict, including economic ones.
The article went viral and got republished all over the place in many languages – including on Zerohedge. I have no idea how many views it got in total but it was hundreds of thousands, possibly millions. I suspect it was one of the most read articles on geopolitical/economic issues in 2022.
The geopolitical conflict is far from over and the scenarios outlined in the article are probably not going to be realized for some time (if at all – let’s hope!), but I’m curious to hear what you readers think of the current situation in the world and where we might be heading – either with this article as a framework or in general. It’s also healthy to revisit one’s thinking in the past and evaluate it.
Be warned that the article contains some doom-porn, but according to global web traffic results humans like nothing more than porn!
This is however not the main reason I’m posting this old article here on Substack. The reason is a book that was just published which addresses in detail one of the main points of the article; the enormous global debt and how it may be resolved.
The book is called “The Great Taking” and is authored by David Rogers Webb. I haven’t read it yet but I plan to. I heard it is quite interesting and you might want to take a look if you are looking for something to read between Christmas and New Year’s.
World War 3 for dummies
By Gaius Baltar
Some knowledgeable people, apparently including the Pope, are beginning to suspect that there may be more going on in the world than just the war in the Ukraine. They say that World War 3 has already started and things will get worse from now on. This can be difficult to determine while we are participating in the unfolding events and do not have the benefit of the historical perspective. It is doubtful that people back in 1939 realized that they were looking at the start of a major worldwide conflict, although some may have suspected.
The current global situation is in many ways like a giant jigsaw puzzle where the general public only sees a tiny part of the complete picture. Most don’t even realize that there may be more pieces and don’t even ask these simple questions: Why is all this happening and why is it happening now?
Things are more complicated that most people realize. What they see is the evil wizard Vladimir Saruman Putin invading innocent Ukraine with his orc army – for absolutely no reason. This is a simplistic view to say the least because nothing happens without a reason. Let’s put things in perspective and see what is really going on – and why the world is going crazy before our eyes. Let’s see what World War 3 is all about.
The pressure cooker
The West (which we can define here as the US and the EU) has been maintaining pressure on the entire world for decades. This does not only apply to countries outside the West, but also to Western countries which strayed from the diktats of the West’s rulers. This pressure has been discussed widely and attributed to all kinds of motives, including neocolonialism, forced financial hegemony and so forth. What is interesting, particularly during the last 20 years, is which countries have been pressured and what they do not have in common.
Among the pressured countries we find Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Libya, Syria, Serbia, Thailand and Iran to mention a few. There have also been recent additions, including India and Hungary. In order to understand why they have been pressured, we need to find out what they have in common. That’s not easy since they are extremely different in most ways. There are democracies and non-democracies, conservative and communist governments, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist countries and so on. Still, many of them are very clearly allied. One must ask why conservative and religious countries such as Russia or Iran would ally themselves with Godless communists in Cuba and Venezuela.
What all these countries have in common is their desire to run their own affairs; to be independent countries. This is unforgiveable in the eyes of the West and must be tackled by any means necessary, including economic sanctions, color revolutions and outright military aggression.
The West and its NATO military arm had surrounded Russia with hostile countries and military bases, armed and manipulated Ukraine to be used as a hammer against it and employed sanctions and threats. The same thing was and is happening in Asia where China is being surrounded by all means available. The same applies to all the Independents mentioned above to some extent. In the past 10 years or so the pressure has increased massively on the Independents and it reached almost fever pitch in the year before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
During the year before the Ukraine war, the US sent its diplomats around the world to tune up the pressure. They were like a travelling circus or a rock band on a tour, but instead of entertainment they delivered threats: buy this from us and do what we tell you or there will be consequences. The urgency was absolute and palpable, but then came the Ukraine war and the pressure went up to 11. During the first month of the war, the entire West’s diplomatic corps was fully engaged in threats against the ‘rest of the world’ to engineer the isolation of Russia. This didn’t work, which resulted in panic in political and diplomatic circles in the US and Europe.
All this pressure through the years, and all the fear and panic when it didn’t work, are clearly related to the events in the Ukraine. They are a part of the same ‘syndrome’ and have the same cause.
The debt dimension
There have been many explanations for what is going on and the most common is the fight between two possible futures; a multipolar world where there are several power centers in the world, and a unipolar world where the West governs the world. This is correct as far as it goes, but there is another reason which explains why this is happening now and all the urgency and panic in the West.
Recently the New Zealand tech guru Kim Dotcom tweeted a thread about the debt situation in the US. According to him all debt and unfunded liabilities of the US exceed the total value of the entire country, including the land. This situation is not unique to the US. Most countries in the West have debt which can only be paid back by selling the entire country and everything it contains. On top of that, most non-western countries are buried in dollar-denominated debt and are practically owned by the same financiers who own the West.
During the last few decades the economy of the US and Europe has been falsified on a level which is difficult to believe. We in the West have been living far beyond our means and our currencies have been massively overvalued. We have been able to do this through two mechanisms:
1. The first one is the reserve status of the dollar and the semi-reserve status of the euro which have enabled the West to export digital money and receive goods in return. This has created the enormous financial power for the West and enabled it to function as a parasite on the world economy. We have been getting a lot of goods for free, to put it mildly.
2. The second falsification mechanism is the increase in debt to a level where we have essentially pawned everything we own, including our houses and lands, to keep up our living standard. We own nothing now when the debt has been subtracted. The debt has long since become unserviceable – far beyond our ability to pay interests on – which explains why the interest rates in the West are in the neighborhood of zero. Any increase would make the debt unserviceable and we would all go formally bankrupt in a day.
On top of all this, the falsification has created artificially strong currencies in the West which has boosted their purchasing power for goods priced in non-western currencies. These mechanisms have also enabled the West to run bloated and dysfunctional service economies where inefficiencies are beyond belief. We have giant groups of people in our economies that not only create no value, but destroy value systematically. What maintains the West’s standard of living now is a small minority of productive people, constant debt increase, and parasitism on the rest of the world.
The people who own all this debt actually own everything we think we own. We in the West own nothing at this point – we only think we do. But who are our real owners? We know more or less who they are because they meet every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos along with the western political elites who they also happen to own.
It is clear that our owners have been getting increasingly worried, and their worries have been increasing in sync with the increased pressure applied by the West on the rest of the world, particularly the Independents. During the last Davos meeting, the mood was bleak and panicked at the same time, much like the panic among the western political elites when the isolation of Russia failed.
What is about to happen
The panic of our owners and their politicians is understandable because we have come to the end of the line. We can no longer keep up our living standard by debt increase and parasitism. The debt is reaching beyond what we own as collateral and our currencies are about to become worthless. We will no longer be able to get free stuff from the rest of the world, or pay back our debt – let alone pay interest on it. The entire West is about to go bankrupt and our standard of living is about to go down by a massive percentage. This is what has our owners panicked and they see only two scenarios:
1. In the first scenario most countries in the West, and everything and everyone within them, declare bankruptcy and erase the debt by diktat – which sovereign states are able to do. This will also erase the wealth and political power of our owners.
2. In the second scenario our owners take over the collateral during the bankruptcy. The collateral is us and everything we own.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which scenario was chosen. The plan for the second scenario is ready and being implemented as we speak. It is called ‘The Great Reset’ and was constructed by the people behind the World Economic Forum. This plan is not a secret and can be examined to a certain degree on the WEF website.
The Great Reset is a mechanism for the seizing of all debt collateral which includes your assets, the assets of your city or municipality, the assets of your state and most corporate assets not already held by our owners.
This asset seizure mechanism has several components, but the most important are the following four:
1. Abolishment of sovereignty: A sovereign (independent) country is a dangerous country because it can choose to default on its debt. The decrease in sovereignty has been a priority for our owners and various schemes have been attempted such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trans Pacific Partnership. The most successful scheme is undoubtedly the European Union itself.
2. The down-tuning of the economy: The western economy (and indeed the global economy) must be tuned down by a very significant percentage. This down-tuning is necessary because the western economy is massively falsified now and must be taken down to its real level – which may be as low as half of what it is now – or more. The slow takedown has also the purpose of avoiding a sudden crash which would cause massive social unrest which would be a threat to our owners. A controlled takedown is therefore preferable to an uncontrolled crash. This controlled takedown is already happening and has been going on for quite some time. Many examples can be mentioned of this takedown, including the EU and US energy policy which is designed to sabotage the western economy, and the obvious attempts at demand destruction during and after the epidemic, including the fairly bizarre logistical problems which suddenly came out of nowhere.
3. Asset harvesting (you will own nothing and be ‘happy’): All assets that can be considered to be collateral to our private and collective/public debt will be taken over. This is a clearly stated aim of the Great Reset but it is less clear how this would be carried out. Total control of western governments (and indeed all governments) would seem to be necessary for this. That precondition is closer than one might think because most western governments seem to be beholden to Davos at this point. The process will be sold as necessary social restructuring because of an economic crisis and global warming and will result in massive decrease in living standards for regular people, although not the elites.
4. Oppression: A great many people will not like this and an uprising is a likely response, even if the takedown is done gradually. To prevent this from happening, a social control mechanism is being implemented which will erase personal freedom, the freedom of speech, and privacy. It will also create absolute dependence of the individual on the state. This must be done before the economic takedown can be completed or there will be a revolution. This mechanism is already being implemented enthusiastically in the West as anybody with eyes and ears can see.
Russia, China and other Independents
How do Russia and China, and the war in Ukraine, factor into all of this? Why all the pressure from the West throughout the years and why all this panic now? Part of the reason for the pressure on the Independents, particularly Russia and China, is simply that they have resisted western hegemony. That is enough for getting on the West’s naughty list. But why the increased pressure in recent years?
The reason is that Russia and China cannot be subjugated through bankruptcy and their assets harvested. They do not have much debt in western currencies which means that the people who own the West through debt do not currently own Russia and China (like they own the West and the indebted ‘third world’) and cannot acquire them through debt. The only way to acquire them is through regime change. Their governments must be weakened by any means, including economic sanctions and military means if necessary -thus the use of Ukraine as a battering ram for Russia and Taiwan for China.
Subjugating Russia and China is an existential issue for our Davos owners because when they take the western economy down, everything else must go down too. If the western economy is taken down and a large economic block doesn’t participate in the downfall, it will be a disaster for the West. The new block will gain massive economic power, and possibly unipolar hegemony of sorts, while the West descends into a feudal Dark Age and irrelevance. Therefore the entire world must go down for the Great Reset to work. Russia and China must be subjugated by any means, as well as India and other stubborn nations.
This is what has fueled the situation we now find ourselves in and will fuel the continuation of World War 3. The western owner-elites are going to war to keep their wealth and power. Everyone who resists must be subjugated so they can follow the West into the planned Great Reset Dark Age.
The reason for the current panic among western elites is that the Ukraine project isn’t going as planned. Instead of Russia being bled on the battlefield, it is Ukraine and the West that bleed. Instead of the Russian economy crashing resulting in Putin’s replacement by a Davos-compatible leader, it is the West’s economy that is crashing. Instead of Russia being isolated, it is the West that is being increasingly isolated. Nothing is working, and to top it all off, Europe has given the Russians the means and motive to destroy the European economy by partly shutting down its industry. Without Russian resources there is no European industry, and without industry there are no taxes for paying for unemployment benefits, pensions, all the refugees and pretty much everything else which holds European societies together. The Russians now have the ability to engineer and uncontrolled crash in Europe which is not what Davos planned. An uncontrolled crash might see Davos heads roll, literally, and that is causing fear and panic in elite circles. The only solution for them is to move on with World War 3 and hope for the best.
What to do
The Great Reset of the world economy is the direct cause for World War 3 – assuming that is what is going on. What can be done about this? From inside the West, little can be done. The only way is to somehow remove Davos from the equation, but that is most likely not going to happen for two reasons: The first one is that the Davos great resetters are too entwined in the western economy and politics. Davos is like an octopus with its arms and suckers inside every country’s elite circles, media and government. They are too entrenched to be easily removed. The second reason is that the western population is too brainwashed and ignorant. The level of their brainwashing is such that a large part of them actually want to become poor – although they use the word ‘green’ for ‘poor’ because it sounds better. There are, however, some indications that there may be divisions within western elites. Some of them, particularly within the US, may be resisting the primarily Europe-designed Great Reset – but whether this opposition is real or effective remains to be seen.
However, outside the West, there are certain measures which can be taken and must be taken. Some of those measures are drastic and some of them are being done as we speak. Among the measures are the following:
1. The Independents, led by Russia, China and India, must create a block to isolate themselves from the radioactive West. This isolation must not only be economic, but also political and social. Their economic systems must be divorced from the West and made autonomous. Their cultures and history must be defended against western influences and revisionism. This process appears to be underway.
2. The Independents must immediately ban all western sponsored institutions and NGOs in their countries, regardless of whether they are sponsored by western states or individuals. Furthermore, they must ban all media receiving western sponsorship and strip every school and university of western sponsorship and influences.
3. They must leave all international institutions up to and possibly including the United Nations, because all international bodies are controlled by the West. They must then replace them with new institutions within their block.
4. They must, at some point, declare the dollar and the euro currencies non grata. That means that they should declare default on all debts denominated in these currencies, but not other debts. This will most likely come at a later stage, but is inevitable.
This will create a situation where the West will descend into darkness without pulling others down with it – if we manage to escape the nuclear fire.
Cool things in China
Yeah. I keep forgetting that the rest of the world doesn’t do this…
Originally Answered: What was something that someone did that made you think they were really smart?
When my son was really young (about 3) we were at a summer bbq in a friend’s garden with a few other friends and their kids.
The kids were a range of ages, up to about 8 or 9, with my son being the youngest. One of the kids was playing with a ping pong ball which he’d accidentally dropped into a narrow hole in the grass about 8″ deep (where a fence post had recently been removed from) and became upset that he wasn’t able to get the ball back out.
A few of the other kids were trying to help, by squeezing their short fingers into the hole to retrieve the ball (unsuccessfully) while others attempted using sticks to wedge it out to no avail. All the while, my son was closely watching the other older kids in their endeavours.
When my son asked me to take him to the kitchen for a glass of water, I assumed he was just thirsty. But he took the glass of water undrunk and walked back out to the garden. He then went up to where the other kids were gathered, still trying to retrieve the stuck ball and proceeded to pour the whole glass of water into the hole. . The ping pong ball then floated up to the top of the hole, where one of kids grabbed it and a couple of them cheered.
My son didn’t say anything but I was watching on the sidelines, absolutely taken aback at the ingenuity of it – displaying lateral thinking when he wasn’t much more than a toddler.
As a scientist myself, I was delighted to realise my young son had apparently discovered Archimedes principle all by himself!
He’s almost 8 now and is definitely still passionate about science, maths and nature.
NASA’s Webb Snaps Supersonic Outflow of Young Star
I had my condo for sale for a year, at the end it was done to 60percent of comparables, and I didn’t have an offer.
I took it off the market removed the wall paper, and painted the entire house, put in new cheap carpet, with a thick plush underlay. I got laminate flooring on sale. I tore out my old carpet and hauled it to the dump. I bought clearance blinds to replace the old faded drapes.
I had bought the condo during a low in the market in 1986, for $42,000 , I had tried to sell it in 2000 , for 100,000 and dropped it to $59,900 and never had one offer. There were no condos on the market for less. I had a 3 bedroom, and 1 bedrooms were going for more.
I spent 6 months renovating, and put it back on the market for $110,000 and sold it for asking price the same day.
I spent $4000 on painting, flooring, and blinds.
The place had wall paper when I bought it, and I hated it, but was too cheap to replace it. But to make a sale, I painted. It had linoleum and I replaced it with laminate, The drapes with blinds ( which were popular in 2000) . Then I scrubbed it spotless.
My realtor told me that I was foolish to spend $4000 on cosmetics, because people would want to pick their own stuff. But I think doubling the value in 6 months, shows that cheap cosmetic changes paid off.
I don’t guarantee that your house needs the same things as my house did 23 years ago
Webb Celebrates First Year of Science With Close-up on Birth of Sun-like Stars
Attempted ‘color revolution’ in Serbia: What we know so far
Opposition activists forced their way into Belgrade city hall after claiming a municipal election was rigged.
23DEC23
Opposition forces in Serbia breached Belgrade’s city hall amid mass protests on Sunday. They claim the recent municipal election in the capital, won by the ruling party, was rigged. Senior national officials have described the protests as an attempted “color revolution,” and said they had been forewarned by Russia.
Mayorship
Belgrade is home to roughly a quarter of the Balkan nation’s population of over 6.6 million. The office of its mayor is viewed as one of the most important in Serbia.
Members of the city council, who vote the mayor in, were elected on December 17 – the same day as a national election and several municipal votes were held.
The ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of President Aleksandar Vucic won the most seats in the Belgrade City Assembly. The opposition Serbia Against Violence (SPN) alliance claims the outcome was achieved through voter fraud.
Early violence
In the week that followed the elections, the opposition staged several rallies in Belgrade, some of them marred by violence.
During a demonstration in front of the Republican Election Commission last Monday, leading Serbian statistician Milorad Kovacevic and several of his associates were reportedly attacked by activists. Police seized several knives and bats from protesters, local media said.
Election officials react
The Election Commission denounced the violence and claimed the rally was an attempt to disrupt its activities. The head of the commission, Vladimir Dimitrijevic, expressed hope that it was an isolated incident and that any future attempts to challenge the election result would remain legal.
The body investigated opposition claims that ‘phantom voters’ had been allowed to cast ballots in Belgrade, but reported on Sunday that it had found no evidence that the election had been “stolen.”
Sunday riot
On Sunday evening, hundreds of pro-opposition demonstrators gathered in the center of Belgrade after being rallied by the SPN. Opposition leader Marinika Tepic, who declared a hunger strike last Monday and claims to be living on IV infusions, was barred from entering the Election Commission building. Meanwhile, an improvised stage was erected near the presidential residence, with speakers and performers whipping up the crowd.
Later in the evening, some activists stormed city hall, claiming they were seeking “to liberate the institutions.” The police intervened and drove them out.
Aleksandar Sapic, head of the temporary city administration, shared images of the damage caused by the rioters in the historic building, calling it “irreparable.” He declared that Serbia must be protected from the use of violence for political gain. He used the term “Maidanization,” referring to the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, which set the stage for the current hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.
‘Color revolution’
President Vucic denounced the riot, calling it an attempted “color revolution” and claiming that a foreign nation had warned his government about the threat beforehand. Prime Minister Ana Brnabiс thanked the Russian special services for providing intelligence to Belgrade.
The term ‘color revolution’ is often applied to the mass uprisings by ostensibly pro-democratic political forces in the 1990s and 2000s, including in Yugoslavia in 2000. Russia and some other nations perceive the wave as masterminded by the West to further its geopolitical goals, and executed through NGOs, media outlets, and parties funded by the US and its allies.
The Vucic government has been presented with a dilemma amid the current confrontation between Russia and the West. It is seeking EU membership for Serbia, which would require the realignment of Belgrade’s foreign policy with that of Brussels. However, Vucic has rejected Western calls to cut ties with Russia and join the US-led sanctions campaign against Moscow.
Responding to the turmoil in Belgrade, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed it was an “obvious attempt by the collective West to destabilize the situation in the country through ‘maidan coups’,” according to RIA Novosti.
Webb Reveals Intricate Details in the Remains of a Dying Star (MIRI image)
My ex-husband & I had been married for a few years before I opened up to him about the sexual abuse I endured as a teenager, at the hands of my father. Naturally, he was upset and wanted to know why I’d waited so long to tell him about it. I informed him that while it was an awful point in my life, I had long ago dealt with the pain & made peace with myself about i, that it was something I didn’t think much of anymore, but that I had always intended to tell him when I felt the time was right. He seemed sat with my response, and we went on business as usual.
Fast forward 3 1/2 years later… we had a brutal argument one day about his habit of not coming home til the wee hours of the morning. His shift at work would end around 4pm each day, & while I understood the need or desire to have the occasional few beers with the guys after a hard day, it was happening far too often & he was being inconsiderate by staying out so late while I was left alone to care for our children (mind you, I also worked every day, as well.) Apparently, that enraged him and out of nowhere, with this extremely cold glare in his eyes, very calmly stated, “I bet you enjoyed what your father did to you…” I was crushed! The debilitating emotions I’d felt so long ago came rushing back to me, and I suddenly felt as if what I’d experienced in my childhood had just happened. I was violated all over again.
He did eventually apologize for what he’d said, but I was never able to look at him the same way. Three years later, we divorced.
The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by NASA’s Webb (NIRCam and MIRI)
Somalia is not a real country. Somalia is a geographical expression which exists only on maps and in the minds of believers.
This is what Somalia looks like in imagination with its imaginary capital of Mogadishu.
And this is what Somalia looks like in real life.
The red part what the UN-recognized Somalian government in Mogadishu (sorta) controls. When people talk about the “country of Somalia”, they’re unintentionally referring only to the red areas. That being said, the map is a little misleading. Even in the red area, the government lacks control over many local communities, especially in the northeastern area of Puntland. And the internal borders change on a day-to-day basis.
The yellow area is called Somaliland. It functions as an independent country. The government in Mogadishu has no control over Somaliland.
The gray areas are controlled by tribal communities and terrorist organizations. The government in Mogadishu has no control over the gray areas.
This is partly why Somalia is a developing country. The official government has control over less than half the country. This means that there are no nation-wide social services. No national education system; people are often unable to receive a non-religious education. No unified foreign policy. No well-maintained national infrastructure. And the people of Somalia are kinda too distracted by violence and political instability to invest in their futures. Large parts of the country are controlled by terrorists organizations.
Despite the above, Somalia does have a stable informal economy, based upon (mostly subsistence) agriculture. But no country every became wealthy by growing plants.
NASA’s Webb Findings Support Long-Proposed Process of Planet Formation
I heard this story from my neighbour, and it happened to them about a month ago.
So my neighbour (27 male) was going on a road trip with his father (about 55 or so) and they had to pull over on the side of the road, only about a half mile or so from the city limits. The traffic was pretty bad, and obviously the person behind them didn’t appreciate having to wait for them to pull over through two lanes of traffic, and followed them off the road. My neighbour hadn’t noticed the man following them, until he got out of his car (a work ute for a construction company) and pulled out a metal pole from the back of his ute. He came up and smashed the back windshield of the car, swore at the father (who was driving) and began walking back to his car pretty slowly.
Before he could start his car again, my neighbour and his father had walked up to the other man’s car and pulled out their badges.
Both of them are cops, the father is the police captain of the station. My neighbour said the man smelt like heroin, so they checked the car and found a bunch of drugs and equipment for druggos.
He then told the man that he would have a lot of paperwork to fill out.
I love that story. Be careful who you mess with.
NASA’s Webb Identifies Tiniest Free-Floating Brown Dwarf (NIRCam Image)
Not to play
Nearby Planetary System Seen in Breathtaking Detail, Fomalhaut Dusty Debris Disk (MIRI Image)
I was 17, hitchhiking my way to the South of France after leaving home for good. I was waiting at a spot on the Route Nationale 7 in the northern part of Lyon. Not a very good place if you wanted to go south, but it was the best I had been able to do.
An open Mehari with a long haired young man at the wheel passed. Thy guy grinned, honked and then shrugged in the universal gesture of: “Sorry, can’t help you, mate.”
Citroen Mehari, based on the 2CV, image credit: radicalmag
About half an hour later a police car stopped next to me. To my surprise it was the guy from the Mehari. Hair tied in a neat bun underneath his kepi, his bright and colorful clothing replaced by a sombre French police uniform.
He asked me where I was going. In abysmally bad French I explained that my destination was Toulon.
He told me to enter the car. My heart sunk as I thought my short lived adventure was already over and I would be returned home to my mother in Germany.
Well, from what little I understood he told me he needed to go a certain route, which he did. After about an hour’s worth of driving through all sorts of strange neighborhoods he dropped me off south of Lyon at the RN7, an ideal spot to get to where I was going. He wished me luck, waved once and sped off.
BTW, my French is much better these days
NASA’s Webb Scores Another Ringed World With New Image of Uranus
My first instinct is to say “going into debt for a worthless degree.” At age 18, I took on almost $120k in debt for a B.A. in Communications from DePaul University in Chicago… a private, out-of-state university for me. After spending six years doing jobs that didn’t even require a degree, I had to go back for my Master’s in Teaching (also from DePaul) in order to get a career I wanted: teaching. Now, at age 40, I’m still paying for classes I took when I was 18… some $400 per month. That’s down from the $650 per month I paid right out of college, mainly because my father died and some of the loans were in his name only. I will be paying my student loans until I’m 52, assuming I don’t pay them off early.
But, then again, I met my wife in college, and she and the children she gave me are the best parts of my life. So maybe I don’t regret going into debt for college. Maybe it was worth it, after all.
My second instinct is to say “moving far from home for college.” When I was 18, I was so eager to spread my wings that I moved four states away for college. I went from living with my parents, to visiting them just once per year… then once every two years. There were so many times that I could have been there for my parents, but I was too far away. I gave up the chance to have a close adult relationship with them, before I realized what I was giving up. I hurt them and, as the years go by, the more I realize that I hurt myself, too.
But, then again, I met my wife in college, and she and the children she gave me are the best parts of my life. So maybe I don’t regret moving so far away for college. Maybe it was worth it, after all.
So my biggest regret is, I guess, not taking better care of myself when I was younger… particularly in my mid-20s, when adult responsibilities of a career, marriage, and children came along. The first thing to go, once my plate got full, was time at the gym. Then I started stress eating rather than stress working out. I worked hard in my early 20s to get in shape… lost 130 pounds in the process… and I squandered it all by the time I was 30. Now it’s starting to catch up to me. I’m sitting here, writing this now, when I would rather be riding my bike. It’s a nice day outside, but my left knee is in pain and stiff. According to the doctor, I have “more arthritis than they’d expect for a man my age,” but “that can happen when you carry a lot of weight around your whole life.”
If I could do it all over again, I’d go back to about age 15 and change only one thing: I’d only drink water (no soda, no coffee with cream and sugar), and maybe even go vegetarian, just for the reduced calories. Fast-forward 25 years, and I’m a much healthier 40-year-old man, still happily married and still with awesome children.
NASA’s Webb Reveals Intricate Networks of Gas and Dust in Nearby Galaxies
I lived in an apartment building. The upstairs neighbor seemed to think he was back in the dorm: parties all night, every night… people tromping around… music blasting with the bass turned all the way UP.
I tried a white-noise app. I got earplugs. I tried playing music next to the bed. My work was suffering.
Then I addressed him directly: I would go upstairs and politely ask him to please be a little quieter. No dice. I moved through the let-my-frustration-show stage… the angry stage… the I’ll-call-the-authorities stage…
When I couldn’t take the experiment in sleep deprivation any longer, I contacted our local city council to find out my options. Turns out there are regulations having to do with “health”: exceptionally loud noise is on a list of “stressors.”
They sent him a warning letter, saying if there were more complaints they might go so far as to serve eviction.
The following weekend a man turned up at my door. He was well-dressed, polite – older gent. He said he was Upstairs Neighbor’s father and could he talk to me?
Well, hey, I like to think I’m a reasonable person. “Sure, c’mon in…”
He pulled out the letter the Health Department had sent the UN and started waving it about, accusing me of intolerance, trying to cause problems for his son, on and on. He told me I should move out – “Nothing wrong with people having company and enjoying music. I’ve been in his apartment and the music is never loud.” As if the kid would give the old man full blast and prove I had cause for complaint.
I was taken aback, as much as anything because it never occurred to me a 30-year-old would have to send “Daddums” to confront a neighbor. Father wanted me to withdraw the complaint. I refused. He ranted some more, then got up to leave, crabbing the whole way about “How do you have the nerve” and so on. I saw him to the door, and as he stepped into the hallway he turned and said bitterly, “I am so disappointed.” “I understand, sir. If I had children who behaved as your son has, I’d be disappointed too.”
He was at a loss for words. It was so gratifying. 😉
NASA’s Webb Telescope Captures Rarely Seen Prelude to Supernova (NIRCam and MIRI Image)
When I was 18, I placed second in the state finals of the 50 freestyle — and wish I’d just gotten last. At that stage of my life, everything was about swimming. I obsessed over it and hoped to go to the Olympic trials some day.
The worst part, I lost by .03 seconds. It was a sickening moment as my biggest goal of the year slipped between my fingers. I grew up with competition dripping from every corner of my home. Both of my parents were competitive swimmers and my identity was all tangled up in the sport.
It feels weird now, looking back and realizing this was still a moment for celebration and appreciation. Second in the state was nothing to hang my head over. But I’d fallen victim to zero sum thinking that is so common with competition — and often quite toxic.
The curse of second place is even scrutinized by academics. In a study led by economist, Dr. Adrian Kalwji, researchers studied the life expectancy of 978 US Olympic medalists from 1904 to 1936. On average, gold medalists lived to 73. Bronze medalists lived to 75 and silver medalists lived to 70. The study speculates that dissatisfactory outcomes for silver medalists have lasting effects on their life, both in socioeconomic status and psychological contentment. Their insights aren’t merely for sports, but extend to human thinking on competitive systems. Why is second place so fraught with disappointment?
When I won silver, there was a feeling of squandered opportunity. I was so close I could smell it. I walked into the showers after my race on the verge of tears, and thought through the small mistakes I made and questioned everything. Could I have reacted quicker off the block? Could I have timed my turn better? Was my training wrong?
Second place hits hard because we use “relative standing” when analyzing outcomes. A silver can easily make you feel like the first loser. In a study of social comparisons by Dr. Abraham Buunk, his team found these comparisons make us feel better or worse, depending on which direction we focus on. Moreover, it is less the outcome that determines our feeling, and more how we choose to interpret it.
We anchor our self-perception to the nearest reference points which creates a framing problem. For example, in one study, participants said they’d rather live in a world where the average salary was $25,000 and they earned $50,000, than one where they earned $100,000 and the global average was $200,000. It is strikingly easy to look up, rather than down.
Which brings to mind one of my grandfather’s funnier moments demonstrating this concept. As young children, my sister and I would stand at attention in front of him after doing a task. He would sit in his recliner as we recited what we’d accomplished like we were military cadets. In this case, it was related to a cleaning chore.
We stood at attention and, as a reward, grandpa pulled out a five dollar bill and handed it to me in full view of my 4-year-old sister and said, “Here you go!” Then, he reached into his wallet and handed my sister a one dollar bill. She looked down at it, grimaced in anger — then crumpled it up and chucked it at the wall. He immediately started laughing and then gave her five dollars. It highlighted the constant comparative thinking, which is why managing our expectations is so important.
After losing my 50 free, I went on to swim in college the subsequent year. I placed 3rd in the 100 free at the Atlantic 10 Championship and was thrilled. I’d barely qualified for finals and was in the outside lane. That bronze medal is my most prized accomplishment in sports and much of it is because of how unexpected it was. It felt like a gift.
Technically, I’d still lost the race. Why couldn’t I be happy about every defeat as I was with this one?
Why you should embrace 2nd place
When we are upset about an outcome not matching expectations, we often warp reality and use counterfactual thinking. Famed social economist, Daniel Kahneman, did an exercise where participants were told of two people, Mr. Crane and Mr. Thomas, who were rushing to catch their flight and were 30 minutes late because of their driver. Mr. Crane missed his flight by 30 minutes and Mr. Thomas missed his by five. Nearly every participant said Mr. Thomas was surely more upset than Mr. Crane. Why? Because he was so close to catching his flight.
In reality, the discrepancy didn’t matter. You either catch your flight or you don’t. The outcome has already occurred and there is no benefit to resenting one’s self over it.
Dr. Sergio Pellis studied how rats play fight during development. Often, a large rat will jump on a smaller one and have an immediate advantage and be poised to win. But around 30% of the time, the initiating rat will allow the other to win. The act of getting second place is fundamental to their bonding, contentment and development. If the larger rat dominated every time, he’d lose his training partner, peer, and they’d both miss out on learning. Without realizing it, they celebrate their silver metals.
Competitiveness that’s focused on improving a skill rather than dominating others is proven to increase satisfaction and competency. It is healthier and more logical, because losing is an inevitable consequence of competition. In my case, losing that swim race in high school lit a fire under me, and allowed me to perform well in college. I swam far better times and appreciated the consequence of small improvements to my stroke. I never forgot that .03 second gap. Heck, I’m here writing about it 22 years later.
Lastly, I urge you to stay gracious in victory or defeat. How you conduct yourself impacts your own psyche and how people perceive you. An amazing thing happened after losing my race. The guy who beat me, Eric, was so cool about the whole situation. The next night, we competed in another finals. Just before, we were standing in line for the walkout where they play music to hype up our race. I was standing by him and casually turned and said, “Good race last night. Congrats. It was close.”
He smiled, patted me on the back and said, “Hey, it was all luck. Good race.” And I so appreciated his humility in that moment. He could have been arrogant as many good swimmers are, and said, “Yeah, I could have swam a half second faster if I tried more.” But instead, he paid homage to his competitor.
Remember that the bitterness of losing is a comparison problem. Being outperformed can be a way to bond with others and appreciate how far you’ve come. It can be motivation to study your performance and your victor’s. Beware of making counterfactual comparisons, and building in a bunch of assumptions about why things happened the way they did.
Perhaps on that night, I swam faster than I ordinarily would have. Maybe my opponent had a slower night than usual. There was no use blaming myself. It was an honor to compete and feel alive.
Losing does not put you on a moral low ground. Appreciate the coveted fire of motivation that competition gives you. Give thanks for the competency it instills. It is as my coach often reminded me, “You are in a one person race with yourself.” Focus on progress, not domination. A setback has transformative power, if you allow it.
NASA’s Chandra, Webb Combine for Arresting Views (Pillars of Creation)
Female friends?
Oh I am so glad that I do not live in the West.
I think that I am going to try to reincarnate as a cat.
Banbury Tarts
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups flour
Seedless jelly or jam (preferably currant or raspberry)
Instructions
Heat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
Beat in the egg yolks, then the vanilla extract.
Slowly beat in the flour until combined and smooth to form the dough (the dough will be a bit stiff at the end, and you may need to add the last cup of flour by hand).
Form the dough into small balls and make a depression in the middle with your thumb.
Spoon a teaspoon or so of jelly in the depression.
Space the cookies about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet and bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.
We’re not fat because we’re lazy. We work harder than thin people do. Strap a 50-pound sack of flour on your back and keep it on all day, every day. You’ll then be working as hard as a fat person.
We’re not fat because we have no self-control. We control our diet far more than naturally thin people do. We resist things that thin people don’t think twice about.
You bitch that you can’t find clothes you like. We would love to have the opportunity to bitch that we can’t find clothes we like. Our problem is finding clothes at all. The fashion industry hates us because we don’t represent the image they want for their garments. We have to take whatever fits, whether we like it or not.
Weight is set by a complex collection of factors including genetics, hormones, metabolism, lifestyle, and even intestinal flora. Of these, lifestyle is the only one we have any control over. It’s not a sign of moral turpitude.
Airplanes are misery for us. Airlines brag about their legroom and let you upgrade to seats with greater distance between them. They never talk about hip and shoulder room and offer no options to improve that except upgrading to business class, which costs thousands.
Even some GPs (primary care physicians) have contempt for us and let it show. [2]
Doctors have a tendency to blame medical problems on weight rather than diagnosing as carefully as they would with a thin person. [3]
We are a prime target for scammers. The only people scammed with phony products more than we are are men with anxiety about their penises.
We are ashamed much of our lives. Ashamed to be seen to be out of breath, ashamed not to fit in a crowded elevator, ashamed to bump into people in crowds, ashamed when a nurse weighs us, ashamed to meet people who knew us before we were fat. Why have I never been to a high school reunion? Shame.
I once employed a guy that was dubious at best. He was always talking flat out. In his words he would say “Yeah that’s the dexies mate” when I would ask him to slow down. This is when I was in my mid 20’s and Google wasn’t a thing yet. Yahoo and Alta Vista were, however I had bigger things to fry let alone checking out what “dexies” meant.
Anyway, one day we’re in the car together. This isn’t my favourite thing to do with this particular employee however, he was the only one not waist deep into a job working on the pinball machines, arcade video games and jukes boxes we would repair and sell. We were close to my house and I thought I would drop in and grab something before going back to work. Forgetting who was with me I got out of the car and walked inside. The guy followed, that’s okay. I didn’t give it a second thought until he said this:
“Nice house, lots of nice cool stuff here (as he was looking at the big (for it’s time) 68 cm Sony CRT TV, Slim line Sony DVD player, and stainless and glass custom built cabinet.” He was scanning the house, when I remembered he had told me once he had spent some time in jail. I remember holding my breathe for a second and thinking “Shit… what have I done here? Is this guy taking inventory of my house?”
Then he said this:
“I see you have an alarm box out the front and your key pad is near the telephone which is near the sliding (glass) door. Don’t do that.”
I looked at him a bit puzzled. He had cased my house in less than 5 seconds. When he told me how a criminal would think. He said this:
“Look you have a bowling green style front lawn and a good looking house, like some of the other houses on this street, it’s nice. So, people are going to look… like a nice looking car. Then if your house peaks someones interest, they will case the house when you’re not home, or maybe while you are mowing the front lawn because, you can’t hear them, and you’re intently watching the lawn mower to make sure you don’t run over sprinklers. The guy would see you have an alarm box out the front and be looking for where the phone is through your nice big glass sliding door window.”
Then the guy took me out the front and told me exactly what “his people” did when we were looking at the alarm box.
He pointed up the alarm box and said: “We buy / steal a can of “Space Invader” (This is a can of expanding foam. Ironic I was in the arcade game industry and this guy is telling me how people break into houses using a product called “Space Invader”) from the hardware store. You take the bottom of the can and you smash the blue light. No alarm is going off yet. You then shove the tube of the Space Invader can into vents on the side of the alarm box and fill the box until the Space Invader oozes out of the box. Then you go to where the phone is.
This is the product called “Space Invader”
It works like this. Spray it in… and in seconds it will expand after spraying and dry.
This is what Wikipedia says:
“Spray foam is a chemical product created by two materials, isocyanate and polyol resin, which react when mixed with each other and expand up to 30-60 times its liquid volume after it is sprayed in place.”
They would spray it into one of these:
They would spray the stuff into the vents on the side. The one I had was made of metal back then. This is also the light they would smash off with the base of the Space Invader can.
He continued:
“You get to the window / door that is closest to the phone. By this time the Space Invader will be close to dried. Wait a few minutes. (which I remember he said “When you first start doing “breaks” (short for “break and enters”) those few minutes with your heart racing can feel like hours. All you can hear is your heart racing in your chest) Then smash the window, there is no “quietly”… just do it fast. Get in and take the phone off the hook. This will stop the alarm system from calling the alarm company. The alarm will be going off out the front however, it will be muted, no one will be able to hear it, the light is gone, the cops aren’t coming. Take your time, don’t rush, or you‘ll miss the good stuff. Move quickly, but don’t run. Take what you need / want and leave”
In about 30 seconds he had summed up the “How to break into a house and get away with it” question I had never asked myself.
And then he said this.. “Oh but you have a big dog, you’ll be okay” as my dog Zanni rounded the corner to see we were inside the house and he was outside checking out who was inside.
This is Zanni. (He doesn’t normally wear a tie, however he had his best suit on as he was waiting for his date to come over before they went out on the town that evening.)
This was the best thing a criminal ever told me. The phone was moved, the alarm box was put way higher and in an awkward place to get to, let alone “install” and we did the rest of my neighbours houses as well.
Good to know how others think. I don’t have an alarm now. I have CCTV and a dog.
This is Mr Leo. He has taken over from Miss Jen, who took over from Zanni. All have put in more than 20 years of service.
There was this boy in my class at school in 7th grade. He was short for his age. He kept to himself and never really mixed with anyone. He always ate his lunch alone on a bench seat which was on the edge of the playground just staring into space. It was like he was in his own little world and nothing mattered to him. I never saw him smile in all the time i knew him.
He would get called all kinds of names that really hurt him deep down. But he never retaliated or showed how much it hurt him, which seemed to infuriate his tormentors.
They were relentless. Mean. One day he stepped in front of a car outside of school and stopped in the middle of the road as if waiting for it to hit him. The driver screeched to a halt only inches away from his body. He was frozen and only moved when the driver asked if he was OK. He hung his head and walked away slowly.
Nobody chose him for team sports during PE and when he was the last one left everyone called him a loser and laughed at him. He hung his head and went to the far corner of the gym and sat down hiding his face in his hands.
They tormented him in the change rooms and started calling him a ‘homo, faggot and perv’. It wasn’t long before it had got around the whole school that this boy was a ‘homo’ and so everyone started calling him those terrible names.
He had fruit thrown at him from behind so that he never knew who it was. It hit him in the back of his head knocking him down to the ground. With tears in his eyes he tried to stand up but they came at him again and knocked his books out of his hands making him go down again. People laughed at him. He got up, grabbed his books, and ran outside and kept running till he couldn’t run any longer. He ended up walking for 10 miles just following a road not knowing were he was going. But he didn’t care if he died that day.
Still he didn’t retaliate. Or tell anyone. Or complain. The next week he wasn’t at school. Someone started a rumor that he committed suicide. Everyone laughed. Nobody called to see if he was all right. Nobody missed him. Nobody cared.
What they didn’t know was that his stepdad had hurt him so badly and that he was in hospital for three days. Too sick to attend school. He never told anyone about what happened when he returned to school. When everyone saw that he was still alive, they were disappointed. And told him to go kill himself. “Do it properly this time”.
He was still not well from what his stepfather did to him. When they pushed him into the lockers at school or tried to jam his head in the door, he let out a yelp. But the pain was not from what they did to him.
One day after PE he was acting very strange. He stood facing everyone with his head hanging low. As if his whole world was about to come crashing down. He was trembling. There was an unusual silence in the room that scared him. It was then that everyone saw his body. Covered in black and blue welts across his back, legs and arms. He had tears falling from his eyes and was clearly ashamed of his body.
The shower stung like a 1000 bees.
They didn’t touch his clothes or call him names or hit him; this time they left him alone.
That boy is me.
I never told anybody what had happened to me. I knew that if I snitched on my stepdad it would be 100 times worse. I was 12 and as far as I knew, nobody would help me even if I asked. I was too afraid of what he would do to me. I woke up every day hoping things would change. I didn’t hold grudges and never have. It helped me get through some depressing periods while i was at school.
I just wanted a normal life and to be happy.
I can’t say that I have found that dream and I probably never will. But at least I am in no danger now and I deal with the consequences of my childhood as it surfaces and as an adult I can put it in its proper place.
Because you, a normal people, who lacks bilingual ability and critical thinking, can’t distinguish truth from the sea of infomation in which propaganda hides.
If I say the “criticism” and “democracy” are just camouflages for America’s real intention to overthrow legitimate government, and 2019 riot is actually a West backed color revolution in the coat of “pro-democracy protest”, you must think I’m brainwashed.
However, I’m not. Simply because I’m bilingual. The organziers and main activists confessed they are funded and instructed by CIA and NED, also including MI6, and some other NGOs, but your media didn’t report this. And apparently you don’t read Chinese so you don’t know this.
This, in the academic field of Media and Communications, is called GATEKEEPING.
The news agencies had the right to decide which piece of news is to be reported. And the final news outlet is a result of FRAMING the narrative via news stories.
Narratives in news refer to news stories framed and presented to us about what’s happening in this world, and one major function of narrative is to shape our views on this world. And these views consist our attitude toward someone/something.
Like in this question, you think CCP is evil, evil is a attitude, which can be shaped by narrative, and narrative is the product of a series of news outlets.
As a passive receiver, you can’t ask news agencies feeding you whatever you want to know, but whatever they want you to know.
So, where to find the truth?
First, be bilingual, or at least knowing where to find the opposite voice. There are always English information from the other side, but you need to find it yourself.
Second, be of critical thinking. Some information is misleading, sometimes they even hide or delete something from the internet. When there’s only one side’s voice, it’s dangerous. Like Russia-Ukraine war, when Russia’s voice is muted, what you receive is the selected information.
Third, be open-minded to different voices. When I told you you’re brainwashed on HK matters, don’t argue back or leave, try to compare the differences and seek more information to verify yours or mine opinion.
Beef and Onion Stew (Stifado)
A traditional Greek Beef and Onion Stew makes a comforting cold-weather meal.
Ingredients
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 (2 pound) boneless beef chuck, tip or round, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely-ground pepper
1 bay leaf
1 stick cinnamon
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 1/2 pounds pearl onions, peeled
Crumbled feta cheese
Instructions
Cook and stir chopped onion and garlic in oil in Dutch oven over medium heat until onion is tender; remove with slotted spoon.
Cook beef in remaining oil, stirring frequently, until all liquid is evaporated and beef is brown on all sides, about 25 minutes; drain fat.
Return onion and garlic to Dutch oven. Stir in remaining ingredients except onions and cheese. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Add white onions. Cover and simmer until beef and white onions are tender, about 30 minutes.
Remove bay leaf and cinnamon. Garnish with feta cheese, if desired.
I drove out into the middle of a forest on a mountain. Accompanied only by a man that I barely knew. Without telling anyone where I was going. To a place with no cell phone service.
I was 18. He was 25 and attractive. I had known ‘of’ him (he worked at my company, in a different department), but I didn’t really actually know him. We both ended up at a party one night and, after chatting, we exchanged numbers.
He asked if he could take me hiking, and I said sure!
On Saturday, I packed up and he drove us for 2 hours into the wilderness of Mt. Baker. Halfway up, I realized… shit! I hadn’t told anyone where I was going (which you ALWAYS do if you’re going to be in the wilderness).
And my cell phone was out of service now.
And… who really was this guy next to me?!
I started to panic, as my anxiety fueled brain came up with bizarre ideas of what could happen.
“He could totes murder me and leave my body in the middle of the woods. This place is 119,989 acres… nobody would ever find me. And nobody knew I went with him for the day. If I were a murderer this would be, like, my dream come true.”
Luckily, I played it cool and halfway up the mountain blurted “Yo, don’t murder me bro!”
So smooth.
It turned out fine. He and I still go hiking together. But, in all fairness, it was one of the dumbest/ most naive things I’ve done.
Always tell people if you’re going into the wilderness. Don’t go off alone, out of cell phone service, with a man you barely know.
I was in Chattanooga working at a franchise restaurant as a waiter after the mortgage crash some years ago.
We advertised specials on the weekdays and it would draw in a crowd that was less affluent. That’s fine, I get that people like to eat out and I provided them with the same outstanding service (I was always #1 or #2 in tips).
We had this one lady that would come in every few weeks, eat her food, and then complain to have it comped. There was nothing wrong with the food, etc. Of course I wouldn’t get tipped, either. The folks she would eat with were invariably embarrassed, but did nothing.
After enjoying this (not!) several times she came in again. They sat in my section. I notified the manager we had a comp. coming.
I took their drink and appetizer orders and, when I returned, I asked if they were ready to order their meal. When it was her turn I had to say it…
“And what free meal will you be ordering this evening?”
The table was silent. The manager on duty looked at me like I’d lost my mind but was smiling. In fact I think the whole restaurant got quiet as the end of my employment drew near.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, loudly and indignantly.
It was so quiet you could hear the dishwasher run in the back.
“Well,” I said most matter of factly, “in my times serving you you’ve always complained and gotten your food and drinks for free when in reality there’s absolutely nothing wrong. I don’t get it. You’re not homeless, you’re well-dressed, showered, and obviously didn’t walk here (or anywhere, I’d guess), so you must like going out and eating for free. It’s happened here and probably going to happen again tonight. I thought I’d just clear the air a bit.”
Yes, if I had to do it over again I’d have rhymed off what she had ordered and not paid for, LOL.
She wasn’t happy, as you may imagine, and got rather loud in that very quiet establishment.
Good news is I don’t think she came back.
Bad news was neither did I.
The Enduring Stellar Lifecycle in 30 Doradus (Composite: Infrared + X-ray)
“If I don’t call my mom right now, she’ll call the cops.”
Some background:
My mother devised a system of codewords and numbers that if used in certain ways meant different things. My older brothers would sometimes party with their friends in some not-so-great areas, so there were things that could be texted or said over the phone that saved them from bad situations. Maybe a rival gang showed up, the cops showed up, or there were unknown drugs on the scene (hey, we’ve all smoked a little weed).
The words were: breakfast sausages, kitty litter, tampons/pads/period (any could be used), ice cream, garbage, recycling
The numbers were 1–10.
”Breakfast sausages at 10?” Meant “Something is happening here and I feel unsafe”.
My mom would question “Does that work” for “do you need me to come get you”. Yes meant she came, No meant she alerted the cops who would usually just drive by.
So, how did this help me?
I was at a party where a guy was very insistent on getting me alone, and much bigger than I was. Upon getting me into a bedroom alone, he proceeded to push me down on the bed, and get on top of me. Over the noise of the party, screaming wasn’t working so I struggled, kicking and wiggling. When he grabbed my hair and yanked me up, I caught an old school alarm clock familiar red numbers and then started “freaking out”.
”Oh my god it’s so late I’m going to be f****in killed!” He stopped for a second, confused, and I said “I need to call my mom right now or she’ll call the cops! I was supposed to be home an hour ago!”
Immediately he was off of me and my phone was in my hand. No one wants cops at a party. My exchange with my mom went a little something like this:
”Hey mom, super sorry that it’s so late. I hope I didn’t worry you I lost track of time.”
”I thought you were going to stay with Theresa tonight after your party?”
”Oh crap yeah mom I’ll switch out the kitty litter tomorrow by 9. I’ll make sure I’m dropped off early so it’s done before the garbage is collected. Can you grab me some tampons at the store tomorrow?” (My would-be assailant is looking rather uncomfortable)
”I’ll throw on a robe and be there in 5. Be ready for me to scream.”
My mom proceeded to yell some rather nonsensical things at me over the phone, as I’d requested with “tampons”. “Garbage” was that whoever I was concerned about was near me, potentially being able to hear the phone conversation or read texts. “Kitty litter” meant I needed to leave ASAP, “9” meaning without cops.
My would-be assaillant was very uncomfortable and I left the room without a word, my mom yelling on the phone, and an overly exaggerated wince on my face. I reconnected with my friend and told her what happened, she walked me out with her boyfriend and ended up telling me that same guy had told her he thought we’d “really connected” and wanted my info.
In the end, I lied. But I would’ve been raped if I hadn’t.
It’s a system I’m glad to pass on to my daughter!
Reefer Madness 1936 | Full Movie | Louis Gasnier | Cult Classic | Dorothy Short | Kenneth Craig
When I lived in Indiana, my wife and myself took private dance lessons. We studied ballroom dancing. And we were pretty good at it. Bronze and silver level for certain, and we were studying gold level for Foxtrot and Tango. Which is really very good.
We were top level amateur.
I have many stories from this time, and about this situation. But today I want to relate a funny aspect of that situation…
We lived in a mobile home park, and our trailer was pretty small. Aside from the studio or our dance club, there really wasn’t any place to practice our dancing. That was… until one day.
We found a nice secluded area in the countryside. It was a cemetery at the side of a rural road, and there was a nice flat cement area on one of the cemetery slabs. Indeed, YES… we were dancing on the graves of the people in the cemetery.
So yeah. That well explains why cars would slow down and watch us dancing on the graves of the newly deceased. LOL. I guess I spent much of my time in Indiana dancing on the graves of the people that lived there.
A few years ago, I was in line at a cash register waiting to pay for my purchase at a dollar store. I was waiting behind a little girl who was about 8 or 9 years old. She was alone and I was watching her as she meticulously laid out all of her purchases on the conveyor belt. I thought she was so cute.
Then, the cashier asked her if she was sure she had enough money. She nodded her head that she did. The cashier proceeded to ring up her purchases and she told her what the total was. The little girl took out a handful of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. She started to count the coins slowly and carefully. I was actually enjoying watching her do this!
Then, the cashier informed her that she was missing about 60 cents. She said that the girl would have to put some things back. She was hesitating as she was trying to decide what to remove. I looked at the cashier and I told her that I would pay the difference. The cashier took my money and put her purchases in a bag. Then, the little girl left. (I think she thanked me.)
At this point, the cashier told me that this young child came into the store and pulled this con game every week! The unsuspecting customers behind her ALWAYS paid for the remainder of her purchases! This child was extremely convincing – she really pulled the wool over my eyes! I told the cashier that I wish she would have told me before I paid because I would have wanted to say something to this girl.
I would have told her that what she was doing was wrong because she was tricking people (conning them) into paying for her purchases. I wish I could have told her that I thought she was very smart, that she should work hard in school and that she would do well in sales, marketing or acting!
Take a long hard look at a map and you will notice where China is situated. Nowhere near the US right?
Now look at all the US.bases so very far from the shores of the US but situated close to Asia and close to China. Why is the US there and not back home ready to defend their shores which is exactly what China is doing.
The provocative actions of the US is setting the world on a path of destruction.
China doesn’t talk of war but the US is constantly brainwashing the masses into thinking black is whit and white is black.
The US is constantly provoking wars.
The only two things the US sells is weapons and bullshit, so much bullshit.
The US is far from being a guardian angel but a god of war. Enough.
Pinjur (Macedonia)
This is a traditional Macedonian dish, and it is found on tables everywhere in Macedonia.
Ingredients
Eggplant
1 large eggplant
2 to 6 cloves garlic
Salt (enough to lightly cover the garlic)
Handful roughly chopped walnuts
Optional Ingredients
Olive oil
Fresh lemon
Fresh cilantro
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Wash eggplant. Poke holes into eggplant randomly with a fork. Place eggplant on a cookie sheet which has been covered with aluminum foil. Roast the eggplant until it is thoroughly cooked and collapses (about 30 to 40 minutes).
While the eggplant is roasting, mash garlic and salt with mortar and pestle until it becomes pasty.
To cool eggplant quickly, slice in half, and leave draining in the sink in a colander. When cool, peel the skin off. Chop eggplant into medium-size chunks.
In bowl, combine eggplant and garlic, mashing eggplant and stirring the garlic throughout. When it is consistently mushy, throw in a handful of chopped walnuts to add crunch and texture. You can add olive oil, a squeeze of fresh lemon, and even cilantro if desired.
Vladimir Putin showed up at Branch No 2 of the National Medical Research Centre of High Medical Technologies – Vishnevsky Central Military Clinical Hospital of the Russian Federation Defence Ministry this week and sat down for a chat with Russian military personnel who had been wounded during the special military operation. Can you imagine Joe Biden doing this with a group of American military personnel? I can’t.
I am posting this because I think it is important that people, especially Americans, have the opportunity to read Putin’s comments. If you are wondering how Putin views the United States, NATO and Ukraine, you need only read the following. There is no nuance. Putin is refreshingly candid.
His concern for the welfare of the soldiers comes across as genuine, sincere. But that is not the news. He makes it very clear that the Western countries are the enemy, not Ukraine. He also vowed to step up attacks on Ukrainian military targets and foreign mercenaries. Putin minces no words in noting that Western hopes of bamboozling him into negotiations for a ceasefire are in vain. Ain’t going to happen
.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Hello, guys! Glad to see you. I would like to congratulate you on the New Year.
How is your treatment here going?
Remark: Excellent.
Vladimir Putin: I walked around here, from what I have seen the equipment looks solid, this is clear of course. But, first and foremost, it must be used effectively. I hope, it does.
Remarks: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: You know, of course, I wanted to come here and congratulate you on the New Year, but there was also something I wanted to see. You might have seen me on Direct Line
, at least some of it; it is impossible to watch it in its entirety, four hours, it is crazy just how long it is. But there were things that concerned the Armed Forces and you directly: for example, people asked whether you really had to return to your units after your wounds and treatment and even rehabilitation to obtain the corresponding medical certificates there and even be cleared by military medical commissions. The Defence Ministry denies this, saying it does not happen, at least, not now. Moreover, they said – as I requested some time ago – that housing issues are being resolved during treatment and our service personnel undergo additional training to be able to continue serving, if they want, even those who sustained severe injuries, at military enlistment offices and so forth.
I wanted to hear from you what is really going on, if this is so, if you need to go somewhere else to obtain the necessary documents and certificates. No? So, do you get everything here? The military medical commission examination, all the documents – everything is done here, right?
Remarks: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: Are housing issues being resolved too?
Remarks: Yes.
Remark: Already been resolved.
Vladimir Putin: Ok, I see. They have been resolved for you and they are being resolved for our other fighters. At least, the system for resolving housing issues has been created and it is working, that is the most important thing, right?
And you are also receiving some additional professional training to allow those willing to continue their service in the Armed Forces but in different positions, health permitting. Is that so? Is that the reality?
Remark: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you. So, how is it going?
Remark: Good.
Vladimir Putin: This is one of the best medical institutions of the Defence Ministry. Not all of them are so well-equipped, so shiny, so to speak. But gradually the Ministry will bring everything up to the standard, to this level in terms of quality.
Any questions you want to ask me, guys? Don’t be shy.
Alexander Dublyanin: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief,
During the special military operation we are liberating Russian territory. How do you feel about Western countries helping our enemy?
Vladimir Putin: The point is not that they are helping our enemy. They are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with their hands. That is what it is all about. This has been the case for centuries, unfortunately, and continues to be the case today.
Ukraine itself is not our enemy whereas those who want to destroy Russian statehood and to achieve, as they say, a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield, are mainly in the West, but still, there are different people there. There are people who sympathise with us and who are with us at heart. But there are the elites who think the existence of Russia (at least in its current state and size) is unacceptable. They want to disintegrate it. As a matter of fact, you are young people, some have read about this, perhaps: they do not hide it. They speak and write about this publicly, and have been doing it for decades, if we are talking about contemporary history. For decades, they have simply been writing frankly about it: divide Russia into five parts, one is too much. I can talk about this till morning, but it is obvious.
Therefore, they have been nurturing the Kiev regime for quite a long time, precisely to create this conflict. Unfortunately for us, they have achieved this: they started this conflict and are trying to achieve their objective, namely the task of fighting Russia, with the help of Ukrainians.
You probably see on the battlefield that they are gradually losing their zest. When a projectile flies, it is difficult to understand whether they are losing it or not, but in general you probably know that the situation on the battlefield is changing. This is despite the fact that the entire “civilised” West is fighting us.
You, too, have probably heard many times: the Ukrainian army expends 5,000–6,000 155-calibre shells there per day of combat operations, and the United States produces 14,000 per month. Per month! And they use 5,000 per day. Yes, they are planning to increase it during 2024, but still, they produced 14,000–15,000, they will produce up to 20,000. But if you use 5,000 a day, then the supply depletes quite quickly. It is close to that now. And we are building up and will continue to, exponentially at that. They were supplied with more than 400 tanks (450 or whatever it is), and in a year we will produce and overhaul 1,600. This is not a state secret; in fact, there will be probably more. It is like this almost across the board. Therefore, though it has been their goal to deal with Russia from time immemorial, we will deal with them faster, it seems.
And the most important thing we have is, of course, what I have spoken about repeatedly: the unity of our people and society, because there is an understanding of how important the job you are doing on the battlefield is in the armed struggle for our country and our future. That is what’s most important. The point is not that we do not like that they are supplying Ukraine, that’s not the core of the problem. The problem is not with Ukraine, but with those who are trying to destroy Russia using Ukraine. That is the problem. But they will fail: it is simply out of the question, absolutely out of the question.
I think that the realisation is starting to dawn on them, and the rhetoric is changing: those who were talking just yesterday about the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia are now looking for the right words on how to quickly end the conflict. We also want to end the conflict, as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight endlessly, but we are not going to cede our positions either. You fought there, you were wounded there; are we going to surrender everything now? The cameras are on, otherwise I would make a certain gesture here now; you all know what kind of gesture it is. So, it is not going to happen.
I am Sergeant Shamalyuk. I have a question. From the very beginning of the special operation, our enemies have been constantly and regularly shelling the territories near the border, killing civilians and children, destroying villages and cities. I have the following question for you. Do you think it is possible and necessary to take tougher measures against the adversary so that the thought does not even cross their minds to commit these atrocities?
in Belgorod is of course a terrorist attack. Why? Because of what they have done under the cover of two missiles – I think it was Olkha: they fired from multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS). You, as military people, know what MLRS is. This weapon is not selective, it hits areas. This weapon struck right in the centre of the city, where people were walking before the New Year. It was a targeted strike on the civilian population. Of course, this is a terrorist attack; there is no other way to describe it.
Should we respond in kind? Of course, we can hit squares in Kiev or any other city. But Denis, there are children walking there, mothers with strollers. I understand, because I am quite angry, too, but I want to ask you: do we need to do this, target the squares?
Denis Shamalyuk: No, I am not saying that it should [be] against the civilian population, but specifically against military infrastructure…
Vladimir Putin: That is what we are doing.
Denis Shamalyuk: So that they will not be able to come round and respond.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, but that is exactly what we are doing. We strike with high-precision weapons at locations where they make decisions, where military personnel and mercenaries gather, at other similar centres, and at military facilities, above all. These blows can really be felt. We will continue to do this. You probably noticed that the very next day after these attacks were carried out. I think they are continuing today, and tomorrow, too.
Do you know why they are doing it? They want to intimidate us and to create some uncertainty within our country. For our part, we will increase the strikes that I have mentioned. Of course, not a single crime like that, and this is certainly a crime against the civilian population, will go unpunished, this is for sure, there can be no doubt.
Denis Shamalyuk: Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Please.
Ivan Shushakov: May I?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, please.
Ivan Shushakov: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief,
Major Shushakov.
For two years now, our country has been fighting for its future. Please tell me, how do you assess the progress of the special military operation?
Vladimir Putin: I have already said this, I can repeat, but you can feel this yourselves. Our Armed Forces are getting more capable and prepared to use advanced weapons than any other army in the world.
First, we have weapons that are not available in any army in the world, and second, we can use everything that is being developed and produced. Third, everything that is being developed is being produced and supplied rather fast. I know, there is probably not enough on the front lines, and they would like more of all the latest stuff there, such as drones, as well as more means of suppressing enemy drones, which are flying over you like flies. I understand everything, but still, what is being produced appears quickly enough.
You know what else is rather important? Modern means of warfare and their effectiveness depend on how quickly an army can find out what is the most important thing at this moment and respond in terms of producing and introducing that in combat as quickly as possible.
We are doing this better and better, probably better than anywhere else. And these are very huge advantages that our Armed Forces are gaining. I think that no one else could do the same today. And these capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces are constantly increasing, multiple times over. So, in general, you are already a senior officer, so you know, we try not to give high marks…
Ivan Shushakov: Exactly.
Vladimir Putin: Satisfactory.
Please.
Alexander Davydov: Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief, may I ask a question, sir?
We can see that you are very busy. How do you manage to maintain such high performance?
Vladimir Putin: Meeting you gives me strength. I am not joking. I am being honest. When I meet people like you, it gives me extra strength and confidence that we are doing the right thing.
Alexander Davydov: Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: This is a very important element. In fact, I am not being ironic, this is an important element, for me, at least.
My question is, what are the results of the past year and what are the real plans for this year? What should everyone, not just the Armed Forces and military personnel, be prepared for?
Vladimir Putin: The country in general, right?
Yevgeny Korsun: Yes. Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: You know, as far as the results of last year are concerned, I spoke about this on Direct Line, what can I say. The most important thing is that you keep everything tight at the front and, moreover, the practical strategic initiative is in our hands today. Senior commanders have learned to act carefully instead of carrying out combat missions at any cost. At least that is what they report to me. I always insist that everything must be done and any offensive operations carried out after the adversary has sustained heavy fire. This is what concerns the battlefield.
Talking about the country as a whole, of course, the fundamental thing is not only that we preserved the country’s economy, we did not allow it to be destroyed, which is what the enemy was counting on – this is also in response to your question. It was not Ukraine that hoped to destroy our economy; it is not capable of doing it. It has already been completely destroyed itself; there is nothing left there, it lives entirely on handouts. All its leaders travel around with hat in hand, begging for an extra million dollars.
Our situation is completely different. In 2022, our economy contracted by 2.1 percent. But recently, the Government has reported to me – the calculations are ongoing, and new data appear – the latest data are that it declined not 2.1 but 1.2 percent. This is of essence. In 2023 year, the economy grew 3.5 percent. Gross domestic product (GDP), the main economic indicator, is how much the country has produced. You can use money to calculate how much you produced, plus 3.5 percent. And the decline was 1.2 percent. We made up for the decline and moved forward. This is an absolutely fundamental matter. This is the first point, and it is a very important one.
This shows that the economy is stable. Inflation has gone up a little, which means prices have risen, but we are keeping everything under control. You know, we have never seen anything like this. We have always noted with sadness that our main revenues come from oil and gas. For the first time in many years, the growth of processing industries in our economic structure far exceeds revenues from oil and gas. I think that oil and gas revenues grew three percent, while the processing industry has yielded many times more. This has never happened before. This indicates that we are undergoing structural changes in the economy. It is very important.
And why is that? When Western companies left our market, they apparently expected that everything would collapse overnight: businesses would shutter and thousands of people would be left without work. And, in the best-case scenario for the adversary in the broad sense of the word: for the opponents of Russia in general, and not just on the battlefield, people will take to the streets and demand bread and work.
We have the lowest unemployment rate in the history of Russia: 2.9 percent, which has never happened before. And real incomes of the population have grown (there is such a thing as real disposable income of the population) and real wages have grown, and quite significantly. All this suggests that we have a stable economy and stable financial system.
Russia was disconnected from the international payment system known as SWIFT. Apparently, they hoped that everything would collapse here too. We supply our traditional export goods, but what about the settlements? However, everything works.
Everyone thought that enterprises would stop because they stopped supplying us with components, but it turns out that everything is possible. Yes, there are problems, but nevertheless they are being addressed.
Small and medium-sized businesses are also working effectively. Some foreign enterprises have left, but our businesses have taken their place. Firstly, there are highly qualified personnel who have not left; there are good production managers in a variety of sectors both in industry and in the services sector, and everything works. This is the most important thing: the stability of the country’s economy and financial system because this is the foundation for everything.
And, of course, as I have already said, the number of weapons produced in Russia has increased multiple times over, including when I talk about the growth of industrial production, but not only: one third of the growth was achieved in civilian production branches, which is very important. So, the stability of the financial and economic system and the real sector of the economy is probably the most important thing.
In addition to this, we are implementing all our previously planned projects. In terms of infrastructure, as you understand, this means trillions, and we are building roads and opening new routes every week. This is very important, because it is not just to take one ride there and back. A road means life, and economic life too begins with it: small and medium-sized businesses appear immediately, because there was no other way to get there, but now it is possible. A completely different picture of the world emerges.
Despite the difficulties involved, housing issues are gradually being resolved in the country. Social issues are also very important. Many of you have families and children, right? And there is maternity capital, which no one is shutting down. The country continues to meet all social commitments in full. Moreover, we have created quite a powerful and balanced system of support for families with children (this is very important for the future of the country), starting from the woman’s pregnancy until the child is 18 years old. This is important for real people, and therefore for the country as a whole.
So, strange as it may seem, despite the fact that we are in a state of armed conflict, all the main indicators of the country’s viability and effectiveness have gone up. And this is probably the most important indicator of Russia’s situation.
Yevgeny Korsun: Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: What else? Is that all?
Happy New Year to you. All the best. Best wishes. Get well!
My dad and I were on our epic father-daughter trip in the Galapagos. A few months earlier, he had shattered his ‘tibial plateau’ (basically his whole knee area), and been on no-weight bearing for months. So he wasn’t his usual athletic self, in that we needed to walk slower. Especially since on that island, there were no sidewalks or even paths, just uneven rocks everywhere. Anyway, some other guy gets impatient and pushes my dad out of the way to catch up to the naturalist. It only got him about 30 seconds of ‘shortcut’. When we got to the next ‘stop’ with the naturalist, that guy was in the front row. . . and a bird pooped while swerving and covered the whole front of just him and nobody else. I didn’t see it, but I heard my dad laughing and he said he would explain it later. Because that guy was MAD. LOL. Instant karma.
Returning from a service call in Honolulu, the lady in front of me at the TSA line had serious trouble lifting her (obviously very heavy) carry-on onto the x-ray conveyor. It set off all sorts of alarms when it went through, and the TSA guy did a manual inspection as a result. When he opened it up, the suitcase’s contents were revealed: it was completely full of cans of Spam (the processed meat product). I was absolutely convinced that they actually contained something more nefarious and that she’d likely be arrested, but the TSA guy simply zipped the case back up and sent her on her way.
I was next in line, and, noticing the puzzled look on my face, the TSA guy explained that Spam is considered a gourmet delicacy in Japan, where it sells for around 3–4x what it does in Hawaii. As a result, there is a steady flow of Japanese tourists to the islands, who pretty much pay for their vacations by doing what she did. I was born and raised in the UK, where Spam has a reputation for being gross and disgusting, and something you would only eat if you can’t afford any nicer form of protein.
I’m a computer consultant and only take contract work. A few years ago I was contacted by a recruiter for a contract with a company that makes Lasik machines. While I was going to visit the company a few times, the work would be done remotely in my office. I had already worked with a sister company and had experience with their software. The OS was somewhat rare so my 30+ years of experience with it made me a good choice. I negotiated the hourly wage with the recruiter and things seemed to be going well.
The recruiter called me and told me we were all set to go. All I had to do was take the drug test. Huh? I’ve never been asked to take a drug test in my life. I wasn’t worried about passing it, just taken aback. I don’t drive a bus or a cab or an airplane, I write software. What was their concern, that I’d get high while programming and let bugs creep in? This seemed like a red flag. After 30+ years of consulting and having been burned a couple of times I’ve learned to look out for these.
I asked the recruiter why. His response was, it was company policy. He offered to talk to the company but I was done. A red flag is a red flag. A software/engineering company that requires everyone to take a drug test is trying to give themselves an out if they want to get rid of someone. I don’t know what that would have to do with me since you can let a contractor go at any time.
I passed the job onto a friend of mine who was fine with the drug test. He worked for them for a week and then quit. My intuition was right.
First, yes, you have to pay the taxes. They follow the property, not the owner. If you don’t pay the taxes, the municipality can arrange a tax sale.
Second, your lawyer screwed up. It’s real estate law 101 you check to see if there are any outstanding taxes before you close the transaction. It’s a standard clause in most real estate purchase contracts that any outstanding taxes get paid out of the purchase price. Consult your lawyer and if their E&O doesn’t cover it, find another lawyer to sue them.
Third, if you have title insurance, they may be on the hook for this, and they obviously screwed up big time if you bought insurance and they forgot to check tax arrears because that’s insurance law 101. If you have it, contact them immediately.
Fourth, did you use a broker? Again, this is Real Estate Broker 101. If they didn’t know about it, they screwed up. Speak to them as their commission may be reduced by the tax amount and they obviously didn’t earn it. If they won’t help, get a lawyer again.
Fifth, see a lawyer about suing the previous owner. I don’t have your purchase and sale contract. You can’t sue them unless it’s clear from the contract that the sale price included a property free from taxes.
Sixth, your mortgage lender screwed up, because it’s Banking 101 that you don’t give a person a mortgage on a property that has tax arrears. You better tell them because those taxes have priority over their mortgage.
Please note that the municipality doesn’t have to wait for you to recover money from someone else. You may not be personally responsible for those taxes (i.e. you can’t be sued for them) but they’re still a charge on the property.
If you did this without a lawyer, broker or title insurance, consider this a life lesson in trying to save money. If you didn’t even have a lawyer review the purchase offer, double shame on you.
Wife Has MELTDOWN After Husband Wants Nothing To Do With Her After Discovering The Truth About Her
This is MY experience. It does not reflect on the many, many docs I’ve never met.
I cannot stand Orthopedic surgeons. Neurosurgeons and Spine surgeons are not far behind.
These guys make a gazillion dollars and don’t know the first thing about caring for patients. I am convinced that they look up from the knee they just replaced and are stunned to see a person attached to it.
We used to roll our eyes at the whole orthopedic floor, 6 west. The ortho docs would breeze through and leave the bulk of the post-op care to PAs. If a patient got into trouble they would disappear.
So who got called to take care of the poor patient that is now in diabetic or cardiac or pulmonary trouble? Well, it sure wasn’t them. The poor nurses on 6 West would be frantic. They would frequently page overhead…
“ANY INTERNAL MEDICINE DOCTOR TO SIX WEST, STAT!”
“Oh no, we got us a FOOBA.” we would say as we bounded up the stairs to see what problem, that likely could have been anticipated and avoided, was awaiting us.
What’s a FOOBA?
It means Found On Ortho Barely Alive.
We called that unit The Killing Fields.
We used to smirk, “The good thing about 6 West is it’s close to a hospital.”
The orthopedic surgeons would do surgery on anyone! Ninety years old and demented with multiple medical problems, needs a new hip.
I had an orthopod tell me. “It’s my job to replace his knee. It’s your job to keep him alive afterwards.” This after the poor patient, with end stage emphysema, who could not survive a haircut, much less surgery, crashed and went straight to the ICU after this wahoo was done with him.
I used to joke that he was part of the No Joint Left Behind program.
I had another surgeon, who could not remember that he had met me numerous times, ask me repeatedly who I was. I wanted to answer, “I’m the woman who has saved your sorry carcass more times than I can count.”
This guy was discharging a patient when I just happened by.
The poor guy was breathless and grabbing his chest as the orthopod gave him discharge instructions.
I jumped between them.
“Sir, are you having pressure in your chest?”
He nodded, too breathless to speak.
(Yelling) “I need help in here. EKG, O2, aspirin, nitro, beta blocker….NOW!”
We get the patient stabilized, the ortho doc had disappeared.
His note in the chart? Two lines; “Wound clean, dry and intact. Discharged home.”
Next time I saw the surgeon, he introduced himself to me, AGAIN. He had no idea who I was.
Ok, I feel better getting that off my chest.
Wife Accuses Husband Of Cheating And Gets The Shock Of A Lifetime!
There’s a cold spell in Russia and that means broken hot water mains and frozen apartment front doors. My friend reports that in northwestern Moscow region towns Solnechnegorsk and Skhodnya people are left without central heating.
A pipe with boiling water burst in the Moscow Theater of the Moon during a ballet performance of “The Nutcracker.”
Spectators first believed that the sharp explosive sounds were made by the ballet dancer cracking walnuts, when the performance was stopped and more than 300 people were evacuated from the building.
Residents of another town near Moscow, Podolsk, have not had access to heating for more than 2 days due to a break in the heating main.
Ice appeared on the windows. Indoor toilets turned into outdoor outhouses. This causes another problem. As greedy municipal services deliberately provide heating with less pressure than temperatures required, people turn on home heaters and air conditioner to heat apartments and overburden electric stations causing cascading blackouts.
Entire neighborhoods lose access to electricity on top of lack of access to central heating. Dark and cold like in the Middle Ages when conservative values reigned supreme.
Some residents said they would like to make a fire in the living room but afraid that fire engines won’t be able to extinguish it if it gets out of control because there are no fire escapes and there’s not ladder that can reach 20th floor.
The day before, local residents went out to picket and got detained because it’s illegal to protest in Russia.
Emergency situation announced in Podolsk over hearing mains breakdown that couldn’t be fixed during night. When I was a kid , “pipes breakdown” happened every winter no exception at our school and we missed one or two weeks of classes.
The Moon is really the worst place where we could set up a colony.
It’s not so bad as to be utterly impossible – but it’s not as good as Mars.
The Moon’s biggest negatives are:
It’s “day” length is 28 days – so you get 14 days of continuous nighttime – and then 14 days of continuous sunlight. This means that all human activities will need artificial light – and a lot of radiation protection. Solar power is pretty much useless unless you have 14+ days of energy storage for everything.
Air and water have to come from ice deposits that can be found only in deep craters near the lunar poles – places where the sun has not shone for a billion years. There isn’t a whole lot of ice there – and if we start getting excited about making fuel for rockets and providing air and water for an entire colony of thousands of people – then it’s going to run out pretty fast – and it’s an irreplaceable resource – once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.
The Moon’s gravity is very weak – it’s possible that it’s enough for humans to thrive there – but it’s also possible that it’ll be no better than zero’g – which would make colonization impossible.
Moon dust is incredibly nasty stuff – under the microscope, each grain of sand looks a lot like a stone-age axe-head with razor-sharp edges. It gets all over everything – and breathing it is very dangerous. Keeping dust out of our habitats and out of every moving part of every vehicle – i s paramount – but because it sticks to everything – that’s going to be a challenge.
The main positive for the moon is close to Earth – just a few days flight time.
Compared to Mars:
Mars’ day length is just 20 minutes longer than Earth – it’s easy for us to adapt so a comfortable day/night cycle is available. Solar panels work well. Radiation is still an issue – but nowhere near as bad as on the Moon.
Air and water also has to come from ice deposits – but we find ice just under the Martian surface almost everywhere. It’s unlikely that we’d ever run out.
Mars gravity is also weaker than on Earth – but about twice that of the Moon – so the odds of it being enough for long term human habitation are much better.
Mars dust is also nasty stuff – it’s toxic – it’s rougher than Earth dust – but not as bad as Moon dust.
Mars has abundant CO2 – which can be used as a starting point for making methane and both hydrocarbons and carbohydrates.
The main disadvantage (compared to the Moon) is that it takes 6 months to get there – and you can really only fly once every 26 months.
My husband was dying of cancer and had less than two weeks to live. I knew this, however, he was in denial. He was a classic car enthusiast and wanted so bad to drive his older van, just for a little bit, however, by that time, he was too weak to stand unassisted, so I told him that he’s very sick at the moment, because he just got out of the hospital and needed to rest, and maybe after he got a little stronger, and we could go for a drive. I knew he’d never get stronger, but it did ease his mind a bit and in his last couple days, he did hallucinate that he was driving his van, so in a way, I turned out to be right.
A couple days later, I lied again, for the second time in our marriage- when he was actively dying, I told him it was okay to go, I’d be okay. Tomorrow will be a month since he passed- I’m not okay that he passed away, but I am okay with knowing that I did everything I could possibly do to ease his worries when he was dying.
I worked at an office job for 5 years in Beverly Hills, for a doctor who did a type of cosmetic electoral surgery for the stars. He was a smart guy who made countless millions but he treated his employees like second class citizens and was all about the Benjamins rather than helping people.
After a couple quarters where new patient numbers had started to go down, the doctor and office manager decided they could cut costs by culling the office of some of the staff in order to bring in new workers for lower pay. Now I had already been planning to leave that hostile environment for awhile anyway, and even had my resignation letter written in my desk drawer so it wasn’t a terrible tragedy when the manager brought me in to tell me I’d be let go. In fact it was better as I wanted to take some time off to travel and this would allow me to claim benefits for a couple months whereas I wouldn’t get anything if I had just quit. But what did get me really perturbed was how the manager made a point to follow me around and sit beside me watching my computer as I went about closing out my workbooks and getting any personal items i didn’t want to leave behind because she thought I might sabotage the files or something in a fit of rage. Well, when she got up for a minute to check her office I decided I would do a little something for myself since I wasn’t even getting to say goodbye to my coworker friends and they were treating me like a criminal. I put a password lock on the databases of doctor names that I had put together and spent years building relationships with and were a vital part of the office. I didn’t say anything and it was a month later my manager called up sounding very sweet, wondering if I might know how to access those filles since she couldn’t find the password. I would’ve gladly given it were it not that they actually fought to try and keep me from getting benefits (unsuccessfully) and so I told her sorry, I seem to have forgotten, and hung up.
SUPERGIRL 2 but is 1920 |Unreleased Fan Made| Alternate Timeline
I am on my forth marriage, 17 years now, and how the first three ended:
My first marriage, 4 years and no children, ended tragically. My wife and I were to meet at our local hangout, which was one block from where I worked, after I got out of work. I was running about 30 minutes late, had to stay over, and when I arrived where we were to meet I was told her was taken to the hospital without being told the reason why. I rushed to the hospital were an officer told me my wife was stabbed by a patron whom she had slapped, I found out later she slapped him for being ‘free’ with his hands in a very inappropriate manner. Three days later she succumbed to her wound, she was stabbed in the heart and the damage was to server (open heart surgery was in its infancy then).
My second marriage, 6 years and three daughters, was great up to the time our third daughter was born. After we brought our daughter home my wife would become very aggressive when I got home from work, she would start right off when I walked in and I allowed her to use me as a ‘punching bag’; I thought better me than the girls, I know that she never hurt the girls as I would have seen any physical evidence (bruises or other signs) on the girls.
Then one day she demanded that I give her $200.00 so she and her mother could go play bingo, and when I refused she grabbed an 8” carving knife and attacked me; in self-defense I slapped the knife out of her hand and punched her (first and only time in my life I ever struck a woman) breaking her nose (out of instinct due to my military training). Yes the police were called and even when she admitted she attacked my with the knife I was forced to leave the home by the police; they left the girls alone with this ‘crazy’ woman (being polite on how I view her). Contacted a lawyer that very next day and started divorce proceedings with desire of full custody. In the end I got my divorce but in the State of New York the father never got full custody of the children (not sure if that is true today) even if proven that the mother is actually an unfit parent. My ‘X’ passed away back in 2016 from over self-medication, my daughters and I have a wonderful relationship.
My third marriage, 22 years with one Son and two Daughters, ended on December 20, 2000 which was the day she walked out , and two weeks later I received the divorce papers from the court, no trial or arbitration, just a divorce decree that the marriage was terminated (no reason was mentioned in the divorce papers). I guess she just got tired of being a married woman, she did wait until our children were grown and out on their own. As far as I knew we had a normal married life, we had our arguments, disagreements, ups and downs, she was not perfect and neither was I. I was 9 years her senior but age was never an issue between us. And even though we have been divorced for 21 years now, I still have contact with her on a very friendly way; I have even gone to her home to repair her vehicles and my present wife and I have even had a holiday meal with my ex-wife and her husband. I know it is a strange situation or relationship, but after all she is the mother of my children and my present wife understands that and encourages the positive relationship between me and my ex-wife – in other words my present wife trusts me.
As for my forth marriage, 17 years and only children is from past marriages, all I can say is we haven’t killed each other yet 😁 I am 70 and she is 69 and neither one of us want to fight for custody of our fur-babies 😂 (our running joke), seriously we are just as much in love as the day we first got married 🥰
Several years ago, maybe 5 or 6, I took $1000.00 to the bank to pay down my credit card bill. There was quite a line and the banks assistant manager suggested to save time to use the atm next to the teller windows. I told him I was using cash and he said fine, no problem, it takes cash. Great! I like to save time and I still had a 1 1/2 drive home. So, as usual, I insert my credit card, select pay statement, tell it how much, and insert my money, listen to the machine whir, and then nothing! No receipt, just a blank screen. Uhg!
That nice gentleman was sitting at his desk, so I stepped over to him and told him the machine ate my money. He asked how much and went to uselessly poke buttons on that ATM. He didn’t know what to say or do. I asked how this would be rectified, he didn’t know, but he had someone to call.
This is where a series of calls were made to IT, help desk and a few others that didn’t have answers. Now, I didn’t want to leave the bank without some clue as to how this would be resolved and some sort of documentation of what happened.
Well, it turns out, the bank main office (or wherever he called) had no policy on how to handle this. They expected me to walk out the door like nothing happened. That was not going to happen. This gentleman bank employee completely agreed with me, that I was entitled to some sort of documentation. The main office left me hanging and after a hour of phone calls it came down to, we will audit the machine at the end of the day, then, if we find a discrepancy, we will credit you. But nothing for me to take home. They did verbally agree to note on my account that I wasn’t to be charged late fee or interest IF they found the money. The main office really left me with a bad taste in my mouth by their lack of ability to give me some sort of documentation.
Those calls ended in a stalemate, they had my money, they wouldn’t or couldn’t find a way to make me feel comfortable about leaving the bank without the money, a receipt, or some sort of trouble ticket.
That gentleman in the bank, spoke to the branch manager and the two of them worked up a description of the situation, basically a statement of facts for me to take home. They agreed completely that they too would not have just left and excepted that it would magically be fixed. They were great, the main office or whatever was not great.
The resolution ended up being a letter in the mail saying my account was credited $1000.00. No explanation, no apology, no acknowledgment that there was a problem.
As I recall, I wrote the corporate offices and got no reply there either. I will no longer use an atm to deposit cash.
The summer of 1990, I backpacked across Europe with my two sisters. We were all very athletic back then. I was a gym rat and avid cyclist, my sister Mary walked a ton and bussed tables at the Space Needle restaurant in the evenings, and Joanne was an accomplished high school athlete.
Though we all spoke a little German, at the time I was semi-fluent, thanks to a knack for languages and a mother who spoke it at home. Anyhoo, in the backpacker circles we traveled, there were a ton of German tourists. So it came as no surprise that I was able to eavesdrop on a few conversations.
Most of them were innocuous, and to be honest I had to really concentrate to mentally translate what was being said. But I’ll never forget what I overheard when we ventured out for our first-in-our-lives visit to a topless beach. (Or as the Europeans would call it, a beach.)
My sisters and I were laying on the sand in our bikinis, tops still on, when Mary and Joanne decided to cool off by getting in the water. As they were walking toward the surf, two German dudes (I will call them Rolf and Jurgen) started talking:
Rolf: Look at those girls. They’re cute, but …
Jurgen: … big muscles.
Rolf: Yes, they would be very pretty if it weren’t for the muscles. What’s the deal, I wonder?
Jurgen: They’re American. Americans like girls with muscles.
Rolf: What makes you think they’re American?
Jurgen: They’re covering their breasts.
I didn’t say anything, but when it came MY turn to go into the water, I waited for them to look, then flexed, Popeye-style, and winked.
My ex-mother in law was a real doozy. I married her youngest son and she did NOT approve. She went out of the way to disrupt our wedding as much as possible. We had hired a classical guitar duet for music at the reception. She didn’t like that and showed up that day with her record player and a stack of records. She talked to the Priest and changed our vows. Decided that we (who paid for everything ourselves) did not have enough food for the reception so she ordered several hundred dollars of fried chicken. Luckily I was able to cancel it. She called the bakery and cut our cake order in half. Managed to fix that, too. Called the church and cancelled our use of the kitchen attached to the reception hall. I managed to fix that too. It was very stressful and she never stopped. We ended up moving 1,000 miles away and limiting contact.
To understand these, let’s see the sanctions and how they play :-
Sanction 1 :-
Embargo on Technology Imports from the West
The Problem was this Embargo was passed on 28/2/22 but was effective only from 1/6/22 and later postponed to 1/7/22
So Russia exported massively these imports from 1/3/22 to 30/6/22
Enough for 2 years almost through Turkey and Central Asian Nations like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
That gave them until 30/6/2024 to find substitutes
They seem to have found substitutes for most of these Imports from China & their own Domestic production
This extension was to give UK and others a chance to fill their coffers with Russian Oil and Gas and have good reserves
Sanction 2
Withdrawal of Western Businesses from Russia causing Capital Flight
The Plan was to cause $ 80 Billion of Capital Flight and force a temporary panic
Putin was ready though and immediately got every single business taken over by Russian Entities and took over the equivalent of 560 Billion Rubles ($ 68 Billion) of wealth from these companies
The Swift reaction of Putin prevented these companies from being able to get away with their assets
The Readiness of Russian entities and Chinese entities to take over these assets was another major blow
Sanctions 3
Removal of Russian Banks from Swift
The Problem was that of the 158 Banks connected to Swiss, almost 19 Banks still are connected to SWIFT even today
So these 19 Banks can get all the money it wants and transfer them to the remaining 139 Banks
It’s like keeping SBI connected to Swift but removing Bank of India and Dhanalaxmi Bank
The use of CIPS and alternate systems further ensured Russian Stability of Inflows especially in RMB
These 19 Banks are mandatory because the West wants Russian Fertilizers and Gas and Oil even today, through third parties
Sanctions 4:-
Mastercard and Visa were removed from the Russian Settlement Systems overseas
Again the Local systems of settlement continued because had MasterCard or Visa threatened to cut off their local settlement network, every nation would be kicking them out permanently
This allowed enough time to set up Mir Pay plus get Wechat and other payment gateways including Union Pay from China
Mir quickly established a presence in 39 countries very fast indicating that Putin was prepared for this
Sanctions 5:-
Russia’s Asset Freeze
Problem was Russia had Oil and Gas and it’s own Food
It thus had customers willing to trade in Rubles like China and India and Middle East and Central Asia and Turkey
Thus Russias asset freeze meant zilch
Sanctions 6
Embargo on Russian Oil and Gas
Russia sold to India and India resold to Europe at 30% profit
Europe needed Russian Energy and had no alternate and was helpless
Putin forced them to pay in Rubles so that meant they couldn’t control the money needed
So the Sanctions were weak to begin with and imposed by people who didn’t know their heads from the a**es
They were slowly imposed and more of playing to the gallery than any realistic sanctions
Russia was also very well prepared this time unlike in 2014
Putin and Elvira did superbly while Biden and his team of clowns were no match
I was a deputy sheriff working in a small town. They had their fair and it was packed. Some guy is very impatient leaving the fair parking. He starts honking—long long blasts at the car in front of him that had stopped. That car is trying to load in an elderly passenger.
The driver of this car remains impatient even though everyone can clearly see the elderly person needs help getting in that car. He finally cuts his wheels to go around the car in front. He then steps on the gas and revs the motor, honks his horn, and then starts to accelerate rapidly while flipping the bird at the other car.
he ran into the gate to exit and does major damage to his driver’s side front fender and the entire driver’s side of his car. It was a nice new car. I walk over snd zi am smiling. He is pissed and wants to think he can intimidate me. Oh hell no. I was just going to cite him for losing traction and driving unsafely. However he wouldn’t shut up and decided to yell in my face.
he smelled of an alcoholic beverage. I decided he needed to perform the drunk driving tests. He failed. I guess he had a little to much beer inside the fair. I arrested him. I towed his vehicle. I figure his impatience cost him a ton of money.
Car damage probably $2000+
DUI (back then) $4,000 (and probation fees)
Attorney fees $8,000
Gate $1,000
tow and storage fees $250
Getting all that because you are rude, impatient and intoxicated? Priceless.
Oh, the people in the car he was honking at left right after I got that jerk out of his car. The circled around snd came back by while i was giving the Jack wagon his DUI tests. They waved, smiled and gave thumbs up!
You may not recognize him today — he looks a lot different from the way he did in 1967, when at the age of 20 he became the founder and frontman for what would become one of the most successful and enduring acts in music history.
But when the band he created was selling millions of albums and playing to packed arenas, Green was long gone — destitute, homeless, and quite mad.
Peter Green had been a rising star in Britain’s blues revival of the 1960s. His guitar playing caught the attention of Bluesbreakers frontman John Mayall, who let the teenage Green sit in with the band when lead guitarist Eric Clapton was unavailable. When Clapton eventually left to form Cream, Mayall gave the job to Green, predicting that within a few years he would eclipse Clapton as England’s greatest blues guitarist.
After a year with Mayall, Green was eager to front his own band. He poached two of his Bluesbreakers bandmates, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, enticing them to join by naming the band Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.
The band, which played a mix of blues standards and original compositions by Green, enjoyed overnight success. Behind Green’s soulful voice and raw, authentic guitar playing, their debut self-titled album, Fleetwood Mac, spent 37 weeks on the UK charts, and was the fourth best-selling album of the year. Green would quickly mature as a songwriter, charting with such compositions as Black Magic Woman (later a major hit for Santana) and the instrumental Albatross, which shot to No. 1.
As their fame and popularity increased, Green’s bandmates began to notice changes in his behavior. On a tour of Europe in 1970, Green abruptly left for several weeks to join a German commune where he ingested large quantities of LSD. His erratic behavior had intensified; he grew a beard and began wearing long robes and crucifixes, and spoke of his desire for the band to give away the money they’d earned. His compositions around this time became increasingly darker, as evidenced in his song The Green Manalishi (with the Two Prong Crown):
Now, when the day goes to sleep and the full moon looks The night is so black that the darkness cooks Don’t you come creepin’ around – makin’ me do things I don’t want to
Can’t believe that you need my love so bad Come sneakin’ around tryin’ to drive me mad Bustin’ in on my dreams – making me see things I don’t wanna see
Two months after his stay at the German commune, Green left Fleetwood Mac. He released a solo album the following year as well as sessions with B.B. King, and then faded into obscurity.
Broke and unable to care for himself, he moved into the home of his brother and sister-in-law, who encouraged him to seek psychiatric treatment. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the late 70s and began a long road to recovery. He was given anti-psychotic drugs which managed his symptoms, but according to Green, caused a complete loss of interest in music. So for the next several decades he went on and off the medication, a struggle which lasts to the present day.
He formed the Peter Green Splinter Group in 1997. The band released nine albums over the next eight years until Green abruptly disbanded the group.
He lives today in comfortable retirement in the south of England, looked after by close friends. Mick Fleetwood visited him several years ago and described the bittersweet day: “He’s still warm and kind, but otherwise he’s not the man I knew, clearly.”
It’s unclear whether the LSD Green took triggered his underlying schizophrenia or merely exacerbated it, but one thing seems clear: had he remained healthy, Peter Green would likely have become one of the most influential recording artists of all time.
Sadly, many people who read this post have probably never heard of him
it was the worst year of my life. We had moved into a brand new dream home with a pool. The boys swam 2–3 times a day. My wife and I talked everyday about how happy we were. My wife got a promotion and we were sitting pretty good.
I went to work and i was severely injured. My employer refused to let me come back to work and retired me. Then the county I worked for started dragging their feet. It took 2 years to get retired.
My wife was diagnosed with cancer and the cancer had already spread. She had a surgery to remove the tumor. Then chemotherapy. That was followed by internal radiation. After 6 months of treatment the doctor pronounced her cancer free. However she got early menopause due to the surgery and radiation.
After a few months she started to plane out and resume her life. We had a couple of more months of happiness. Our middle son had been complaining of stomach/lower abdomen pain. So much so we took him to the emergency room and his GP. Nothing, just his diet we were told.
I got up one June morning and was preparing to enjoy the early summer day in June. I was off because I had taken a job teaching and we had plenty of money so we decided i would stay at home with the kids until school resumed for me. My son got up and told me he felt sick. I thought he was just trying to stay at home so I asked him to go to school and promised I would pick him up if he didn’t feel good.
Our little man of 12 years went to school. A couple hours later i went to get him, he was in the nurse’s office complaining of pain to his right side. We had thought it might be appendicitis. I took him to the emergency room. A test showed it wasn’t appendicitis. A CT scan showed he had a tumor above his large bowel. He was taken by ambulance to Valley Childrrns hospital. After a biopsy by surgery we were told he had Desmo Plastic Small Round Cell Tumor. His diagnosis was terminal. He had a surgery, and after recovery They started chemo. after 5 weeks my son told me he wanted to stop. I asked him to just go a little longer as the round of chemo was almost over. I promised him that if he didn’t get to feeling better I would agree with him to stop taking the chemo. He made it through. After a couple of more rounds of chemo he was sent to Stanford. At the Children’s Hospital there they harvested his stem cells, then chemo to kill all of what remained as well as starting a new chemo therapy plan. After several months he came home. My wife had been with him the entire time while I worked. We had lots of oroblems crop up and started fighting. Eventually we divorced. It hurt our kids. My little man stayed alive. A diagnosis of 6–8 weeks turned into 8.5 years. My wife asked me at the end to tell him he could pass now. He was so skinny, in so much pain. I told him. Nope, he wasn’t having it. He still wanted to live.. When he passed my wife and I finally apologized to eachother. We remarried. Now we have two kids who are married and 2 grand children.that was incredibly hard for me. I lost mycareerr (found another) and went through two major cases of cancer. I miss our son. What did I do to get through it? I finally pulled my head out of my ass realuzedad i want to be with the woman I loved and have our family together—and so did she.
There’s an internally-famous award that the White House gives—I can’t recall the name—but it is named after a guy who fell asleep during a meeting with the president.
I know of it because my dad almost got the award—he had a reputation of getting sleepy-eyed during meetings. But only because he works crazy hours.
In most offices, falling asleep at your desk—it will get you in trouble. Do it enough times—you’ll find yourself creating an account on Indeed (job site).
There are places for sleep—work is not that place.
But in Japan.
They actually see falling asleep at your desk as a sign of good diligence and work ethic.
“Wow—he must be working long hours.”
Some offices have even integrated nap times and nap rooms for workers. (Source: Napping in Public? In Japan, That’s a Sign of Diligence. NY Times. Rousseau, Bryant)
Inemuri (napping) is a permissible practice. You can even sleep in meetings where the president is present. They see you as still being in attendence.
Japan is a very different culture, though. They are among the hardest working people on the planet, with 23% working 80-hour weeks back to back. And 12% working 100+ hour weeks. (Source: Why Sleeping at Work in Japan is Actually a Good Thing. Samson, Carl)
But if you work 40 hours 5 minutes, don’t expect a promotion for your naps at your desk. Directions to the front door are more likely.
Note: I’ve only been to Dubai though – more of a city state.
It is almost entirely “style over content” in that it caters to Sun, service and visual stimulus only. There are no stories, anecdotes, historical perspectives, local colouring or human or philosophical insights to be gained whatsoever.
You absolutely cannot wander (too hot to be outside for long) down an ancient (everything is new) alleyway (there are none) to a local (nothing is “local”) bistro (none) to eat local fish (no local fish) paired with a local wine (all alcohol is served in either hotels or designated bars in malls) whilst watching the sunset (all alcohol is served inside so others cannot see it) and making friends with the locals (locals don’t speak and everyone else is transient).
You can go to largely empty sumptuous restaurants in hotels where you feel like a King, get driven there in a golf buggy by concierge alongside a candlelit stretch of water filled with lilies, eat great world cuisine and only have to slightly raise an eyebrow in the direction of a servant (sorry – waiter) to get their immediate serfdom (sorry – attention).
The whole place is like a mega shopping mall.
Dubai is both intellectually and creatively bankrupt.
My local farmer’s market has more sophistication.
Every single person I’ve met who liked it was low-IQ or very young but had somehow lucked into a job that paid enough for them to spend time there or someone else paid (although Dubai is not as expensive as popular myth would have you believe, you still need a decent wedge of cash/job to go there).
I have had more fun, authenticity and mind/soul expanding experiences on trips to Greece costing a fifth of the price.
Well, ask Dias Costa of Argentina. His home was invaded by a band of armed thugs who beat him to the ground. The 49-year-old man panicked when they dragged his wife into another room. He yanked a decorative samurai sword off the wall and started slicing. The men, armed with guns of various types, fled the house, and police were able to locate them by following the blood trail.
The car crashed a short distance later.
All four needed a LOT of stitches. For an untrained man with a decorative sword, he was pretty effective. I suspect this outcome would be pretty common when dealing with common thugs: Slice into the first one, and the rest will panic. Of course, the real point is that he was fully committed to the fight. He would have been effective with any weapon.
Just imagine what might have happened if he actually knew what he was doing?
A sword is a very effective weapon against unarmored targets.
Now, if you’re talking about using a sword to defend yourself against another guy with a sword, that’s a different story. That takes a lot of practice to do effectively (and not end up looking like one of the guys above).
For the medical student, first year is bad; the palpable frustration of trying to mug up hundreds of unpronounceable Latin names in anatomy, wasted effort to remember the ‘millisecond’ timings of a cardiac-cycle in physiology and the ‘spider-web’ structures of biochemistry make most students think if this was all worth it.
But at the start of clinical years, things change. I suppose the charm of ‘white coat’ is much more durable than the ego of the NEET rank.
Then on, mugging matters less, clinical skill starts separating students into categories. During teaching rounds, the guy who picks up the heart-murmur first or suspects the hint of finger clubbing or palpable spleen, that even the consultant did not pick up, is considered a hero of sorts. Most students want to pick up findings and be in the lime-light of tutors.
She was an average hard-working student all through but in the clinic, that suddenly seemed to change, especially during the medicine posting. While for most of us, the stethoscope was a piece of flaunting style; she would put the stethoscope on the patient’s chest, concentrate for a minute, smile and say ‘there is a systolic murmur; I can hear it clearly’
This frustrated most of us.
Most often even the consultants agreed. She was quickly known as ‘Ms. Murmur’ among the students.
For those uninitiated to medical terms, the heart produces two sounds called ‘lubb’ and ‘dup’; a ‘whosshhh’ kind of sound in between is called a murmur. A murmur occurs if a heart has a hole by-birth; or a valve is narrowed or leaking; and can range from super-soft to quite loud. While loud murmurs are picked up by the dumbest student, soft ones are a challenge.
But after a while, it started looking like a scam. Almost every patient she would claim to hear a murmur. Eventually, everyone started making fun of her. One day, after a harsh comment by a senior, she stopped announcing, but somehow, deep inside, I had a feeling that she was not telling a lie.
‘When I hear a murmur I say I hear. I don’t bluff’ she said softly.
One day in clinics, a new tutor was teaching us how to auscultate (listen with stethoscope) for murmurs over organs other than heart (abdomen, skull). In a normal patient, he showed us the areas where we need to place our stethoscope to pick up such murmurs (bruit).
Ms. Murmur placed her stethoscope on the abdomen of the patient, listened intently and her face lit up.
‘Yes sir I can hear the murmur’
‘But this case doesn’t have a murmur’ announced the tutor.
‘Sorry sir, I thought I heard it’ she mumbled, amidst laughter from the rest of our batch.
I felt bad.
Few days later I was reading an article on a rare condition called ‘arterio-venous malformations’ (AVM) in the brain. One clinical feature is, the patient can hear a bruitthemselves, when they close both ears, with the palm of their hand.
A stethoscope closes both our ears. It is possible that she herself has an …
Next morning, I told her to talk to our tutor.
Tutor to Professor, medicine to neurosurgery, X-ray skull to contrast CT scan; things moved fast. It was indeed an AVM. Her parents took her to Mumbai and got trans-catheter closure of AVM done.
No more murmurs, no more taunts.
(pic – CT scan of a large AVM – Google)
(AVMs are by-birth connection between arteries and veins and tend to grow like a tumour. They have a huge amount of blood flow through them. Common symptoms are headache and fainting. Because of continuous blood flow, they may hear a murmur if both their ears are physically blocked. They can be cured by injecting special material that clog the feeding arteries.)
Researchers did a landmark study on self-awareness using, of all things, a shopping cart.
They took a small cart and attached a blanket to the bottom of it. Then, mothers came in with their infants.
Researchers had infants stand behind the cart. Then, mothers urged their children to push the cart to them.
The infants grew frustrated as the blanket invariably stopped them from moving forward:
Some threw tantrums. Others looked around trying to figure out what was wrong. One infant even climbed into the cart out of frustration.
Some infants solved it.
One rolled the blanket up and pushed. Another got in front of the cart and pulled it to his mother.
Every infant who solved the problem had one thing in common: they were 16 months or older. Researchers discovered this is the point we first develop self-awareness.
From here, self-awareness is supposed to make our lives easier and more efficient — and it does. But it also becomes a source of immense pain and regret.
This is due to the Self-Absorption Paradox: as we become more self-aware, we make fewer social mistakes, but torture ourselves more over past mistakes.
Higher self-awareness is proven to cause greater psychological distress.
It even hurts our ability to socialize. We foresee mistakes before they happen and avoid interacting altogether.
I was fourteen years old, and I had just lost my virginity to gang rape. I went to my youth pastor for help, because I didn’t even know how to begin addressing my massive new trauma, and was suicidal.
He used a lot of flowery biblical language to blame me for having “gotten myself into that situation” (!!!), expressed his disappointment in me, and wanted me to “repent my sinful ways and get my heart right with God” so that God could love me as much as He loved all my virginal peers who hadn’t “chosen” to get gang raped.
I sat like a lump of clay through that day’s youth sermon, which consisted of the youth pastor exhorting every teen to be willing to sacrifice everything we owned for God, down to the clothes on our backs. And he meant literally, that we should all be prepared to go home and sack up everything we owned to be given away.
And when he went around the circle asking each of us if we were ready to “give it all away for Christ”, I couldn’t say yes like all the other “good” Christian kids, who hadn’t just suffered gang rape. The very thought of packing up my stuffed animals, which had helped me survive the previous night without ending my life, and having no comforts left to me except the comfort of a God who had ignored the men raping me and ignored my prayers to make them stop, was more than I could bear.
I said no, I wasn’t prepared to give up everything I owned for God. The youth pastor gave me a pitying look and said, “until you get your heart right with God, until you can be willing to sacrifice everything for Him, you are at risk of Hell. If you died today, with your soul unwilling to give it all away for Christ, you’d go to Hell.”
So much for salvation being unconditional and eternal, eh?
Many years ago, as in the late 1980s, I was off for the weekend and was about 350km from home when I collapsed with the most agonising pain a bloke can get.
Kidney stones.
My girlfriend drove me to hospital, where I was admitted. Doctors scratching their heads, but the floor coordinator (charge nurse) saw me as I staggered in, and said I had Kidney stones.
She was right. I was in strife allright, the one on the right was blocking the ureter, and urine was backing up AND the ureter was stretching.
This was a serious situation as my right kidney was under severe threat. The rock in the left kidney was still IN the kidney thankfully.
This was Saturday evening… so the next morning, my GF rang my work – my workpkace was seven days a week, and my boss worked Sundays.
She filled him in, and said I was slated for surgery Monday, and would be out of action for a week.
He was okay with that.
Monday comes, I go into theatre, and he rings the hospital demanding to know why I had failed to turn up for work, and would I be coming in tomorrow.
Needless to say, my GF had briefed staff about him, so they politely put him back in his box.
I never knew about it for a few days as I was too whacked out on painkillers.
He rang every day, mot to ask if I was okay, but to know when I was coming back, and they gave him the same answer: He will be back when he is fit to return.
When I did go back, he said he thought I was faking it to have a week off.
Twardy. You are a cretin. A soul less cretin.
America Signals The Unthinkable As US Debt Hits Record $34 TRILLION Dollars
Kind of……. A coworker was dating a girl in HR. He was trying to get me to start a business with him, but I simply had a bad vibe and did not trust him, so I put him off.
He comes to me one day, during a time when rumors of a layoff were circulating and told me I was on the layoff list, his GF had seen it and told him.
WTF?? So I go steaming into a managers office, after my immediate manager told me he knew nothing about this, ready for an unpleasant discussion.
He looks at me, “You are not on any list, where did you get this? I explained it to him. I expected my coworker and the HR girl to get pulled into the managers office and dressed down. Instead they put a 24 hour watch on the HR girls computer. Brainiac that she was, while having lunch with her BF, opened the personnel file of the CEO. Her manager and security were at her desk within minutes to escort both of them off the premises.
The rumors were true, the layoff dropped a couple weeks later. Best part, the coworker turned out to be the only casualty in our department. He actually tried a couple more time to get me to quit and work with him.
Piragi
Piragi are traditional Latvian filled mini-buns, commonly served at special occasions and holidays. They’re wonderful as an hors d’oeuvre, or with soup; serve at room temperature, or warm from the oven.
Ingredients
Dough
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon active dry yeast or 2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon Lora Brody Dough Relaxer (optional, but very helpful)
5 to 6 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
Filling
4 slices bacon
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound fully cooked ham steak, diced in 1/4-inch cubes (2 cups)
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
Glaze
1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
Dough: In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar in 1/2 cup of the water. Set aside. (If you’re using instant yeast, skip this step; add the yeast along with the flour.)
In a large mixing bowl, combine the remaining sugar, salt, and 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
Cut in the butter, then add the yeast mixture. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured work surface until it’s smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.
Place the dough in a large greased bowl, turning to grease the top, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours. Prepare the filling while the dough is rising.
Filling: In a small pan over medium heat, cook the bacon. Drain it, chop, and set aside.
Sauté the onion in the butter until soft but not brown.
Add the ham, stirring until it’s combined with the onions. Stir in the caraway, pepper and bacon, and remove from the heat.
Assembly: Punch the dough down, and divide it into four pieces. Working with one piece at a time (cover the remaining pieces with plastic wrap), roll each piece of dough into a 1/8-inch thick circle. If the dough “fights back” (the dough relaxer helps prevent this), give it a 5-minute rest, and resume rolling.
Use a cookie cutter to cut the dough into 2 3/4-inch rounds. Place 1 teaspoon of the filling mixture into the center of each round, fold in half (to make a half-moon shape), and pinch the edges closed.
Place the piragi on greased or parchment-lined cookie sheets. Shape them into crescents, and brush with the egg wash.
Bake the piragi in a preheated 375 degrees F oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Remove them from the oven, and cool on a wire rack.
My mother-in-law was a terrific cook and she taught her son to be a terrific cook.
I am a decent cook, not fancy but you get full if I feed you.
Anyhoodle.
My mother-in-law was tired of my boring fare. When I was at work, she decided to ‘help’ and cook dinner. At this time her vision wasn’t wonderful, she was on dialysis, and tired very easily.
More than once I came home to find all four burners on and dried, burned food in the pans.
I didn’t care about the food or how long the burners may have been on (usually hours), I was worried about HER. What if a fire had started? What if she put her hand down on the hot burner?
In the end, I took off the knobs on the stovetop every morning. Every evening, when she was up to it, I got cooking lessons. I will never reach her level of expertise. It was actually a nice way for us to bond.
Getting China Wrong: The U.S Would Lose the War with China
Driving home with my wife after grocery shopping in the late evening, I suddenly see police car lights flash on behind me and the inevitable ‘WHOOP WHOOP!’
“Oh God, what now,” I said. I pulled over and waited. I saw the officer get out and slowly start walking up to my car. Other cars are slowly going by, drivers looking at me. I looked at my wife and shrugged.
I put the window down and the cop bent down, leaned on the window ledge and looked in. It was my brother in law.
“Hi,” he smiled, “don’t you feel stupid?” Then he laughed. I didn’t feel stupid but greatly relieved.
“Hi Leigh, is this fellow looking after you?” he said looking at his sister..
“Hi Brucie,” said she, “yes, he always does,” she said smiling.
“He looked at me and asked if I was going to be home the next day. I said yes. He said he was going to pop in for a visit and said he had a load of firewood he was going to drop off for me. Bruce lived out in the country and had lots of trees on his lot. He always brought firewood in for me, maple mostly, which was nice of him.
“I’ll have the scotch ready Bruce,” I said.
So that was funny. I thought I was going to get a ticket for something and it was my brother in law the cop. Big dude. I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.
My wife’s father was a District Fire Chief and he’d get chauffeured around in a fire department vehicle. He’d often stop at our house and pop in to say high or if my boys were playing soccer he’d stop off and watch a bit.
About 15 years ago, I was the owner, operator, and sole employee of a mobile repair business. I mostly fixed lawn and garden equipment – lawn mowers, weed whackers, chain saws, and whatnot – but would fix just about anything when asked to.
I can’t tell you how many times I went to someone’s house to fix a push mower that had “just quit working” for no apparent reason. Very often the no apparent reason was that the customer had run over some object, be it a tree stump or surveyor’s stake, the customer never knew somehow, they just knew the mower suddenly stopped.
The manufacturers of these machines knew that hitting a solid object with the blade can do great damage, so they designed said machines with a weak point – a flywheel key that would shear off under extreme shock, preventing serious damage. Sometimes, but not always, the blade would be bent too, but usually they had just sheared the flywheel key. This was such a common occurrence that I carried about 25 flywheel keys in the van at all times.
I would always tell the customer that they had hit something with their mower, and that for a total of $30, including tax, I would replace the key and their mower would be as good as new in about 30 minutes.
I can’t tell you how many times the following conversation happened:
Oh, I don’t know. Could you just haul it off for me?
I promise you, this machine will be as good as it was before this happened. They’re made this way to protect the machine.
No, I think I’ll just buy a new one.
I can haul it away, but are you sure? There’s nothing really wrong with it that a three dollar part and 30 minutes won’t take care of.
No, I think I just want it gone.
Okay, if you’re sure.
They would go spend $250 or more on a new mower, and I would spend 50 cents (my cost for the part) and sell the mower to someone for $50.
When I had the repair service, I made more money in this scenario than almost any other. There’s a big market for used lawn mowers.
A couple of decades ago, I landed at LAX and took the shuttle to the rental car office. It was pretty late at night, and there was only one other customer ahead of me in line.
The guy in front of me was making a scene, complaining about not getting the specific car model and color he wanted and demanding a free upgrade. He even went so far as to insult the rental agent personally. Despite the rude behavior, the rental agent remained remarkably patient and eventually convinced the customer to accept what he had originally reserved. The disgruntled customer stormed out, leaving behind a tense atmosphere.
When it was my turn, I immediately apologized for the unpleasant behavior of the previous customer. I acknowledged that there was no excuse for such rudeness, and the rental agent thanked me for my understanding. He checked his computer screen, confirmed my reservation for a simple small sedan, and then paused.
After a moment of thought, he asked, “Would you prefer a minivan for the same price?” (Minivans were relatively new at that time.)
I declined, explaining that it was just me, and I didn’t need that much space. The rental agent clicked a few more keys and then asked, “How about a hybrid?” (Another new technology at the time.)
I chuckled and said, “Thanks, but after 16 hours of flying, I’m not ready for any new technology.”
Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he looked straight at me and asked, “How about a Mustang convertible?”
Within ten minutes, I found myself cruising up the Pacific Coast Highway in a brand-new red convertible with black leather seats, only 63 miles on the odometer, the top down, the moon shining, my own CDs playing in the stereo—all at the cost of a small Toyota. In that moment, I couldn’t help but think, “Damn! I like this world!”
“I investigated the UFO event in Peru and what I found SHOCKED me” Timothy Alberino | Redacted
In the nineties, once I flew from Moscow to Delhi in Aeroflot, the Russian National Airlines.
Could be my fourth or fifth flight in life.
My ears ached due to the cabin pressure as the flight took off.
After a while, it hurted a lot, and I requested the Ruski airhostess to help me.
She smiled, went to the galley, and returned with half a glass of cold sparkling Sprite.
I was upset, and cried ‘Look Miss, I am in pain. It hurts really bad. I was expecting some tablet or ear drops. Here you come with a glass of Sprite as if I asked a mix for Vodka’.
She hushed me and told me, ‘Davai Davai, prostho dhrink’.
I took a few sips reluctantly, and ‘hufff’ went my ears, cleared of pressure and pain, instantaneously!!
I could not control my blush, and thanked her many times, ‘You are a genius. Spaciba Dharagoi’
Wherever she is, God continue to bless her, and the thousands of other angels flying in skies, to keep us in comfort and safety while flying!
The very first time was when I was four years old.
I found out I was something I hated.
My parents got pregnant with my older sister, and then married, at fifteen. I was their second child, conceived at sixteen. (Ahh, the excesses of youth!)
My father found a way to join the military when my Mom was pregnant with me; I was born stateside but within months we were stationed in Hawaii.
They were seventeen, and the lowest rank and poorest. My father worked two full time jobs, my mother was a full time waitress. The place we lived was actually in the poorest part of Hawaii, amongst native Hawaiians. In this neighborhood, kids ran about, in and out of houses, cared for by Tutu wahines, “grandmothers”. If you got hurt, got hungry, had to go to the bathroom, just go into the nearest house and Tutu will take care of you.
I was bilingual then, I spoke fluent Hawaiian like all my friends. One day, in a tutu’s house, she was giving us four of us kids sliced fruit, and the radio was on. I don’t know what it said, but Tutu said, “I hate haoles.” [pronounced ‘howlie’].
Now I had learned by osmosis that the Haole were the white men without breath, meaning they were liars and cheats. They stole our islands.
I said, “I hate haoles too!”
Tutu laughed and hugged me, she said, in Hawaiian, “I’m sorry child, you ARE a Haole. I should not have said that.”
For four year old me, that was just mind-spinning. I told my father, and asked him if it were true. Weren’t we Hawaiians? Because I didn’t lie or cheat or steal anything.
But he told me yes, it was true, we were white, like the evil men that stole Hawaii, but that did not mean we had to be evil like them. That even if people thought we might be evil like those men, because we are white like them, we still had to choose to be good people.
My seventh-grade English teacher was pregnant. She burst into tears one day because being seventh-graders, we were being little idiots and paying no attention to her. It was the first time I had seen a teacher cry, which was probably true for most of the students.
She was clearly embarrassed, even while sobbing her eyes out. Some kids went up and hugged her and/or apologized. I didn’t. I don’t remember why. She then wiped her eyes and went on with the lesson. I might add that despite being idiots, we were decent kids, on the whole, and she had no more trouble from us for the rest of the year.
My eighth-grade year was equal parts wonderful and just batshit insane. I saw two of my favorite teachers cry.
For background, my eighth-grade English teacher was borderline obsessed with Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird (and as far as I know still is). She’s one of the reasons I love the novel.
On February 19th, 2016, a student walked into her class very casually and said, “Hey, did you know that Harper Lee died today?” Then he took a look at her face and left.
She sat down and just kind of overflowed. Her co-teacher, who had been placed in our class for reasons that would be a whole other answer, tried to console her. It was hopeless. We didn’t get anything else done that day.
In this last example, she didn’t actually cry, but I think it still counts.
My Algebra 1 teacher is one of the most incredible women I have ever met. She’s almost six feet tall and rather intimidating, but also an inspiring, capable teacher and a sweet, wonderful person.
This particular incident happened on a Friday. We were the last block of the day, and were working on an assignment. I was in the front row, done, and rather bored.
The teacher got a text. She glanced at her phone, looked away, did a double take and looked back at the text, then picked up the phone and read it.
The color literally drained from her face. I didn’t know that was a thing outside of books until then.
She then stuffed the phone into her purse and stood up abruptly. She started talking about the assignment, but her voice was all wrong – cracking and breathy.
Finally someone spoke for us all and asked her if she was all right.
“No,” she said. “But I will be, and you guys need to learn this, so pay attention.”
She finished the lesson. She told us, mind you, that six squared is thirty-eight and that eight by nine is seventy-five. But she finished the lesson.
We found out on Monday that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was sixty years old at the time.
“Oh, honey, there’s no point in crying,” she told me later. “It doesn’t fix anything, and it just tires you out.”
She did recover eventually, but that, again, is a story for another time.
I used to work on grocery store systems about 20 years ago, and we had a non-contract time/materials customer call us about his store server, which had crashed in a bad way. I drove out, and I recognized the server model as one we were selling/installing about 5 years prior, before I was with the company. It would be a two-drive mirrored proprietary RAID and a cartridge tape backup.
When I tried to boot it, it rolled through cmos and then complained about a missing driver. So, I booted off a diagnostic diskette, and there…. one drive corrupted beyond repair, other drive missing entirely.
I opened the case, knowing now I was going to be replacing hardware. Yeah… second drive was completely disconnected, no power, no data cables. I plugged it back in out of curiosity and powered it up and shut it down again 5 seconds later. There was a reason why the drive was disconnected, it was screaming bloody murder… loud!
The store owner had been watching me like a hawk because… time and materials… and he remembered, another tech had been there a few years earlier for the noise and convinced the owner he didn’t need RAID because he had a tape drive.
Sh!t. That meant two new drives, which I had with me, and a cold reload from diskettes far enough for an OS and the tape drive drivers. And many many prayers that at one of his backups was valid. Those little tape cartridges were not reliable in a good environment. A server sitting under a desk for years with no maintenance? Of course all the tapes were bad.
I won’t go through the rest, there was a way to retrieve and convert some data from a register, and we pieced enough together for him to do his end-of-day processes… it being night now and everything. The rest he would have to hand-key, so his night was just getting started.
He and our manager went back and forth about the bill a few weeks later. The tech that told him it would be ok was from our shop but long gone now. If memory serves, he ended up paying for the drives and half of the labor.
Techs these days have no idea how easy it is now with such reliable hardware.
The Phantom Planet (1961) Science-Fiction | Full movie
People can be odd sometimes. I wish to relate a story that took place a few decades ago. At this point in time I was sponsoring some Americans to visit some factories in China, and this group of four guys were all pretty nice. But one of them was a gnarly cuss who insisted on not eating ANY Chinese food while he was in China.
Instead, he wanted no part of the Business KTV lifestyle, food, friendships and was generally a royal pain in the ass. He insisted that no one smoke at the table… (WTF? this is China), and that we go to a grocery store to get cereal and milk so that he can have a “safe” breakfast in his room.
OK. Different strokes for different folks. I get it.
Anyways, Instead of eating at the many, many delicious restaurants for dinners, he convinced everyone to eat a McDonald’s, Pizza-hut, KFC and Burger king instead. And I begrudgingly allowed it. That was, until the last day.
There we took him to a steak restaurant, and we all ordered steaks.
It was a nice Western style place, and they were known for their decent steaks and fine dining atmosphere. Everyone loved the decor and the food looked great. We all sat down and placed our orders.
Imagine my surprise when he received a fine filet Mignon, and then promptly drowned it in ketchup. It went from this…
To this…
You couldn’t even find the meat under all the ketchup. I couldn’t believe it. Thinking about it now, and again… I still am incredulous. Jeeze! Louise!
In 1971 the 18 year old me worked 10 hours a night 7 nights a week overnight pumping 29 cent a gallon gas at an Exon station on Highway 14 near Los Angeles. An endless parade rolled through every night.
The cult bus from up the canyon gassed up heading for LA to recruit and gassed again coming back with newbies. The cult escapees on foot stopped for food or directions.
My usual directions to lost drivers was “you can’t get there from hear” with a smart-ass grin. One time the person just said Ok and left quickly. I guess they went somewhere you could get there from!
I had an endless supply of free food from the catering trucks fueling up. Newspapers, donuts, bread and more.
Guest appearances by two dozen of the Galluping Goose Motorcycle Club (Google them) swarming the stations islands was interesting. A sheriff car chase through the station code 3 was entertaining. You never knew what was next.
The problem was I tried to go to the local junior college full time and slept a bit in the morning and a bit at night. Zombies had nothing on me. Mom wpuld tell me the time, day and where I needed to go when I woke up.
One night, around 3am I was leaning against the front of the station waiting for the next car and noticed three dollars sticking out of my shirt pocket. A customer had filled up and paid while I slept standing up!
I took it as a clue that I should retire and joined the Air Force.
But I came away with so many great stories 🙂
Memnon of Rhodes (died 333 BC)
Memnon was a Greek soldier from the island of Rhodes in the southeastern Aegean Sea. He was born around 380 BC and entered Persian service at a young age. His first patron was Artabazus, the satrap of Phrygia, who married Memnon to his daughter Barsine, a beautiful and well-educated woman. The Greek soldier proved his worth during Artabazus’ revolt against King Artaxerxes III of Persia; at some point, he even rescued his captured father-in-law.
When Artabazus fled to Macedon, Memnon followed him. He stayed there for about five years and gained valuable inside knowledge. He met the then king, Philip II, and his son, the future Alexander the Great — he had supposedly lengthy discussions with the latter. He studied the Macedonian tactics and realized how keen on invading Persia Philip was. He also understood how precarious the Macedonian hold on southern Greece was — Greek unity wasn’t deep yet.
All this theoretical knowledge was soon combined with practical experience. Memnon fought with considerable success against general Parmenion, whom Philip II sent on an expedition shortly before his own death. Thus, Memnon was the perfect man to lead the Persian defense when Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC. Indeed, he sat at the war council of Darius III along with Persian satraps and other high-ranking officials.
Memnon proposed a dual approach. First, the Persians were to follow a scorched-earth policy: burn the crops before Alexander’s army and constantly retreat instead of opt for an open, pitched battle. Second, using money and diplomacy, they should cause as much unrest as possible in Greece, behind Alexander’s back. It was a careful and well-thought strategy, because the Greek armor, training and battle tactics were superior to those of the Persians.
Darius and his satraps didn’t agree with Memnon. They were unwilling to destroy Persian land, believed it would be below them to not fight openly against the invader and possibly hesitated to follow the advice of a Greek. Thus, they assembled an army behind the river Granicus and waited for a battle that eventually took place in May 334 BC. Memnon was one of the leaders of the left flank, opposite Alexander. Reality proved him correct: Alexander won.
After the battle, Darius changed his mind. He made Memnon supreme commander of the West and gave him the authority to carry out his initial plan. Although several Anatolian cities surrendered to Alexander, others like Miletus and Halicarnassus resisted, and that could wear out the invading army. Memnon didn’t care how many individual victories Alexander would win; he played the long game and was content with the Greek losses.
Soon, Memnon started his counterattack. Since Alexander’s fleet was not very strong, he attacked the islands of Chios and Lesbos; the first he captured completely, while the latter partly. He also accepted representatives of the Cyclades — with them, he could control the Aegean route. Persian money worked miracles, as it had in the Peloponnesian War. Athens, led by the anti-Macedonian Demosthenes, Sparta and other cities were almost ready to rebel.
In this crucial hour, Alexander’s good fortune prevailed. Memnon got sick and died in 333 BC while besieging Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. The Persian generals, seeing that Alexander was moving slowly, thought he hesitated to face them openly. Thus, they abandoned Memnon’s strategy and pushed for a second direct confrontation. A few months after Memnon’s death, Alexander defeated Darius himself at the battle of Issus. The East was open to him.
It’s always hard to pose What if … ? questions, but Memnon’s plan had many chances of success. His shrewdness, experience and what steps of his plan he managed to carry out before he died show that clearly. If he had forced Alexander to keep advancing slowly and with constant losses, exploited the favorable dynamics at sea and stirred up a major revolt in Greece, the invading army might not have been able to get beyond Asia Minor.
It’s not necessary to get into details about this, but Alexander’s campaign was indeed world-changing. Although he died too early, his conquest set the bases for all sorts of historical developments. Greek became the common language of the new oecumene, the Greek civilization came in closer contact with those of the East — a new era began. Even Rome would later build on Alexander’s legacy. Who knows if any of that would be the case had Memnon lived to execute his plan to the end?
Fun fact: Memnon’s wife, Barsine, was later captured by the Greeks. Alexander made her his concubine, and she bore him a son named Heracles. He was the only child we know Alexander lived long enough to see: his legitimate son by Roxana, Alexander IV, was born a few months after his death. Both Heracles and Alexander were murdered at a young age, victims of the bitter antagonism among Alexander’s generals over his kingdom.
I was 11, and for some reason, I wasn’t at school and with my father when he got word that my older sister had run-away, again.
Dad went to a couple of houses, with me staying in the car. Then, we went to a biker bar. Dad said, “Stay here!” Then, walked into the bar.
Being the brat that I am, I waited briefly, and decided I needed to use the restroom. I walked through the door and spotted my sister on the right at the far end next to the bar. My father was just in front of the door, and to his left were two pool tables, with those low-hanging stained-glass lights over each table.
There were FOUR extremely large biker dudes – right out of central casting. All were much taller than my father, who stood at 5′7″. All four had cue sticks in their hands, and all four began moving.
My father shifted quickly to stand between the two pool tables. The bikers spread-out and one circled back, going behind the rear pool table. Dad grabbed the table light and shoved it violently to sideways, hitting the biker solidly in the face.
Then the guy on the far side of the tables stepped forward, swinging the pool cue like a baseball bat. Dad blocked the cue, gave two punches to the face, grabbed the cue, swiveled it around and punched him with the base of the cue several times to the neck and face.
At this point, the third guy came from behind, and struck Dad viciously in the right kidney, causing a grunt. Nevertheless Dad swiveled around with the cue, hitting the biker on the side of the neck. Then Dad did a little jump and kicked the knee out from under the biker. The crack was audible.
Guy #4, clearly not being bright, tried to do the same trick with the other table light, and missed as Dad ducked beneath, grabbed the biker by his vest and pulled him onto the table, then elbowed him to the throat.
Guy #2, having recovered enough on the far side of the tables, pulled-out a knife and came with a stabbing motion. Dad caught the thrust arm, twisted it with both of his arms, and broke or dislocated the man’s shoulder / arm – again with an audible sound – and a screech from the biker.
#1 guy, face bloodied from the splintered light, put his hands up in a placating gesture and backed away.
#2 guy was on the floor, holding his right arm
#3 guy was on the floor, groaning, and holding his leg, which was bent in an odd manner.
#4 guy was gasping for breath, on hands-and-knees on the floor.
At this point, the bartender started rummaging around under the bar for something, and Dad said, “She’s 14 years old.”
The bartender stood up, backed away from my sister, next to the wall and put his hands up.
Then we went home.
Please note, that while Dad was quite powerful, and lifted weights, with biceps that split shirts – he also had a bad right leg, and was only 5′7″.
You see, the ascent stage was the part of the Eagle lunar module that blasted off from the moon’s surface on July 21, 1969, carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin back to the command module Columbia.
After they docked, they jettisoned the ascent stage into space, leaving it in a retrograde orbit about 125 kilometers above the lunar equator.
NASA assumed that this orbit was unstable and that the ascent stage would eventually crash into the moon.
But a new analysis by James Meador, an independent researcher at Caltech, suggests otherwise.
He used a NASA tool called the General Mission Analysis Tool to simulate the trajectory of the ascent stage using data from GRAIL, a mission that mapped the moon’s gravitational field in 2012.
He found that all of his simulations showed the ascent stage maintaining a steady orbit for over 50 years, despite the influence of the sun, other planets and solar radiation.
Of course, there are other factors that could have affected the fate of the ascent stage, such as fuel leakage or explosion, but Meador thinks that there is some possibility that it is still up there and might even be detectable from Earth.
How cool is that?
But don’t get too excited yet.
This is just one study and it has not been peer-reviewed or confirmed by other sources.
Meador himself admits that his analysis has limitations and uncertainties.
He also says that finding the ascent stage would require a lot of effort and resources from NASA or other agencies.
So, for now, we can only speculate and hope that one day we will know for sure what happened to the ascent stage of Apollo 11.
Maybe it is still orbiting the moon as a silent witness to one of humanity’s greatest achievements.
Or maybe it has already crashed and become part of the lunar landscape.
Either way, it is a fascinating piece of history that deserves our attention and respect.
I was 32 when I got married and had been on my own, building a career and supporting myself for 10 years. I refused to be “given away” because no one “owned” me. So, I told the officiant to eliminate the line where they ask who’s giving me in marriage. My dad simply escorted me down the aisle, sat down beside my mom and I joined my husband.
I’d attended and been in enough weddings by this time to have very definite ideas about what I did and didn’t like. So, I also made the following changes to the reception. When I was planning our wedding, all kinds of people told me I “had to do all this stuff because it was ‘tradition.” I said, “NOPE!”
No long wait between the ceremony and the reception – The photographer took a few pictures of me and my husband at the church and we arrived at the reception along with the last of the guests. We took the family and wedding party photos after we ate.
No sit-down dinner – I’d been to too many receptions that were ruined by guests banging on their glasses to make the couple kiss. We decided we weren’t trained monkeys that perform on demand and had a cocktail-style reception.
No obnoxious, screaming DJ – We had a guy playing background music on the piano and guests were able to converse without shouting.
No smashing cake in the face – I don’t know who ever decided this was cute, funny or amusing. It’s tacky and an insult to your new spouse, and I didn’t spend hours on my hair and makeup to have it messed up with smeared cake and frosting. As a side note, any DJ who sang “The Bride Cuts the Cake” to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell” would have had the cake smashed in HIS face—by me!
No dollar dance (or anything else that solicits money or gifts) – I subscribe to the old-school view that you don’t ask guests for gifts or money. If someone gives a gift, you should thank them regardless of whether you like it or now, and follow up with a nice note.
No bouquet toss – Some women don’t want to get married. Others recently lost a spouse or are getting over a breakup. They don’t want to be singled out or embarrassed by “well-meaning” guests or insensitive DJs who want to push them into catching the bouquet.
NO GARTER TOSS – I saved the best for last. I ABSOLUTELY REFUSED to do this. The “tame” version always made me uncomfortable, but the way many couples do it nowadays is raunchy, nauseating and disgusting, especially when the groom removes the garter with his teeth! I definitely DO NOT want my new husband or anyone else sticking their head up my dress in front of a hundred people! Maybe I’m just an old fogey or fuddyduddy, but some things should be kept private!
It’s YOUR day. Do what you want and don’t let anyone force you into doing anything that you don’t like or that makes you uncomfortable!
China’s ‘Golden Veil’ To Launch Cruise Missiles For Sneak Attacks
During the toxic, soul destroying ICU rotation of residency, we admitted a young lady intubated for a “community acquired pneumonia”. It ended up being acute myeloid leukaemia, and she had to start chemo in ICU.
She turned out to be an incredible, inspiring, resilient and kind soul. She developed every possible complication of chemo, including being septic while having profound pancytopenia (all cell lines down).
During a particularly busy call with multiple sick admissions, she started bleeding (sepsis plus inability to clot), and I remember noticing frank blood in her catheter. At some point after midnight, she weakly summoned me to the bedside. There were tears on her face and I remember they seemed blood stained, which seriously alarmed me.
I thought she was calling me to tell me how sick she felt. But, teary eyed and all, she said, “I’ve been watching you…you’re having such a hard evening. Are you okay?”
Here was this woman battling for her life, and she had enough compassion left over to care for me. I thanked her, told her to please not worry because she/they were the only priorities.
Then I went into the bathroom, bawled my eyes out, put my game face back on and got back to work. People like that make everything worthwhile.
I’m glad to say she survived and was discharged from hospital several months later, but my colleague who managed her after she was discharged from ICU said it all took its toll and she was a shadow of her former self.
I still think of her. I hope life gave her her flowers, because she deserved everything.
Many years ago we moved into a house where the garden had two gates, a small one at the back and the front double gate which gave access for the car. I was amazed to see people idly strolling through our garden one day with their dog. I went out and challenged them and they said they’d been doing it for years. The previous owner let them use his garden as a short cut to the shop instead of having to walk round past the church.
I said it had to stop now. We had a young child and I didn’t want to risk total strangers coming into the garden. Besides which we had two dogs at the time and although they were not dangerous I didn’t want to risk them getting involved with trespassers. As a child I discovered that people tell lies and they can report that your dog attacked them even if it didn’t.
We put a lock on the gate, and a notice saying Private Property. Keep out. We had no end of abuse from people. The one who really stunned me was the one who said they picked the apples and other fruit every year, it was their right, and now we were stopping them from doing it. The woman even said the fruit wasn’t ours because the trees weren’t planted by us, they’d been there for years.
We only lived there a few years. We didn’t like the weird neighbours so we moved.
Men are Avoiding Marriage and Modern Women Don’t Get It Ft.
Back in 1993 my first wife and I purchased a house on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Our house was a new construction, we were the first owners, and it was also the last piece of property in the subdivision to be developed. Our right-side neighbors, an elderly couple, had been one of the first residents, moving in back in 1975.
For all the years they had lived there they used our property for extra gardening space, and as a dumping ground for their yard waste. Our one-acre lot was partially wooded, and I found huge piles of branches, leaves, and household trash scattered throughout the woods. Apparent leftovers from these neighbors. No problem, it was pre-existing conditions, so my wife and I just worked to clean up and do our own landscaping.
The problem was, our neighbors didn’t seem to understand they couldn’t use our yard as their private dump anymore. We woke up one morning several months after moving in, and discovered a huge mound of leaves, branches, and other yard waste right in the middle of lawn area in our backyard. Trying to be polite and “get-along,” I talked to the guy and explained they couldn’t use our yard as a dumping ground. he agreed to remove it. His method of “removal” was to just torch the pile and burn it. No fire permit, no warning to us, and he left a big burn scar in the lawn.
We let this go, which turned out to be a big mistake. For the next several years, we would periodically discover piles of yard waste in our yard. The lady next door would simply clean up her yard, and haul everything over into our yard. She would always haul this waste over during the night, or times when my wife and I were both gone. No amount of complaints would change her behavior, and her husband would openly avoid us.
After nearly five years of this, my wife and I had enough. After finding yet another pile of yard waste, I called the police and filed a trespassing complaint against my neighbor. In Mississippi, this was a misdemeanor and so I had to go to night court to testify in support of my charge.
The night of our court hearing, the judge had my wife wait outside the courtroom while I testified first. The night court prosecutor and judge were pretty hostile to me during their questioning. Extremely hostile. They included comments about how “neighbors were supposed to get along,” and other similar crap. I managed to hold my own during their questioning, then they called in my wife.
The judge asked my wife to explain our reasons for the trespassing charges, and she just lit into the judge with “They have been doing this for five years!” How long should we have to put up with this?” The judge looked shocked, looked at me, said “five years?” and I nodded my head in confirmation.
My wife finally ran down, the judge gave some judge-homily crap about neighbors getting along and ruled against us – no trespassing. One week later we found yet another pile of trash in our yard, and I called the police, again. When they showed up, I explained we had already taken the neighbors to court once, the judge decided this wasn’t trespassing, and now our neighbors did it again. I suggested that possibly if their house accidently burned down, this crap would stop.
The police, not happy with the entire situation, and not happy with my comments, finally took action. They issued our neighbors a “no trespass” order and advised them that if they set foot on our property again, it would be in violation of a police order and they would be charged with a misdemeanor.
We finally had peace. Then a year later the husband lost the house due to gambling debts and they moved away.
Scott Ritter: “US Naval SUPERIORITY IS A MYTH! Our Navy has been exposed in the Red Sea as weak!”
1) Document everything. A journal format is best. Date, time, who, where (desk, hallway, restroom), what, and your impressions. I’m a nerd: I use Excel.
2) Once a year, ask HR to let you see your file. You’d be surprised what random people put in it. I once saw a note from a coworker that said “she used the F word.”
An example of how the advice worked to my advantage. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after six months of “what the F is wrong?” A couple days later I mentioned it to my immediate supervisor. I asked about partial disability and should I contact HR? She said no no no do not call HR yet. (I thought that odd).
The next day I heard through gossip that layoffs were coming. So I went and copied my HR file a couple days after. Wow, I found that my boss emailed her boss about my diagnosis. Boss’s boss wrote, “Well, she’ll be one of the first to go” and “I won’t let someone faking a disability continue working here.“ It was in there because it had info about work performance for a review due in 4 months. I have no idea why those sentences weren’t redacted.
One week later, I get called to HR. During the “exit interview” she gave me a big envelope. I asked, no, I told her to increase my compensation package by a factor of ten. She said nothing. I said, “I’m getting laid off because I have Lupus, which as you know, is against the Disabilities Act … { long pause }… and I have proof.“ She mumbled, I’ll get back with you before the end of the day.
Packing up my stuff, HR came and gave me the envelope, asked me to sign an NDA. I noticed the final check was not increased. “My lawyerl will contact HR soon. I’m not signing this NDA. Goodbye.”
End of story. I got a settlement with the compensation multiplied by 10. It took almost two years and if not for my journal and the copy of my HR file, it would have been pointless to sue.
Okay, this is something I legit struggle with. When you’re talented, one of the lovely little gifts that gives you is the ability to see the flaws in the things you create.
Like, I’ll have people gush about one of my books and I cringe inside because when I look at it, all I see are the bits I’d fix if I could rewrite it. I read books from people who are better writers than I am, and then I read something I’ve written and I’m painfully aware it’s not as good.
The same was true when I was really into B&W photography. I was dedicated enough to have a darkroom in my house, but that didn’t give me confidence in my own ability, it gave me an acute and sometimes pointed awareness of the gulf separating me from people who are actually talented.
Like, I look at the best thing I’ve ever done, and compare it to the most mediocre thing Robert Mapplethorpe ever produced, and there’s a gap that’s actually more like a chasm.
I have a lot of writers, artists, photographers, and other creatives in my social circle, and pretty much all of them are plagued by this. The ability to create comes with the ability to evaluate your creations, and when you do that, you realize the gulf that separates you from genuine masters.
Online Dating App Creator Regrets What Online Dating has Become
He was tall (6′2″) and “manly”, yes. But he was never handsome, even as a young man. More than that, he was expected to be a failure.
He dropped out of high school at 16 and lied about his age to join the Marines, but he didn’t care for military life, having an admitted “problem with authority”. At 21, he moved to New York City, where he bounced from job to job; then, in 1956, when he was 26, he decided to pursue an acting career, something he said he’d dreamed of since watching James Cagney films as a kid in Illinois.
As a teenaged Marine:
Hackman moved to California and joined the Pasadena Playhouse, where he befriended another aspiring young actor, Dustin Hoffman. The two were noted outsiders, and their peers didn’t think much of them — jointly voting them “least likely to succeed”. Hackman also got the lowest score in the Playhouse’s history.
But he was determined to prove them all wrong.
He moved back to New York and took a job as a doorman at a Howard Johnson’s to support himself while taking bit parts here and there. Here he ran into one of his former Playhouse instructors, who told him, “see, Hackman? I told you you wouldn’t amount to anything.”
It was in 1967, at age 37, that he had his breakthrough role as Buck Barrow in “Bonnie and Clyde”, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He would be nominated again 3 years later for his against-type performance in “I Never Sang for My Father”, then became a bona fide leading man — and Oscar winner— with his unforgettable turn as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in 1971′s “The French Connection”.
As Popeye Doyle:
He received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for his performance in “The Conversation” (1974), another Oscar nomination for “Mississippi Burning” in 1988, and won his 2nd Oscar for his brilliant turn as Little Bill Daggett in “Unforgiven” in 1992, while “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001) garnered him the Best Actor Golden Globe.
Two-time Oscar winner:
He retired from acting at age 74 in 2004 to write historical fiction, with 2 Oscars (5 nominations), 4 Golden Globes (8 nominations), and 2 BAFTAs (5 nominations) for his career, in addition to countless other awards.
Not bad for a funny-looking guy whom everyone expected to fail.
Beef Piroshki
Ingredients
1 pound ground round
2 medium onions, chopped
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
3 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon dried dill (or 1 tablespoon fresh)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
5 (7 1/2 ounce) cans buttermilk biscuits
1 egg, well beaten
Instructions
In a large skillet, cook ground round, onions, and garlic over medium-high heat, stirring often to break up lumps of meat, until beef has lost its pink color, about 5 minutes. Drain off excess fat. Off heat, stir in hard-boiled egg, sour cream, dill, salt and pepper; let filling cool completely.
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
One can at a time, separate biscuits. On a lightly floured surface roll out each biscuit to a 3 1/2 -inch circle. Place about 1 tablespoon filling in the center of each circle. Fold in half to enclose filling. Press edges with a fork to seal closed. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Brush tops with beaten egg.
Bake piroshki for 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown. Keep unbaked piroshki batches covered with clean kitchen towels.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
Baked piroshki can be frozen and kept for up to one month. Thaw and bake as instructed.
The most badass thing I ever did in grade school was during a Dodgeball game. I was in the 5th grade, 10 years old. Being the competitive little fuck I was, this game made me ever more hyped up than a monkey at a banana buffet.
The teacher chose who went on which side. I ended up going against the class bully and a couple of my friends. The class bully’s name will be Derek. Derek was a mean motherfucker who was fatter than a whale.
But you couldn’t tell it to his face or he’ll make sure to break yours. Derek never really picked on me that much since I usually kept to myself and away from him and his friends. But he did pick on my friend; Mike.
Mike was a full-on geek. Me and him both liked comics and Star Wars, but I kept that geeky side of myself hidden while Mike foolishly waved it around. He was also a very easy target.
I was really fit and tall compared to everyone else in my grade so not many people would try to physically start a fight with me. Simple insults were as far as they’d dare to go.
Mike, however, was really short and frail. You could kick him like a soccer ball if you had the lack of heart to go for it. He was also a super nice kid, so it really hit me in the feels when I saw him getting picked on.
In this Dodgeball game, Mike was on Derek’s side of the field and 2 of Derek’s friends were on mine. The balls we had for that game weren’t your typical soft and airy ones. No, they were all green and red plastic ones.
The plastic shells for these balls were hard and lordbabycheezit’s only knows why they allowed it for a game where the sole purpose of winning was to throw them at other people. Ironically, these were the same balls we used when playing bowling at the school fair.
During the first round, my side won. We also were about to win the second round when Derek burst in anger and started yelling at Mike.
The teacher didn’t do shit, he was busy having his lunch in the gym office. Some people told Derek to keep it down and take a chill pill but that only even made the asshole angrier.
Like it was just Mike’s fault his team was losing. I was surprised that no one had even hit Derek yet seeing that he was so huge, missing him would’ve been an even harder than not.
I guess everyone was afraid of hurting him and getting him angry. Having enough of his shit, I called out his name. He turned his head to face me, looking as if I’d just finished cussing the life out of his mom, “What?”
“Leave Mike alone.”
“Or what?”
I didn’t respond cause my mental response was a nice long essay’s worth of insults and death threats. Yeah that wouldn’t go too well seeing that Derek was also notorious for snitching even more than he was for bitching.
He took the ball that was in his hand and threw it right at me, full force and all. I was about 6 feet away from him and shouldn’t’ve been hard to hit. But just as the ball came this close to hitting me in the face, I tipped my head over to the side so that it’d miss.
My gawd people, it was so close that the air from that thing was brushing against my skin. I’m still impressed with what I did to this very day. Then, while I was getting Oo’s and Ah’s from everyone around me, I turned around and grabbed the ball from the floor.
Derek stood there, dumbstruck. Which makes sense, I was still freaking out then. Not giving him time to recollect and snap out of it, I took the same ball and football-chucked it right in his big ugly face.
Y’all know what came after that cat-in-a-blender scream when it hit him? That’s right; blood. And a whole lot of it. His nose was bleeding so much that his entire shirt was almost completely covered in it.
And he kept crying until the teacher came, furious as to what he saw. “What happened?”
“Leonardo hit me in the face mister! He tried to kill me!”
Ugh, could this soft ass bitch be any more of a drama queen?
“Is that true Leonardo?”
“No sir, if I was trying to kill him then he’d be long gone by now.”
And that was the last time anyone heard of the great DiCrapio. Any questions?
Just kidding. He sent me to the office straight after that, not bothering to listen to my side of the story. Which to be fair, wasn’t a very justifiable side to hear from. I was suspended for a good week and had another week of recess detention after that.
Needless to say, they never picked on Mike again after that. So worth it.
Just fyi, I wouldn’t recommend anyone try this at home cause even though they did leave Mike alone after that, I became enemy number one for Derek. That wasn’t the most fun title to hold.
Oh and he broke my thumb during recess the next month. Yeah, definitely don’t do this. Fuck you Derek, I hope your thumb gets crushed by a million plastic Dodgeballs one day.
I was in the military for two years, just long enough to get the GI Bill. Just a one-striper, nothing much. As luck would have it, I scored very highly on an aptitude test I was given, and I was selected to work in a nuclear facility, as a computer operator. It took nine months (of a two year gig) for me to get a very high security clearance, necessary to handle nuclear weapon related material.
I was involved only at the lowest levels of this, my job included janitorial work, for example, gathering and bringing trash from officers to the furnace (to be burned; all paper and packing trash was burned, none left the building).
Anyway, one day I am filling in, in the computer room, for the tape librarian who is on leave. All data was stored on reel-to-reel magnetic tapes, and the tape librarian, directed by the console operator, brought the tapes in from the “library” (many racks of stored tapes) to mount them on the tape drives. And of course to take down tapes, label them and store them in the library. It’s a fairly continuous process walking back and forth, but not very strenuous for fit soldiers.
On this particular day, the general in charge of our operation had retired, and his two-star replacement was taking a tour of the facilities. He knew absolutely nothing about computers. He was guided by a full bird colonel, that knew a little bit about computers, but was not a very technical type.
When they got to the tape drives, the Colonel tried to explain to the General how they worked, like a voice recorder. The General thought this could be a security risk, because somebody could stand next to a tape drive, and listen in on the data being played, and be privy to nuclear secrets they should not be listening to. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.
Everybody in the computer room had all the clearances necessary to do anything or see anything going on in the computer room. You not only cannot hear the binary data, you couldn’t possibly make sense of it if you did, it goes by far too fast and sounds like static if you feed it into a speaker.
The Colonel assured him it was impossible to eavesdrop on the data.
Nevertheless, the following day we had an armed MP guarding the tape drives, and we had to show an ID in order to mount tapes, or take down tapes. Which slowed down operations. And a week later, the MP was gone, and things went back to normal.
Human rights and struggling economy is a narratives. Set to demonised China. It don’t work except for Brian dead westerners. That is some 1% of the entire world!
Four out of every five stuff made on the world U.S. made in China! 175 out of the world’s 195 nation on earth has China as their biggest trading partner! And 171 nation support and participated in BRI
Sure racist like this person who ask this question like to ignore facts and listen to narratives like these but even in the west there are very few of them! Do you know, in spite of Donald Trump’s trade war, the U.S. trade 3 times more in 2022 than in 2017 when the trade war began?
So it must make your anger and hate boils but heck some people choose not to think!
Lowe’s. Went to the store and ordered a GE gas wall kitchen oven with 5 year extended warranty. Not in stock, they had to order it and I had to wait. Because of a unique kitchen cut out and old house, I had few options. I call the store a few times over several weeks to try to get a status update. “Should be coming in soon”. Three months later they call to say GE no longer makes the model. Come in and pick another or get a refund.
I go in, get my refund and decide to do some more research. A few days later I go back to Lowe’s and order a Frigidaire gas wall oven and 5 year warranty. Not in stock, have to pay and wait for it to come in. I do so. About three months later they call to say that model is no longer made. Come in and pick another or come and get a refund.
I go in to get the refund. When they refund me, I notice I did not get refunded the $300 for the 5 year extended warranty. The cashier tells me they don’t give refunds on the warranties in the store. I have to call a special Lowe’s Telephone number to get that refunded separately.
I go home and then spent the next two weeks in automated telephone carousels trying to get to somebody who can orchestrate the refund. Probably spent 40 hours in total on the phone at different times before finally getting somebody. They had no record of the sale so I have to email them all my purchase and refund receipts. I do so. More run around. After a few weeks I get a check in the mail for the refund.
It then occurs to me…did I get a refund on the GE oven extended warranty I ordered first? I go back and look at the receipts and see they did not give me the $300 warranty refund on that one, and I didn’t notice.
Back to the store who tells me I must call the telephone number. Back on the phone trying to get to the right person. Did I mention this telephone number they have me calling has no weekend hours and limited weekday hours? When I do reach someone they have no record of the sale or return so I need to send them all copies of my receipts, which I do. Weeks later, no word. And no response from more hours on the phone. Mostly on hold.
I write a letter and send it through the mail to Lowe’s corporate office. I gave them documentation and photocopies of every single receipt and my timeline of purchases, calls, emails…every interaction, everything. I explain what’s been happening.
A few days later I get a letter from them saying they’d be happy to assist. All I have to do is call this telephone number (the one I’d been calling).
At that point my stomach could no longer bear it and I had to decide if $300 was worth the stress and time. I let it go.
I wouldn’t purchase a nail from Lowe’s ever again.
At that point I searched the internet and found the first GE oven I wanted at Plessers Appliances. I call them. They had five in stock. So the model wasn’t discontinued. I ordered it from a salesperson on the same call on which I confirmed it was in stock. I paid by debit card and it was installed 3 days later.
A true story. No embellishments.
Why didn’t I just go to Plessers to begin with? I didn’t know they existed. Their closest store to me was about 50 miles away in a town I never visit. But more importantly, initially I had no reason to doubt the information Lowe’s gave me about both models being discontinued. I know wall gas ovens are becoming more and more rare, so it seemed possible. And I didn’t want to deal with a gas to electric oven conversion, but that probably would have been the next step. But not with Lowes.
Learned this through shard contacts. When we rented a house a few years back, the landlord was engaged to a very wealthy ex-Pharma sales executive. Roughly 15 or so years ago, this person was working for a major Pharma company selling its patented drugs to doctors. He was making a lot of money. Until one day he stumbled upon evidence that the company was covering up the massive toll of side effects of its drugs. After repeatedly attempting to correct the situation, he was stonewalled. In a good conscience, he couldn’t remain silent as the drugs were affecting people in terrible ways.
Under the Whistleblower Act, he provided the details to Federal agencies, who immediately launched an investigation. His identity was not protected as part of this process, and he very quickly was fired from his high paying job. Worse, he was blackballed across the entire industry. No one would talk to him. No companies would ever hire him. His Pharma, Medical and Sales careers were over. No one would hire him – not for anything. If I recall he was in his mid 30’s. He ended up bankrupt, divorced, lost his home, lost his family. He was utterly destroyed.
After many years of litigation at the highest levels, the company was found liable across a number of areas. The fines imposed on the company were MASSIVE – hundreds of millions of dollars.
As a whistleblower, he was entitled to, and paid a percentage of the fines imposed. I forget the exact number, but he made something like $100 million dollars as a result of ratting on the company’s deadly products. But the cost was….EVERYTHING.
When I learned of this story, the man was in living in the same town/city that we were in, and had a beautiful multi-million dollar waterfront home.
I always wondered if he felt like he would do the same thing again if he knew how things worked out. His life was ruined, literally ruined.
The company, of course, is still in business today. But a fine approaching the better part of a billion dollars has to hurt. A Lot.
China’s LATEST Stealth Aircraft Can Kill US B-21 ‘Raider’ in 1 Second
We had the neighbor from hell. The first day they moved in, he parked his Uhaul on our front yard yo unload. This was a hundred year old house with ceramic water lines. My husband explained that he had to move the truck, and he did.
Then, we had a tree cut down in our fenced back yard. The wood was cut into lengths to burn in a fireplace. I worked that day, and when I came home that night, over half the wood was gone. Every night for months they burned their fire pit. I know he took it.
Next, ghe to,d me he was putting up a privacy fence. As I said, we had a chain link fence already. I explained to him that he needed to put it as close to our fence as possible. The weeds between the fences on our side would be every difficult to remove. Again, I came home from work, and he had put up the fence inside out with the support beams on our side. This left a 8” gap between the fences. Weeds were horribly difficult to reach.
We had a two car parking spot in the back of our houses. No lie, he had a motorcycle trailer, two cars and a trailer parked there. Of course he spilled over his lot. Every time they took the trailer out they moved my garbage can. They never put it back where it belonged. One night I was having a few beers when I heard him come home with the trailer. I grabbed the trash can and held it. He wasn’t going to move it that night. My drinking got the better of me and I went off on how they thought our yard was his to use, and how all the neighbors had had enough of them.
They put their house up for sale that week. Good riddance.
I can’t think of one person who runs and doesn’t have their shit together.
I think it’s because running teaches you how to persist. The entire act of running is to not listen to your body’s urges to stop and to persist instead.
You will also learn how to focus on a singular goal, to keep your legs moving until you reach your destination. The skill of focus is one of the most underrated and misunderstood. Many people think your ability to focus is inborn, but I know from personal experience it’s a skill that we train through out the day.
Running will also make you have more stamina in bed which could lead to you landing the wife or husband you want.
Running also tends to weed out bad habits like smoking because it’s so difficult to run and to keep smoking.
Also when you travel, you will get a intimate view of the city because you will know what it’s like to see the city on foot.
You will also be able to learn things because podcasts and books are some of the best things to listen to while you are on a long run.
Also runners tend to eat healthier which helps them lose weight and have good skin. I know I don’t like eating fried food if I’m going to be running later because I will feel sluggish.
When you run you also feel very confident because you will feel like you are becoming a stronger person.
Finally, you should run, because one day, you won’t be able to.
Yes after buying new property in a rural area. The neighbor behind us kept letting the family ride off road four-wheelers on our property as we did not have a fence between us and we did not live there yet. As I was building our new house and shop we saw the kids riding across our property again, I drove to top of hill where they were and asked them not to keep coming across the property line that was surveyed and marked. They apologized and said they thought it was their grandparents property. I thanked them and told them my insurance would not allow other people to drive on my property, if they got hurt I could get sued.
No problem I thought all was well. I keep getting other neighbors calling and saying people are still driving all over our property when we aren’t there. So the next week we see an adult with a small child again riding on our property. Again I drive up the hill and park in the middle of the trail so when he comes back he has to stop. When he does, I again ask to stop trespassing as I have also told his kids before. He said they are just puttering along slow and not hurting anything. And he drives off. Now I’m mad. So my employees start a new (nice) fence the next day. A week later all employees are working on new house (I’m in construction) and one employee says “hey there’s that rude guy on the four-wheeler at the top on the hill”. We all stopped working and run over to look, he is stopped (standing on top of his seat) on the trail by a large barbedwire fence looking all the way down both sides on the mountain at a new long fence. We laughed for about 10 minutes. He had that look like how did this get here. Sad thing is we would have let the kids ride on our property if they had just asked nice. But we didn’t even know their names. We had miles of trails all over the place.
In the 1980s, I had a co-worker who presented my craft work as her own. At that point, I just sat back and watched, I knew things were going to be entertaining.
My manager was so very pleased with the job my co-worker claimed as her own. When my manager asked my co-worker to show her how she had done the job; my co-worker was at a complete loss on what to do. My manager tried to assist my co-worker by asking “how did you start, what was your first idea?”
My co-worker had no idea about how I had created the project as I had completed it at home. After about an hour of trying to figure out how to dismantle my work; my co-worker had to admit that she hadn’t created the project at all. She also admitted that she had taken it from off my desk.
My manager was not amused by my co-worker. When she came to my desk; I was just smiling a little smile. My manager asked me why I hadn’t defended my project and claimed my work. Then she answered her own question; that my work spoke for itself.
When my brother was ready to buy a home, he instead went the custom-built route: our parents divided their five-acre lot so he could build next door.
Both homes were perched on top of an almost-mountain hill, looking over the valley. Pretty amazing view.
For whatever reason I’m unaware of, my brother ended up with a two-acre L-shaped lot; basically, he ended up with his front and back yards and a narrow strip at the rear of our parents’ backyard next door. I think it may have been so my brother could own and maintain the wire suicide fence that prevented any accidental tumbling into the valley below, so our parents wouldn’t have to. Yeah, the hill slope was that steep; it was basically a grassy cliff.
Then my mother’s husband passed away, leaving her to rattle around her huge home by herself. Empty nesting, the property became too much for her to care for and she put it on the market.
My brother, having foreseen this, had included a mother’s suite when he built his home. Practically an independent apartment on the first floor next to the garage, with its own kitchen and bath and a private entrance and my brother’s living space on the second floor upstairs. Absolutely no issues with Mom moving in next door to live with my brother while she was trying to sell.
The people she eventually agreed to sell to were not fun even during the real estate transaction process. They moaned and whined and nickel and dimed but they got her house and moved in. Long story short, this couple proved to be assholes before they even signed the contract, and that certainly didn’t change when the house was theirs. They promptly began tearing out everything to renovate.
Including the yard. Twenty years’ worth of plantings; Mom’s beloved gardens and flower beds, shrubs and fruit trees, ruthlessly removed to accommodate an unending sea of grass. Mom said nothing of course but she was sick.
My brother suggested that she replant a new garden. Together, they spent the time and money to plant roses and fruit trees along the suicide fence on that strip of land that was too narrow to accommodate anything else.
My brother returned from work one afternoon to discover that the new neighbors had crossed the property line to dig up and chainsaw everything my brother and my mother had planted. When questioned, the neighbor explained he wanted nothing but grass in the backyard. He wanted an unobstructed view of the valley below.
Furious, my brother explained that that strip of land was not part of the neighbor’s backyard and that he didn’t consider two dwarf fruit trees to be obscuring the view, but even if they did, the neighbor did not have the right to trespass or to tear them out of property he didn’t own. The plants had cost in both time and money. Neighbor refused to pay for the damages.
It was not worth it to bother with the time and expense of small claims court. But Mom had already been complaining that every time she stepped into the yard or the driveway, the nosy neighbors were watching her, and that they were able to view the interior of my brother’s home through windows visible from their side of the property line. Mom was feeling paranoid and upset.
My brother erected an 8-foot-high wooden fence that completely surrounded his L-shaped lot and its driveway. Including both along the suicide fence at the rear of the property and the property line that separated that narrow strip from the neighbor’s backyard. When the driveway gate is closed, the only thing visible from outside the fence is the roof of the house and a couple of treetops.
My brother further installed a length of decorative metal fence with a fairy gate to separate that narrow strip from his own backyard. Mom ended up with a “hidden” garden that over the years was equipped with concrete benches, bird houses and a bath, a fountain, lawn toys. They planted fruit trees, grapes, roses, flowers, a vegetable patch, butterfly bushes. You couldn’t see the valley from Mom’s fairy garden for the wooden fence, but no nosy destructive neighbors could see her, either. She puttered away hours in there; she loved it.
Instead of two fruit trees and some rose bushes, now the new neighbors had not one but two runs of eight-foot-high wooden fence between their house and the view. The view from their property is completely gone. Short of climbing a ladder to sit on the roof, there is nothing they can do about it.
And whenever my mom wants, the valley and their neighbors’ yard are visible from my brother’s living room and back deck, upstairs from her mother’s suite. Sometimes they barbecue up there.
Oh, and they got a half-dozen egg-laying pet chickens. The rooster is pretty loud at 5am. That’s how my brother knows it’s time to get up and get ready for work.
We don’t know what the rooster wakes the nosy neighbors up for.
The fantasy of the Philippines has been completely shattered, the situation in the South China Sea has been clarified, and the mysterious “sonic weapon” has appeared!
Just this morning, I woke up and saw the news. After the Philippines illegally invaded my country’s Scarborough Shoal. Philippine control began to “collapse” with my country’s law enforcement ships on Ren’ai Reef, which was met with professional restraint by my country.
First of all, as for the recent provocations by the Philippines, it is obvious that the United States is behind it. Without the support of the United States, the Philippines would not dare to come and make noise. China is dismantling the “island chains” deployed by the United States in the Asia-Pacific region one by one, and breaking through the “containment” of the United States at a rapid speed.
That article was a paper written by an expert from the University of Defense Technology, which roughly revealed that our country has accelerated its development in close-air combat in recent years, and has also established a near-air command equipped with a variety of hypersonic weapons units.
Everyone knows that our country is ahead of the United States in the research and development of hypersonic missiles. We not only have a mature and complete offensive weapon system, but also a strong and powerful defense system.
The emergence of the Near Air Command today obviously tells the United States that it is no longer possible for the United States to “cover the sky with one hand” in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, he also warned the United States not to have any illusions on the Taiwan issue or the situation in the South China Sea.
Looking back, the United States naturally does not want us to develop more and more stable long-range missiles and hypersonic missiles, so it will let the Philippines come over from time to time to stir up trouble.
After all, what the United States wants is to involve us in the war, then contain our development, and turn the South China Sea into the next “Russian-Ukrainian battlefield.” But what makes the United States even more unexpected today is that we will not dispatch hypersonic missiles to deal with the tiny Philippines.
Instead, a brand new “attack weapon” was released, which was the mysterious sonic weapon!
Since the Philippines continues to invade our country’s islands and reefs and frequently come to cause trouble, our country’s new coast guard ships are equipped with a series of self-defense weapons to strengthen the defense capabilities of maritime law enforcement.
Of course, in the face of repeated troubles from the Philippines, we still maintain the rationality we should have to avoid falling into the trap of the United States, so we usually use some high-pressure water cannons to achieve the effect of driving away the Philippines.
But this time, in the face of the collision with the Philippines, our country has released a brand-new weapon, which is the long-range directional acoustic wave repellent device. This “acoustic weapon” can be said to be specially designed to deal with the Philippines!
Because this remote directional sound wave driving device can release a sound of 160 decibels, which is 60 higher than the human body’s tolerance range (100 decibels).
This weapon can be used for “sonic bombing” from a distance of 3 kilometers.
You know, this time the Philippines dispatched 40 small fishing boats, multiple coast guard ships, and official ships to form the so-called “Christmas Fleet” in an attempt to invade my country’s islands and reefs in an attempt to create large-scale chaos.
In that case, we will directly release the “sonic weapons” to give them a “Christmas atmosphere boost”!
Maybe many people don’t have much idea about this 60 decibels.
The human body is originally very sensitive to external sounds. The sound of two people communicating normally is about 20 decibels. But if a large car passes by and honks its horn, the decibels will reach 50, and the ears will instantly “buzz”. Once it exceeds 100 decibels, it will cause great damage to the ears, and may even lead to temporary “deafness”.
Moreover, this kind of directional sound wave repellent weapon can focus 150 decibels of noise, and then adjust the angle to directionally project it onto the enemy’s ship. As a result, all the Philippine ships can do is to leave quickly with their tail between their legs…
In fact, the Philippines still does not understand the situation in the South China Sea today. We have already firmly grasped the overall situation.
If nothing else, in the past two years, our navy has laid a “drag net” on Mischief Reef, Ren’ai Reef and other islands and reefs, and assembled the largest naval formation in recent years.
There are 052D guided missile destroyer, 052C guided missile destroyer, 053HC guided missile frigate, 056A guided missile frigate, 072 tank landing ship, 022 high-speed missile boat…
All in all, the current situation in the South China Sea is very clear: ASEAN countries have clearly seen the true face of the United States and know that the Philippines is a pawn of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region.
Author note : China is a country when you do something anti China you will lose the disputed territory to China, it happened to India, it happened to Japan now the Diao Yu Island is in China control. A lot of countries has demarcated border with China Russia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nepal, Kazakhstan.
Yes. Leanne. A rather entitled millennial who thought the sun shone from somewhere it didn’t. She told her manager to F-off.
She was put into a tech assistant role, supporting George, a category manager who had been working for the company close to 50 years. He actually retired when he hit 50 years service – he was 72 at the time. After retirement, he stuck around part time for a few years as a consultant too – he was that knowledgeable, and important to the business.
Anyway, what George didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. He could tell you the names of staff going back to the early 70s. He could also tell you when something was made obsolete, and what replaced it. He was a walking archive of catalogue information going back to before I was born. If you couldn’t find an answer, George was the one who would know it. He was extremely well respected. He had 2 assistants working under him, doing daily tasks like tenders and quotes, warranty checks, stock orders, and general technical assistance for distributors and customers.
Jovic was a fellow in his mid 30s when I met him. He was George’s protégé, and he had already learnt a lot from George – having worked under him for nearly a decade. His only career plan was to step into George’s role when he retired. He did (and still does) a cracking job.
Leanne was employed a year or so before I came along. She was lazy, and slow to reply to requests for help. Customers complained to both Jovic and George about her. Jovic was growing tired of having to carry Leanne’s shortcomings, and begged George to do something.
George worked out she would be better doing analytic tasks like price increases, manufacturing updates, large pricing tenders, and stock monitoring – so she wouldn’t have to talk to customers anywhere near as much. She was taking a week to do a tender than George could do in a few hours. Admittedly, George could look at a partial part number, or a description, and instantly know the correct number. This took Leanne a lot of time to search. But she was also partial to online shopping, and would spend hours browsing fashion sites. She would also call her friends and spend hours going through fashion websites, deciding what to buy. This was the main reason she was so slack.
George had gone to HR several times about her lack of competence in the role, her time wasting, excessive personal calls etc etc. She was given numerous verbal warnings, and a couple of written ones. She was on thin ice. One afternoon George was frustrated that a deadline was coming up, and she hadn’t started a tender that she’d had for over 2 weeks. He walked up behind her desk to see she was browsing a fashion site, and yapping away on a personal call. He interrupted her and asked her to focus on the tender. Her response “fxxx off George.”
George had never been short with anyone before. So his next outburst was a huge shock to us all. He bellowed (loud enough for whoever was on the other end of her phone to clearly hear it) “That’s it, we’re going up to HR right now. You had your last chance, and you blew it.”
Her response, which was heard right across 60+ people in an open plan office – people who had suddenly become silent after hearing George’s ouburst, was “you can’t sack me you crusty old cxxx. I quit first.”
Because of that retaliation, and the language used, HR refused to give her a reference as she was marched from the building.
George was the most patient guy, but Leanne pushed him way too far. We were all glad to see the back of her.
Jovic has since become “George 2.0” – although his knowledge isn’t as impressive as George, he still has some 25 years to get there.
Chicken with Dill Sauce (Kurczeta z Sosem Koperkowyn — Poland)
Ingredients
1 (3 to 3 1/2 pound) broiler-fryer chicken, cut up
1 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 cup Half-and-Half
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon minced dill weed
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Instructions
Heat chicken, water, salt and white pepper to boiling in skillet; reduce heat. Cover and simmer until thickest pieces of chicken are done, 45 to 50 minutes.
Remove chicken; keep warm.
Shake Half-and-Half and flour in tightly covered jar. Stir Half-and-Half mixture, dill weed and lemon juice into pan juices. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly; boil and stir 1 minute.
Pour some of the sauce over chicken; serve with remaining sauce and with spaetzle or cooked cauliflower, if desired.
My partner interviewed for her dream job as a tenured professor at an elite university. It offered generous compensation, and the opportunity to expand her research and educate students on niche subjects she is passionate about. She prepared for a week, doing mock interviews and research. When the day came, she called me after and exclaimed “It went great! I’m sure I will get a follow up interview. I haven’t felt this good about an interview in so long.”
The next day, I was walking downstairs at our home and saw her sitting at the dining room table. She looked glum, so I asked, “How’s it going?”
Without looking up, she said, “I’ve been better. I just got a rejection email for that job.” She was completely devastated. For years, she’d been so successful in getting every job she applied for, saying that, “Interviews are my super power.” Consequently, she was being quite hard on herself.
I reminded her that this job process wasn’t like finding jobs in high school and college. She was competing with other academics: highly intelligent, motivated, organized professionals with so much to offer — just like her. But it still stung because she’d put so much of herself into this process.
I related so strongly to her feelings. Coming from corporate, I’ve done around 100 interviews. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a hiring manager say, “You are such a great match for this role!” Or something equitably enthusiastic, with me leaving their office skipping like a kid out of a candy shop — only to get a rejection, followed by waves of frustration.
While I’ve found that rejection does get easier with repetition, it never becomes a pleasant, or even neutral experience. Be it writing, dating, or jobs, there’s always a burn.
Dr. Ethan Kross, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, found that even the most sophisticated among us are often distinctly sensitive to failure. His study found the part of the brain activated during rejection is also associated with physical pain. When someone says “it hurts” after a rejection, they aren’t far from the truth.
Rejection is different from failure in that there’s often an interpersonal dynamic to it — which makes it particularly unpleasant and personal.
I have long battled my harsh inner critic, which is quite common, especially with people who had a strict childhood or where they felt they weren’t good enough (the prior certainly describes me). Replaying these rejections comes naturally and with ease. Which is why I’ve invested in help from a therapist. He gave me a great and counterintuitive exercise, called the “rejection collection”. It helps destigmatize that rejection and promotes empathy — and friendships.
How the rejection collection works
Rejection often has a secretive nature, where we hide these shortcomings from others to insulate our ego and feelings of acceptance. Ideally, per the American Psychological Association, we should do the exact opposite and seek more meaningful connections with people in the aftermath of rejection, which is what this exercise does.
You create a simple spreadsheet using excel, google docs, anything. Create it with at least one other person and list out notable rejections from your life. I’ll throw myself into the fire right now:
I was rejected from my dream publisher, Penguin Random House, after going through several rounds of feedback with a senior editor. I was close to signing a contract, only for them to reject me in the 11th hour, saying my book idea, “Is not strong or unique enough.”
I was given a reference to interview at my dad’s company, SAP, and flew to Philadelphia for an interview, only to be rejected. I applied for a second position, and flew to Philadelphia again, only to be rejected a second time. I felt like a complete failure and an embarrassment to my dad.
In 8th grade, 23 people tried out for the JV soccer team at a school where soccer was everything. Only me and one other person got cut from the team. I felt like the least athletic, least cool guy in the world.
I was once having a great and long conversation with a beautiful Jamaican woman. We were hitting it off. On a whim, and before I could talk myself out of it, I said, “We should grab dinner sometime.” Her smile immediately vanished, as if she’d just seen a ghost. Then, she said, “Sorry, I don’t date white men.” Which is fine. She’s entitled to her preferences. I cringed more thinking about how I misread her energy.
There was a personality test for our finance department at my last corporate job. During HR’s presentation, each of us were represented as a dot on a giant graph, with our initials by the dot. I didn’t see my name. At the end, I raised my and asked the researcher, “I noticed my name isn’t listed?” She said, “Yeah, we couldn’t properly score your personality. It was too far outside our bounds.” The room erupted in laughter.
When you create your list, adding context and the story helps humanize the experience for the other people on the list. The other option is to have a zoom call where each person reads through their rejections and shares those stories.
It’s OK if they feel entirely random and with different contexts. It’s also completely advisable to find ways to laugh and have fun with it. Self-deprecation can remove the heaviness from the experience, and pivot the tone of your inner monologue to be more accepting.
Per psychology professor, Dr. Mark Leary, the communal component of a rejection collection is the key component to remember. Rejection tends to threaten your sense of belonging to the group, but by celebrating and putting those rejections boldly forward in a group setting — it promotes that sense of belonging and understanding between people.
When I went through this list with two friends, I marveled at some of the stories I heard and we laughed together, thinking through and discussing the events, often debunking people’s insecurities. I felt a sense of togetherness, and enhanced friendship with my buddies afterwards. I was glad they shared these moments of supreme rejection that they’d hidden from me for decades. I didn’t feel alone.
Each of us exists on a spectrum of rejection sensitivity, with some people having very harsh and self-immolating interpretations of these events. But this rejection can cause you to seek out friends and build your connection to them as a compensatory response. This isn’t to say one should get chewed up by rejections intentionally to make friends. But more to remind you of how universal this experience is. A rejection collection helps you purge these harsh narratives and reframe them into something kinder.
When I was an early teenage boy, I had a long-standing crush on another girl who was signaling pretty clearly that she liked me too. I was talking to my friend Brian, saying, “I want to ask her out but I’m so afraid.”
He shrugged and said, “What’s the worst thing she can do, say no?” It was such a healthy extrapolation to rethinking these rejections. Sometimes, we need to lighten the load we place on these outcomes.
I remind myself that rejection stems from something proactive: you taking the initiative to pursue things you want in life. It takes courage to try, to put yourself in the line of judgement. So pat yourself on the back for that, regardless of the outcome.
And if you get rejected, consider sharing it with a someone, or scheduling a call with friends, and list them out in all their glory. You’ll all be better off for it. Remember to stay kind — to others, and yourself.
When I was with the DoC, we had a shipping container in our parking lot to store outdated, or damaged, computer equipment. Once the container was full, bids would be placed on it and the winning bidder would come out and carry the equipment off.
The container was 8 feet by 40 feet so unloading the equipment from it could take some time, and because security balked at having to stand around while the equipment was removed, someone from IT would have to babysit the people hauling the equipment off. This job fell to the person in the office with the least seniority.
It just so happened that we had a newbie start the day equipment was being picked up so the team leader took him outside, handed him the clipboard of inventory being picked up and forms the buyer had to sign, and told him to stay out there until the container was empty. He was told to lock the container up and come back inside once it was done.
It usually took about an hour to empty a container and the newbie was sent outside around 9 AM, so when the team lead began asking us if we’d seen the new guy around 11:30, we knew something was wrong. The team leader went outside and found the trailer wide open, and empty, so he locked it. There was no sign of the newbie. About that time one of the techs saw him strolling across the parking lot, from the direction of a fast food joint nextdoor. When he entered the office the team lead asked him where he’d been and he said it was hot outside (it was summer) and watching the people empty the trailer was boring so he’d decided to sit in the fast food place and watch them from there. He was asked when the people had left and he said they drove off around 10:20. The team lead asked if the buyer had signed the equipment transfer forms and the newbie stated he’d “forgotten” to have them sign (and it’s kind of hard to have someone sign a form when you’re 150 feet away, sitting in a restaurant).
The team lead told our boss what had happened immediately and the new employee became a former employee after only 3½ hours on the job. He didn’t even make it to lunch time — the official lunch time, that is.
Although Australia is considered your “typical white country” by many, we still have quirks that make the whole world tilt their head and think “What the F*ck?” For example:
We have a tradition called a “shoey”– which is were you drink beer out of a dirty shoe.
Bars are required to have stables, water and food for horses.
We call friends “cunts” and people we dislike “mates”.
Life sentences cannot be over 25 years.
Repairing a fence because a kangaroo tried jumping over it and failed.
School is from February to December, so we have Christmas and New Year’s eve during our annual break.
Petting zoos having kangaroos, wallabies and emus which you can feed and play with for something like 5 bucks an hour.
Deadly spiders everywhere. The week before writing this answer, I actually removed a huntsman from my backyard so my dog couldn’t eat it. I ended up throwing the fucker over the fence and into my neighbors house (by accident of course).
Having Christmas at the beach. Since Australian summer is during December- people go to the beaches in swarms on Christmas Day to open presents and have barbecues.
Every Australian town has a pub with at least one, massive foster beer ad stuck on the rood (even though no one drinks foster any more).
Almost everyone is outdoors. Hiking, walking, fishing, sailing, boating, surfing, swimming and a hell of a lot more. Everyone is into some kind of sport or activity. The natural resources like beaches and suburbs are used wisely and not just wasted.
Swearing when complimenting something. In Australia, when someone says “Sick cunt”, it means “you did good.”
Calling rain boots/wellies “Gum boots”.
Smelling smoke from a far way bushfire when going outside.
Having no idea what “political correctness is” and saying anything on our minds.
We say ‘Yeah, nah’ instead of No, and ‘Nah, yeah’ instead of “Yes”.
Children aren’t allowed to purchase cigarettes, but there is no law specifically stating that they cannot smoke them.
Not being able to go outside during lunch break at school because you forgot your hat.
Having extremely wide roads and pavements, even in the city and suburbs.
Making fun of anything regardless if its offensive or not.
It is illegal to dress up as Robin and Batman.
Selling $2 hot dogs when everyone is voting for the new prime minster in the elections.
Getting fined if you don’t vote in the elections.
Putting butter and sprinkles on bread to create fairy bread– our traditional dish.
Putting butter and Vegemite (a thick black Australian sauce) on bread to create another traditional dish: Vegemite and toast.
Eating a lot of fresh fish and ripe avocados. Avocado milkshakes are really common in Australia, and so is really good sushi.
Every pub has 2–4 Poker Machines minimum.
Eating burgers that have beetroot.
Getting attacked by magpies (a Australian bird), because you walked into their territory by accident.
Atlantis, Thoth, the Emerald Tablet & the Secret to Immortality
Today I visited Quora, and saw a post written by my half-sister. She is my father’s daughter with his second wife. And it was a tribute to my dad.
I hadn’t talked to her since my dad died, and she lives in Erie, and I have long forgotten about her. I left a comment to her… telling thank-you for her tribute to our mutual father. Nine sentences.
I do not want to open up dialog with her, as I have long since given up on my old family back in the states, but I did get something nice out of it. I got a picture of my father when he was in the Air Force in his 20’s.
I will still stay away. I have ZERO interest in any continuing dialog for any reason. But in regards to this, let me show you all my father… handsome man.
Years ago my son was working as a tow truck driver. He was sound asleep at 2 AM when he got a call. He jumped up finishing getting dressed as he was running out the door. The call was for a car on the freeway so those are a priority. He drove to the car and found the guy had gotten out on the side of the freeway and locked himself out of his car. It was not hard to figure out he’d probably been drinking a little and stopped to urinate. So my son got there and quickly opened up the car and told the man the fee is $185. That is the standard fee for a call to the freeway. The man flipped out and told my son that was ridiculous and he was NOT paying that kind of money. My son explained that was the standard fee of all the towing companies for a call out to a freeway. My son was polite and professional the entire time but this man said: “That took you two seconds and I’m not paying $185 for that!!”. My son finally just looked at him and said “You’re not? Ok then” and my son walked over to the car, tossed the keys on the seat, locked the door and walked to his tow truck and got in and drove away. I guess that man didn’t understand that while it took my son 2 seconds because he’s good that my son had already worked all day and was sound asleep at 2 AM. My son doesn’t make any $185 for that call but instead was making $15 an hr. He could have not answered the phone at all at that hour but he’s a good person. He gets up and goes out. I sure hope that the next car that came by was not a CHP and that guy ended up with a DUI. If he did then he was wishing he paid $185. He had to pay it anyway when the next truck came from some other company.
My boss asked me to deliver a lamp to a photographer at Condé Nast publications in New York City. They are the publishers of glossy magazines such as Vogue, W, Glamour, Allure, Self, Teen Vogue, Lucky. Their offices and studios are absolutely stuffed with gorgeous women; some for photo-shoots, but also many models who retired into the fashion- magazine business.
I got into an elevator which was immediately packed with a crowd of stunningly beautiful young women headed to various photo studios. I inhaled the intoxicating perfume and slyly whispered to the elevator operator, “Now THIS is the happiest place on Earth.” He chuckled knowingly.
I delivered the lamp, and caught the down elevator. When we got to the main floor, the elevator emptied, and I asked the operator, half-kidding, “How does one get a job like this?”
I was surprised when he responded, “You just apply at the front desk in the lobby. The pay is really great, full benefits, AND since most of the models are lonely and from out-of-town, you can date all the hot supermodels you could possible want. So make sure you pick up an application on your way out…then take the bus to Cleveland.”
“Cleveland?” I asked.
“Well,” he grinned, “That’s where the back of the line is.”
Gulyas (Hungary)
“Gulyas” means cattle- or sheep-herder in Hungarian. This hearty soup has traditional roots in the foods prepared by rustic herders, long ago. Serve the soup in bowls topped with sour cream.
Wipe beef with damp cloth; cut into 1-inch cubes. Place oil in Dutch oven. Add beef; brown well on all sides. Remove from pan with slotted spoon; set aside.
Add onions and garlic to pan; cook 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add paprika, cayenne, stock, the 2 cups water, caraway, marjoram, salt, pepper and meat. Stir well. Bring to boil over moderate heat. Reduce heat to low; cook, covered, 45 minutes.
Add tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and peppers. Stir well; return to boil. Cover; cook 30 minutes.
Combine flour and the 2 tablespoons water; stir to form smooth paste. Add slowly to soup, stirring well. Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened. Drop Csipetke (noodle/dumplings) into soup before serving, if desired.
I have a friend from my graduate days. A quiet, gentle, unassuming guy, with a permanent smile on his face. I never saw him agitated. Or elated. He took everything as it came – the good and the bad.
Being academically average, the both of us started our MBA prep in the third year. Attended the same classes in our fourth. During the mid of the year, I relocated to Bangalore for a 6 month internship, he stayed back at campus. He always aced his mock tests, but, unfortunately, just a few months prior to D-Day, his father passed away. He didn’t do as well in the actual exam as he could have. Consequently, he couldn’t make it to a good college.
Now being the sole earner in the family, he took up the best offer at hand. A mass recruiter paying around 3–3.25 lpa and resumed prep for the next year’s exam. He didn’t make it this time either. Not one to get disheartened, he tried again the following year. They say “third time’s a charm”, and it was for him.
He got into one of the best MBA colleges in the country, worked hard for another 2 years, and graduated with honors (top 5% of the batch). Landed himself a cushy job with a boutique trading firm making 10x of what he was.
During all of these years, I never heard him rant about his rotten luck. Or bitch about his problems. Or complain about the unfair advantage that the rich and powerful have. He just kept his head down and kept working with what he had (talent) and what was handed to him (luck).
So, “what is the single most underrated trait a person can have”?
Freshman year I was living in the dorms. I was living in the cheapest dorms on campus, so it was me and a roommate living with 30 other girls with two communal bathrooms on the 11th floor.
I was on that unlimited meal plan flow, and the freshman 15 had become a reality. I decided it was time to go on a health kick.
I had an (illegal) crockpot in my dorm. One of these bad boys.
I bought myself some fish (I think it was tilapia), rice, and broccoli.
I threw it all in that crockpot with some vegetable broth, turned it on, and went to the gym.
I stayed at the gym for 3 hours, then got some food afterwards for a total of four hours.
I returned to my dorm and got on the elevator.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, a stench of fish attacked my nostrils. It permeated every corner of the 11th floor.
I knew immediately I had made a big mistake.
My RA was searching every inch of our floor for the source of the smell. Girls were out in the halls spraying Febreze. People were speculating that some girl on our floor was having major lady problems.
I waited until my RA was no longer in sight of my room. I opened my door. The stench of fish almost made me pass out, it was so strong.
I ran and turned my crockpot off and bagged all the fish up and put it in my refrigerator. No one could know it was me.
I was lucky that my roommate went out of town that weekend so she didn’t have to know about it.
Since I didn’t have a sink in my room, I’d have to wash the Crockpot out in the public bathroom, which was a high risk situation of me getting caught.
I first decided to soak it with dish soap and water which I carried in a water bottle from the sink to my room.
Then, when it had soaked, I took it to the shower so I could wash it behind a curtain to lower the risk of anyone seeing me.
I disposed of all of the evidence before my roommate came back.
Our entire floor smelled like fish for four days. It was bad.
By the time my roommate came back, I had done my best to air out our room and febreze everything.
However, every fabric held a slight smell of fish. All of her and my clothes, our bedspreads, and our carpet had a small stench.
She would notice that her clothes smelled like fish every once in a while and she’d say “How did this happen? Do your clothes smell like fish too?”
I’d be like “Yeah, that is so weird. It’s probably the water here.”
I was successful, no one ever found out that the source of the fish stench was me and my crockpot until years later, when I willingly told some of my friends. (Which they now never let me forget)
But I learned an important lesson that day, one that all college freshman should follow:
My first husband passed away in January, 2001. My daughter was 16 at the time, in 10th grade. I permitted her to take a week and a half off to grieve, but getting homework assignments from her teachers.. When she returned to school, her history teacher told her that she had a report due that day. She had not been made aware of the assignment, as the teacher had only given it a week prior. The teacher told her. “ Well, you should have been here when it was assigned. “ She told her that her father’s death was not a good enough excuse for missing class. She came home in tears. I called the school the next day and spoke with the principal. He agreed that the teacher had been out of line. The teacher was made to apologise to her in front of the class, and was written up for being insensitive. I asked the principal if I could schedule a grief instructional seminar for the staff, and he agreed. The seminars still happen every year. I also spearheaded a grief counseling group, headed by a wonderful hospice nurse. It still exists today in that school. Not really policy changes, but changes nevertheless.
I am not a surgeon but a Trauma Nurse. But I did have an interesting case.
One night shift an elderly man, 80’s, comes in complaining of abdominal pain. We started an IV, sent blood to the lab to see if he had an elevated white cell count which would point to appendicitis.
On physical examination he had a scar from a previous appendectomy, a soft abdomen, no reflex on palpitation, but a hard, firm mass about the level of his navel to pubis. So we sent him off for an X-Ray of his abdomen.
On return from X-Ray the tech put the films on the viewer and left without a word. When I looked up there, as big as life was a 1 liter Thermos sitting just past his rectum in his large intestine.
I informed him that he was going to be admitted for removal of a foreign object when the OR opened the next day. He asked if I would call his wife to tell her he was being admitted.
When I informed her that we needed to keep him overnight she stated, “Not that thermose again is it? Well you tell him he can take a taxi home because I ain’t picking him up again.”
I had always worn el cheapo suits, just something to look professional at work. But my girlfriend thought I should get a once in a life time, show off suit, as I was in the fittest shape of my life. So we went to Holt Renfrew to buy a suit, I was thinking Armani because it sounds impressive, but really I just wanted a suit that made me look good. No one was rude or anything, but no one approached me as I was browsing. I just got the vibe, that I wasn’t welcome.
I went next door to Harry Rosen, and as soon as I started browsing, I was approached, and asked if I would like a cappuccino while we picked out a suit. I was hooked, it might be a gimmick, but it made me feel special. They showed me that a Canali looked better on me, than the Armani, and suited my physique better. They asked if I wanted the name, or the look. Because no one would know that it was an Armani if I didn’t name drop.
I took the Canali. After it was fitted and adjusted, I went back to Holt Renfrew to compare prices, while wearing my new suit, shirt, tie and shoes.
I had someone asking if they could help me in seconds.
Maybe the first time everyone was busy at Holt Renfrew, but after that I bought a lot at Harry Rosens. Nothing as expensive as that suit, but nice clothes.
It will speed up China’s ascendency and swiftly destroy the U.S. economy. Over time the U.S. will implode and break up into 5–6 different nation. It will start a class war in the U.S. and polarise the U.S. as never before.
But heck, ignore my advise and do it anyway! Trump is very smart he will say all what you and for, but do 1% and fool all of you while he enjoys popularity! Biden is not too clever he will do 10% and screwed up the U.S. and spend the rest of his term negotiating with China! He get screwed from left and right.
Chinese will do precisely what the U.S. do but it hurts you ten times harder!
This happened to my wife. She interviewed for a position, she nailed a software testing interview to a point where some interviewers in the interview panel said after the interview, it would be a crime if this company did not pick her.
She was obviously over joyed and waiting for the offer. The offer did come 2 days later; she stated her current compensation and they agreed they would give at least 5 K more.
2 days later the company came back with close to 20K less than her current compensation saying that the company’s CEO said that the job and the person who interviewed for the job did not deserve such a high compensation and that since the office locality was already closer to her place the company was doing her a huge favor already.
My wife politely declined the offer saying she was happy with her current job( which she was except for the commute) and she said she would join the company if they offer her the same compensation. The recruiter went back to the CEO and after 2 days of serious discussions with CEO, the recruiter came back excitedly and said the company was willing to offer 5 K more than their previous offer( which was still 15K lesser than the previous offer ). My wife was amused by the recruiter’s excitement and said it was lesser than her current compensation and declined the offer.
At this moment the recruiter should have left it like that and moved on. But she suggested that my wife was lying about her total compensation and that the position did not entail such an high pay in the current job market. This came after the recruiter accepted my wife’s initial proposition and after one of the interview panelist stated that my wife had done the interview really well.
Till this moment we were actually in a dilemma because the commute was really frustrating( 2 hours one way commute), after this discussion my wife made her mind to stick with her current job and try for a different job later.
My wife got a better paying job 1 month later within 5 mile radius. One of the panelist in that interview became family friend and said they were still looking for someone to fill that position( after close to two months) and that the CEO suggested that he would actually reach out to my wife again with a better TC.
The Confederacy was a midget taking on a giant. It trailed the Union in population, manufacturing, economic might, transportation networks and available capital. It was a miracle it held on as long as it did.
Let’s start with population. At the start of the war, the population of the Union states was about 22 million. The entire population of the Confederacy was about 9 million, but 3.5 million of those were slaves. As a result, during the war, the Union raised 2 million troops. The Confederacy raised fewer than 1 million.
Similarly, the GNP of the Union states was about three times that of the Confederate states, and most of the Union GNP was manufactured goods even though the Union had triple the arable land. The Union had five times as many factories as the Confederacy, and most Confederate factories were focused on agricultural processing.
The Union had two and a half times more railway mileage than the South, and it was better connected. Most southern railways just ran to the coast.
Not long into the war, the Confederacy had practically no gold, and thanks to Union blockades, had trouble exporting goods to raise more. Both sides printed currency, and although the Union currency wasn’t popular, the Confederate currency pretty much quickly became worthless.
The Confederacy knew it couldn’t defeat the Union. It’s only hope was that the Union would tire of the war and sue for peace. However, the Confederacy, despite a couple of really competent generals, couldn’t form a strategy that would force the Union to the bargaining table. Yes, Union attacks at the heart of the Confederacy were generally unsuccessful, but on the Mississippi the Union pretty much won every battle and managed to stop Confederate trade dead in its tracks.
Well not many besides people I went to school with and my parents know this story but I figure what the hell! It’s a long one just a warning. I was bullied all through out my grade school and middle school years. I was a chubby over weight girl and far bigger then most of my fellow school mates.
It started with the usual name calling and pushes in the hallway, but it eventually got much much worse. My worst experience would have to be in 8th grade, when one of the boys I had a crush on pretty much the most popular boy in the school, was coaxed by a group of girls to “Ask me out”. Me being the dumb kid I was thought he was being genuine.
He asked if I would go to the school year end dance with him. I was excited I made my mom buy me a new outfit and I had my hair professionally done basically went all out. Well (now this is where it gets hard for me to talk about) I got to the dance and hooked up with a few friend waiting for my “date” to arrive I was so happy and excited.
He showed up and asked me if I wanted to dance. We danced not to a slow song or anything but danced together. Then the girls showed up. These girls were some of the meanest bitches on earth I swear. They came to the dance floor and well they were being nice.
Complimenting me on my outfit and hair saying how lucky I was to snag the hottest guy in school. Well my date then asked if I wanted to go sit on the bleachers for awhile and talk. I went sat down and we started talking and it was like everyone melted away. He then asked to be excused and one of the girls came up and asked if I would go with her to the washroom so we could “fix our make-up”. I walked into the washroom and there were at least 8 girls in there.
They grabbed my hair and ripped me down to the ground they literally ripped all my clothing off. I mean everything and dragged me by my hair out of the washroom one of the three girls stood by the back entrance so I couldn’t get out that way and one other girl locked the bathroom door from the inside so I couldn’t run there. Then my “date” came around the corner said I was a disgusting whale and he would never date someone like me he then grabbed my hair and two other girls grabbed my arms and they dragged me out into the gym dropped me and took off as teachers came running. Two other girls snapped pictures before taking off as well.
so there I was on the gym floor in front of 150 students..teachers and parents…naked..beaten up and crying. If that wasn’t enough one of the girls who snapped a picture of me. Had it developed and used a photo copier and posted the pictures all over the school on the last day. None of the kids involved were ever punished as the princible said ” It’s the end of the year none of these kids will be coming back here anyways”, What they did to me was wrong but I grew from it and I swore come high school I was not going to be some victim.
I joined the football team the first day as the first female linebacker ever and I kicked ass for 3 seasons. I was pretty popular I had tones of friends and even though I was popular I NEVER EVER put anyone else down.
Oh and over the summer I ran into my “date” I went up to him called him a fucking loser and kicked him as hard as I could in the balls.
He moved away…Two of the head girls who did me the most damage I went to high school with….as popular as they were in middle school they were shit in high school one is now a meth head..The other is on welfare with 4 kids!
Our daughter has taken after her mother in that regard.
My daughter was on her way to her office after a lunch with me, waiting for the elevator and a man (30–40s) came along. Made a bit of small talk, and then out of nowhere, he said and I quote what my daughter said “You don’t really have to work. Just show off those knockers to a rich daddy who’ll take care of you and those things”.
When he cleared three interviews (technical, informal, different teams + hiring manager), he was face to face with my daughter, who was the HR boss. She just played the video she got from security from the elevator.
He had to be escorted off, coz he wouldn’t stop accusing her of torpedoing him and turn to begging and than back to accusing.
Needless to say, his career in consulting for retail isn’t going anywhere and my daughter made sure every big employer in the narrow field knows about that man.
I was a proud daddy that week, and you couldn’t do anything to take off the smile off my face.
But the western world will seek the extermination of Chinese.
The western world already wants to exterminate us. Note how the Chinese exclusion acts are being made law in the US right now. Not just Chinese citizens. US born Chinese. Most westerners welcome such laws.
But the Chinese economy will COLLAPSE
But isn’t the Chinese economy ALREADY collapsing?
If anything a massive super heavy casualty war is desirable. Taipei turned into Gaza is desirable… what’s that? Ah yes you’re already sanctioning and accusing us of genocide. So what you gonna do? Sanction us again?
In short anything you can do to us, you’ve already done.
What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
I was eight seconds late getting back from my break. I got wrote up for being late. EIGHT SECONDS.
I usually worked through my breaks and part of my lunch because I just liked doing what I was doing without interruption. (My bosses knew this, too.) But for some reason, on that day, I did take my allotted break, and was late.
After being disciplined for my tardiness, I took every single break, every single time. Right down to the last second. I didn’t work nearly as “hard” as I did previously, either. (I like the t’s crossed, and the i’s dotted. That evaporated. My work was still accurate, but I didn’t go the extra mile.) My employer lost a lot for that eight seconds. However, the most valuable thing that was lost was the respect I used to have for my job and boss.
I was a big and athletic kid but I also moved a lot when I was in elementary school. Each time we moved I had to prove myself all over again.
Being the “new kid” meant that I was bullied by all sorts of kids from all sorts of groups, at least until I fought back.
And I learned to fight back pretty quickly. You don’t really have to win all your fights, you just have to prove that you’re willing to fight. That’s the key. And that you won’t back down.
I particularly had a tough time moving from St. Pete, Florida, to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1980 between 6th and 7th grade.
St. Pete was awesome. We lived on the water in a great community. We had power boats and sail boats and I had lived there for a couple of years so I had a bunch of friends (Little League and Pop Warner).
No offense intended but the suburbs west of St. Louis sucked in comparison.
Anyhow, as a 7th grader I went to South Senior High School which had grades 7 through 12. My first week there I got into a scrap with some kid and did pretty good. The problem was that he had an older brother, a freshman, who later cornered me when I wasn’t expecting it and gave me a bit of a whooping.
I was so disappointed in myself that I decided to fight the older brother again. So the next day I ran up and basically tackled him in front of all of his friends and fought him until teachers broke it up. I didn’t win but I sure as hell didn’t lose.
But that was enough. Nobody messed with me the rest of that year. Attacking a high school kid got me a lot of street cred with the kids in 7th grade. I was suspended for a couple of days but my Dad was old school so he was proud of me for sticking up for myself.
But then we moved from St. Louis to the East Bay of San Francisco between 7th and 8th grade and I had to do the same thing all over again.
I had a business trip to Las Vegas some years ago. I was traveling with a friend, who frequented LV to gamble several times a year. He suggested we play craps and gave me a book on how it is played.
When we got to the tables, he carefully selected a table, based on the laughing and sport the players were having. His comment: play with people who are having fun. I was next to a guy who had at least $5K in chips. I had my measly $200. As play progressed, my slot had increased to about $400 and I felt great. The guy beside me had at least $25K in his. Then, we all crapped out. I was down to about $300 total, with $100 more than I started with. My friend insisted we leave the table and go for a walk and get a cup of coffee.
We took a walk, had a coffee, etc. My friend told me we’d stop by that table in about an hour and find the same $25K guy playing. We did come back and he had less than $2K in his slot. He had lost over $20K while we walked. My friend told me that many people gamble and do not stop until they lose everything they brought. This was an interesting lesson for me. Gambling can be fun, but one must limit the loss.
Every living creature has an anus: Ants, horses, eagles . . . And us. While most creatures’ anuses do their jobs with little fuss, not so with human beings. The design of our anus is Providence’s little joke to keep us humble.
Consider, for example, the horse. We live across from a horse breeding establishment so I’ve had ample opportunity to observe these estimable animals in action. While they shit copiously they never get any on their hair (when was the last time you saw a horse’s behind fouled by its own waste?). The reason for this lies in the design of the horse anus. It is an extensible device that, when a BM is about to pass, protrudes a few critical inches, allowing the manure to drop straight to the ground without mussing a single hair. To further forfend fouling, there is no hair in the immediate vicinity of the horse’s anus, nor on the extensible process itself. What a remarkable design.
Not so with us. Our small orifice is buried deep in a meaty cleft, the margins of which have to be spread to their limit if there is to be any chance the thicket of long, nasty hair in the cleft will not be fouled by the passing of stool — a vain exercise in 99 cases out of 100. Moreover, while the horse can defaecate while standing, just let a human being try that! No we must squat. But not only squat, we must go through all sorts of contortions to minimize the amount of feces that will cling to the surrounding parts — which, as we all know, is another futile exercise.
To accommodate our flawed design, we are taught from birth to use wads of paper, magazine pages, dried corncobs and even stones, to wipe our filthy behinds. And this we must do! If we did not wipe, we would reek of dung from the cake of dingleberries between our cheeks and our pants, skirts, caftans and burkas, would be fouled with nicotine stains and clouds of flies would follow us down the street like goslings.
I worked in a high tech company and moved up the ladder from bottom level CSR to a business manager overseeing a 60 million dollar product line by the age of 30. I was the best in the world at what I did but I had two huge strikes against me. One was my absolutely shitty attitude. I have written about attitude before. You must always have a great attitude, even if you have to fake it. No single thing is more important to your success in life than your attitude. But mine sucked. The second thing that worked against me was that in many companies, no matter where you are or how good you are, many people will see the guy who started at the bottom. In the eyes of Management, I was the customer support lackey who fixed broken things for them, not the guy making them 60 million dollars a year. There was a distinct lack of respect and that contributed to my bad attitude.
A new manager was hired for the department. He was an angry, mean jerk whose approach to everything was “shoot first ask questions maybe – they don’t deserve your consideration anyway.” I could no longer take the contempt and I quit.
A few months after I left the company began to realize its loss. I am not bragging about myself here. I did good work and I was the best at what I did. I designed the products. I knew absolutely everything about them. I was the sales troubleshooter who went on hundreds of sales calls per year. I knew every weak link in the competition. I knew how to present the product in the best light. I could give stellar presentations to huge audiences. I was making them a lot of money.
So they approached me at my new job and said they wanted me to come back. Everyone wanted me to come back except for that new asshole who had been, and would be my manager. He had been tasked with bringing me back but he didn’t want me back. I outshone him at every level. I could do his job in my sleep. But he was the guy they tasked with bringing me back. So he asked me to dinner.
When you’re going to bring someone back and you ask them to dinner you don’t take them to McDonald’s to make your pitch. We were suit and tie guys and wearing a suit and tie at McDonald’s was a surreal experience. I let it go. I wanted to hear the offer.
And so Greg made the offer. They offered me the exact same money I was making at my new company and that was it. No bonus. No extra stock. No retained seniority or vacation time. He was going through the motions because he was told to go through the motions. But his entire attitude was resentment and anger. For a few minutes I thought I was misunderstanding him; the offer was so lame as to be not even worth the time at McDonald’s. I had to ask for clarification.
He looked at me with contempt and said, “That company you’re at now is going down. We can offer you any terms we want and you’ll take it because you don’t want to be part of a sinking ship.” I might add that my old company that was trying to get me back was also doing a fair imitation of the Titanic at the time, too. I was absolutely stunned when he said it. I couldn’t believe it. So I laughed a little bit, got up and left.
That was a slap in the face offer.
I told a few old friends at my old company what had happened and it got back to the President. He called me personally on the phone and invited me to dinner. It was at a four star restaurant. When I got there he asked me what happened. I told him. He apologized. He said if I came back they would make it worth my while. I asked him if that guy would be my boss. He said yes, there was not much he could do about that. So I thanked him and said no. We ate and talked and then I left.
Two years later my old company was being sold to Compaq Computer on the back of a product I had designed years earlier. Even though I had been gone for two years, I was credited in a speech by the President for the work that made them successful in the sale. By then I was the senior manager in the department of my new company making much, much more money than I ever dreamed possible. I attribute my success in the new company to my new and improved attitude because attitude is everything.
I was in the infantry in 1969, we were at a small, one-company firebase in the Mekong Delta. The Army did not “allow” drug use among its soldiers but it happened anyway. A guy who bunked across from me openly shot heroin. This obviously wasn’t sanctioned by the military. One night when we had set up a standard L-shaped ambush, this fellow decided he wanted to go home and walked right out into the middle of the ambush. Fortunately, nobody clicked a Claymore handle and he was retrieved safely. But the safety of an entire platoon had been compromised.
The very next night two VC walked right through the middle of our ambush site and nobody opened fire or set off a Claymore. We weren’t certain it wasn’t our drug-addicted soldier trying to head home again.
As for alcohol, all we had was beer when the little beer window was open. Pabst, aka rat piss, was 25¢ and the much-preferred Black Label was 35¢, and we sometimes had Bud. There was no hard liquor because there was no PX from which to purchase it. I never saw marijuana use but I’m sure it was widespread in other companies. Heroin was the problem.
So I suspect the next question would be: Why wasn’t this reported to the higher ups? Well, soldiers learned to be remarkably tolerant of their fellow GI’s. There was no upside to creating problems in the platoon, too many opportunities to become a victim of “friendly fire” on a dark night in the boonies. One soldier, on rare stand down days, played “Black Pearl, Precious Little Girl” endlessly on a 45 rpm player and nobody complained.
In summary, the Army allowed drinking because soldiers have consumed alcohol since, well, forever. Drug use was not allowed but it happened anyway, and this was well before the advent of drug testing. Everyone was trying to figure out his own way to get back home safely and the solutions were never that simple.
I worked for my best friend and he got into a bad motorcycle accident he was in coma and had to learn to walk and talk again so I took over doing everything for the company I worked 16 hr days 7 days a week for a year never asked for anything just wanted my friend to have everything he has before the accident. so after a little more than year he was back at work so I asked for a day off he said no he wife didn’t stick up for me or anyone in his family and they all knew what I did for him so I told him I quit he said fine so I went to our 3 big company’s we did work for and asked them if they wanted to learn what we did for them and I told them what my boss did that night we went out bought 3 trucks and I trained them how to do what we did my boss lost over a 1,000,000 because of losing those company’s work and then list his wife and everything he owned because what I did by taking those company’s away
My high school crush was a beautiful girl named Adrian, a year behind me, and it seems I was the only person in the school who had ever seen Rocky and got the ‘Adriaaaaaaaaaaaaaan’ joke she kept making.
She was maybe 5 foot 4, adorable, and had a propensity for sitting in my lap in the lunchroom and stealing my food (I made my own lunch through most of high school).
She also ended up dating a guy who was, to be fair, scum. He had that ‘bad boy’ charm that young women seem to enjoy, I suppose, but he was borderline retarded and generally violent.
One day in 2014, I was sitting around bored and decided to reconnect with people from high school. Would not recommend.
I found her Facebook page, and noticed that literally nothing had been done to it in years.
Then I found her obituary, and his about a month later.
I talked to someone from her circle of close friends in high school, and it sounded like when she graduated, they moved in together. She was bound for great things, musically and mathematically talented, and he was bound to wind up in the gutter.
Sadly, it sounds like he dragged her down, talked her into ‘experimenting’ with drugs, and both died of heroin overdoses.
A Student at Tsinghua asked Ren Zhengfei of Huawei this question
Everyone says China steals from the west. What should we do when someone says that
Zhengfei replied
Keep Innovating. Only the day you become more innovative than them and beat the West on their own terms, would you be in a position to convince yourself that you did not copy from anyone.
That’s your answer
Stealing can only take you so far
So wait and see how China does and then we decide whether China steals or innovates
Unless of course you are the fox who finds the grapes sour
Debate many westerners for a short period of time, what happens? Many of them will turn to racism and dehumanisation when they start losing the debate.
Yesterday for instance somebody posted a comment on the atrocities of Britain against India. He called the atrocities fiction.
I provided counter evidence and he started to dehumanise me and said it was all CCP propaganda.
Except I had been using WESTERN SOURCES.
He couldn’t respond to that so continued to make racist comments at me. They of course don’t see this as racist, much like war crimes against brown people are considered OK because they’re not really people!
You see television and culture of western countries makes them usually white people think they are the master race, that’s why there’s so many self hating Asians in the western world. They’re taught conditioned and trained that whiteness is GODLINESS and many of the people there run with it, as such they feel they can do no wrong, they are the BEST and only humans possible!
I’m in my second week of at home suspension for striking a teacher. He locked me in a classroom and attempted to assault me when I wouldn’t consent to his advances on 14 year old me. The knock on the door was a deputy that served legal papers in our little town. The papers he served me was a summons to court for legal action pertaining to expenses incurred from point there after. I’m being sued by this teacher. My dad exploded, that jerk has bigger problems than money, just wait I don’t care if he’s in a courtroom. OMG I was saying daddy calm down a lot, I only call my dad “daddy” when I need him to calm down and focus on me so he doesn’t get into trouble or worse. The day of court arrived and there stands Mr Smug in his neck brace, bandaged nose, and black eye. I am holding my dad by both hands, telling him to look at me, please I don’t want you in jail dad. It doesn’t help that I’m shaking and I’m sure dad can feel it. Then the judge starts reading the case notes, Mr Smug is suing one Miss Key for medical expenses incurred during an altercation that resulted in a fractured nose, two chipped teeth, severe painful swelling in the groin, blurry vision, slight concussion, and upper neck pain. So young lady how do you plead? I asked the judge if I could present my papers (please don’t laugh we couldn’t afford a lawyer). He accepts my papers which are the affidavits from the custodian, vice principal and teacher (the witnesses that pulled me off of Mr Smug), the arresting deputy, and the school nurse that treated me before my dad arrived. His whole demeanor changed. WTH?! You mean to tell me that you are suing this girl because she kicked your but during an assault? His lawyer started trying to make an argument about me being malicious, and over bearing about defending myself. The judge told him to shut up, in what world does a 30 year old man believe he has a case against a 14 year old child that he is attempting to assault? Lawyer sets in with that is just allegations and hear-say, there’s no proof. I didn’t ask you lawyer I asked your client because as it stands this is the stupidest case I’ve ever heard of. In fact it’s so stupid that I’m dismissing it without prejudice, on grounds of incomprehension and competence. And might I extend my gratitude to you Mr Key for raising an able and resourceful young lady.
Hunter’s Stew (Bigos — Poland)
Ingredients
6 pounds canned sauerkraut
1/4 pound bacon or salt pork, diced
3 large onions, chopped
3 tart apples, peeled and chopped
2 cups beef broth
1 cup sherry or dry red wine
Salt, pepper, sugar, to taste
3 pounds smoked sausage, sliced
1 bay leaf
Instructions
Rinse sauerkraut in cold water and squeeze out juice well, reserving some of the juice. Put sauerkraut in large kettle over low heat.
Meanwhile, render the bacon or salt pork. Add bacon bits to sauerkraut.
Sauté onions in bacon fat until golden; add chopped apples and cook until slightly browned. Add all to the kettle. Add sausage. Add enough beef broth, bay leaf, salt, pepper, a little sugar and some of the sauerkraut juice for tartness. Simmer slowly for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Add wine and let stew bubble up. Cover and let stand until ready to use.
I went on an interview for a job I was grossly overqualified for, but I was unemployed (to finish my degree, which required internships), then the sequester hit when I graduated, and I needed ANY job so I could find one that was a better fit.
The boss told me the job paid $28 to $30. I was shocked, because that was extremely low, but they hired desperate people and they could smell it.
I then went through the interview process with the team lead and the office manager. Everything went well, and I headed home. It was a long drive, but that’s where business opportunity was.
While driving, I took a call from the office manager. She has been authorized to offer me the job at $10/hour. I did not laugh. I said “that is significantly lower than (boss) indicated the position paid.” Manager says, ‘you didn’t think $28 to $30 meant per hour, I’m sure? (Of course not, but the position SHOULD have paid much closer to that). $10/hour is the same as $28 to $30 thousand.’
I’m driving down the highway at 75 miles per hour, and very calmly said, no, I knew that was the annual salary. But $10/hour is $400 per week, at 52 weeks per year is $20,800 per year. and I did NOT say “if i can do the math in my head while driving, i’m pretty sure you can do it at your desk with a calculator at your disposal!”
Manager says “I can go check with (boss) to confirm – do you want to hold?”
I said “no, you were going to send me an offer letter? Why don’t you tell me about the benefits you mentioned, and when you send the letter you can make sure the figure is correct.”
An offer letter was not one this company typically provided because they liked to bait and switch – pay $8/hour when they’d offered $12, because you had no proof. I learned this later, and was SO glad I’d gotten a letter. When it came in, it was for the $28k figure.
My three-month review never happened, and at five months I had a nice offer from a much better company and I’m still there 5 years later. Making what I’m worth.
Sometimes you have to accept a slap in the face, but don’t let them step on your neck while they’re doing it.
Def-Con 4 (1985)
I remember this one. A cheesy B-grade movie, but I well remember enjoying it. You all have fun.
It is strange that the contemporaneous things going on today Geo-politically is much worse than what is described in this movie. Ugh!
Full Movie! Please watch the first 25 minutes. It’s all gold.
When I was in 8th grade, a classmate along with my sister tore up a painting that I had spent three months working on.
Her name was Rita.
High School / Middle School head games.
But it was cruel. I spent a long time to make that artwork so that it would be displayed in a art fair. And then with pride, the day before the event, I proudly saw it hung on the wall in the fair… located in the High School gym.
But that night, they came in from Cheerleader practice. Got in the gym. Took my picture off the wall. And then carried to school the next day.
My picture wasn’t entered in the fair. It was missing.
When I went into my “home room” the next day, Rita and my sister came up to me, and the class and right before me tore my precious artwork into a million pieces and threw them in my face. Like confetti.
I was in shock.
The class laughed.
The teacher did nothing.
And (later on when I was at home) my mother told me that I “shouldn’t get angry over it”. Just move on she argued. While my father told me “you are the oldest … you have to take the hits”.
…
Who in the fuck convinced me to accept this God Damn life? What the Hell?
The other countries are sanction and embargo proof their economies. From keeping it’s reserves in non western banks to digitising their currencies, to trading via currency swap arrangement, or paying by other currencies than the dollar and U.S. cronies currencies. Sanctions will be totally a thing of the past within a decade at most.
The world is already broken into 2 groups now. One are US, it’s slave vassal nations, the U.S. fellow native slaughterers, the U.S. fellow despicable colonial masters, the few tiny nations around Europe that has be coerce to do shit for the west. This group is less than 2 dozen nation or you can say the minority group. It’s GDP as a group is also coming to 40% and falling fast of the world and in population less than 13%.
The majority group is call the Global South. It include most of Asia, Latin America and Oceania, and all of Middle East, Central Asia and the Caribbean. These nations add up to. At least 175 out of the world’s 195 nations. Or 87% of the world, 60% of the world’s GDP and growing fast and probably 90% or real purchasing power PPP on planet earth.
The first group either has no choice or succumbed to threat by the U.S to support and defend the western so call rules base international order. And sink and swim in it. The second group through the BRICS and SCO will successfully withdraw from the rules based international order but by bit.
Try to imagine a balloon. If you prick it with a pin the balloon will burst and if flies off and the air inside the balloon is gone for good. Now try imagining that the air is the wealth and reserves trapped in side the balloon. This 2nd group is sucking up its air but by bit, little by little till what is left belongs to the 1st group. By that time in a decade or so what will be left is a balloon that is at least half its size.
So within a decade U.S. dollars, SWIFT, Western Institutions, Western Systems, western rating agencies, western exchanges, world bank, IMF and many others that together represent the world order will still be there but only serve the west. The U.S. wants decoupling, the U.S. is getting it. The world is decoupling from the west.
Welcome to the new world.
Mind Virus
Women want Leaders. But the current 20-something group of women do not want to take the follower role. Thus they can never fit with the men that they desire.
I remember a lovely patient who had a very swollen abdomen due to ascites, a complication of cirrhosis of the liver.
Every day in the hospital, I would hang a bag of albumin and chat as I drained fluid from the swollen belly. This was in the day when liver transplants were rare and not for people who had developed cirrhosis from alcohol use.
When it was time for the patient to leave, I was given a very expensive bottle of red wine. I think it came from the patient’s extensive collection of wines. The family was wealthy. We both knew that the cirrhosis was not cureable. I wondered if all the wine was given away before the patient passed. The patient had a wistful smile and explained a bit about the wine that could never again be tasted. I was young and did not know anything about fine wines.
My husband and I shared the wine on our anniversary when we were interns.
Sometimes it is the things we love the most that cause us the greatest pain.
I am a welder with a specific set of specialized skills as an ironworker. I earned about $35 an hour on the lower end with my last job in the union. Im the guy walking on ibeams on skyscrappers hanging off the side welding moment welds. One company wanted to pay me less than McDonald’s to weld.
Recently, however, I have quit this line of work to make time for college. In doing so I was searching for lower paying but more reasonable hours and location. Going to work at the same place for 40 hours a week was my plan. I was having trouble doing this since most companies are wanting me to work lots of overtime.
One day I had scheduled an interview for a job which said I wouldn’t be asked to work over 40 hours a week and it was relatively close to my home. Inquiring about the pay they just said it depended on my skills but it would be very good. I didn’t press further for detsils. On interview weld test day I accidentally left much too early. Realizing I would be 45 minutes early I decided to stop for lunch at a McDonald’s. When I was there I noticed they were offering $22/hour for a maintenance position. I spoke with the manager about it but told them I could probably make more money welding in a shop.
I went to my interview and was asked to take a weld test that took about 2 hours. At the end of the weld test one of the managers took me to a table in the office and saw I was asking for $28 an hour, really I was hoping for closer to $30. He told me the most he would be able to pay was 19 or maybe 20.
“I don’t appreciate all of my time you’ve wasted here, sir. The McDonald’s down the road pays better than this.”
I was quite pissed that I had just wasted well over 2 hours of my time with the drive there, back, and other things I did to prepare for that interview.
The shop welding jobs are paying an average of $25 an hour around here, so I’ll be working at McDonald’s until these cheap asses pay what it’s worth to weld. Why should I do a skilled job when McDonald’s pays nearly the same? I wish more welders would refuse to work for peanuts and maybe we could get some decent wages.
Of course, China have slavery like the US in … errr … emmm … yep … about 3,000 years ago, after Zhou Dynasty established in 1046 BC, Chinese slavery was ended.
Slaves made a great contributions in the war of Zhou rebels to overthrow the Shang Dynasty. In return, the first monarch of the Zhou Dynasty ordered the permanent abolition of slavery, and this order was maintain by all following Chinese dynasties, because that monarch is seen as saint and model of a virtuous ruler for all Chinese rulers, including barbarian born Chinese rulers. Even Mongolian emperors in Yuan dynasty would go to his tomb to worship him in every years, no need to mention others.
In the following 3000 years, although there were several barbarian born monarchs reintroducing slavery into China, but none of their regimes could survive over more than 50 years.
And strictly speaking, the Qing Dynasty had slavery, but their slavery was somewhat distorted because it only existed among the Manchus. The Manchu Eight Banners Army was actually a slave army, with soldiers and officers were actually slaves belongs to the banner lord. They fought in banner lords’ commanding for generations.
But the Manchus seem to regard this slave status as an honor, so you can see that when Manchus write letters to the emperor or their banner lord, they would call themselves something like “a humble slave greeting to my dear lord” in the beginning.
And when some Han favored officials of certain emperors also write like this, the emperor will directly reply to him, saying, “Please call yourself a vassal, you are my Han vassal, not my slaves in banner”.
So, for the Qing Dynasty, slaves in the Manchu system were more like hereditary family of attendants, who established a generational contract. Becoming slaves to the banner lord was not shameful for the Manchus, but rather an honor accepted and protected by banner lords, and all banner lords are royal members.
It was a letter from governer of Hu province and Guang province (This is a very big official position, ruling lands almost over two modern France), a Han official Yang ZongRen, to the YongZheng Emperor of Qing Dynasty, those black writting was Yang’s original writting, red one were the reply of the Emperor.
In this letter, Yang called himself “the slave”, and Yongzheng Emperor strike out that word, and changed it to “vassal”, and noted that “claiming to be a vassal” is more appropriate.
Of course, this is actually just a Han governor in flattering the emperor. The emperor himself was very happy on that, but still remembered to correct it for him, because it’s not appropriate.
oh … btw, about this letter, except the stroke and note in the right, the left red paragh is:
I am fine (reply the greeting of Yang), although you just arrived in this official position for no long, what you reported and what you did, has already pleased my wish, you are worthy of being a high-ranking governer, so today I leading civil service officials and military officials decided to award you xxxxxx (I don’t know how to translate this, you can think it’s some kind of medal), to recognize your excellent work.
Just let the person know politely. If they refuse to move or try to get you to do a seat swap, and if you don’t want, simply say no, I.dont want to trade seats, please get up. If the person won’t move, push the call button for the flight attendant. Do not move, or let anyone behind you get to their seat. The flight attendant will take care of it more quickly, if the boarding process, is at a stand still.
Happened to me once. I was treating myself to First Class. The First Class section had to rows on the left, but only onecrow on the right. Meaning, those seats were a window/aisle/and had no seat mate. I also, had, the last seat in the row so, nobody behind me. This group of six traveling together, got on first, and all wanted to sit together, took my seat.
The person in my seat redirected me to, a seat on the otherside of the plane, someone had the window seat already. I said, no, I’d like my seat please. They group looked at eachother, the guy in my seat, acted like he wasn’t budging. I didn’t let the people behind me go around me. The flight attendant immediately asked if everything was ok. I said, just waiting for him to get out of my seat, I asked nicely once already. She told him to move, and that he was holding up the boarding process.
You don’t have close friends just friends. Most of the people you are around, are only there because of circumstances not really related to you in anyway.
The sooner you start focusing and planning on your life goals the easier it will be achieving them.
One of the most important thing you can teach yourself during your 20’s is self discipline. This is the first thing we should learn and crave to achieve.
Life moves very fast, do things you enjoy at the moment cause our situations tend to also change as fast then we later feel like we missed out on somethings.
The more you expose yourself to the world around you, the more you expand your thinking horizons. Travel, socialize and live life don’t lock yourself out of these important things.
Learn to cook a variety of menu’s of proper home meals. Cooking is a very important skills much more as an adult.
You start using drugs as curiosity soon it becomes for fun later it becomes a dependency. The transition is so fast you barely realize it.
Learn about proper workout routines you can do to energize your body. You don’t have to do hard excercise even if its just yoga. Its more about something you can commit to that benefits you.
Reading and getting creative are ways to keep your brain sharp and generate new ideas. Make sure you read novels and try out the different forms of art around you.
Don’t be selfish in your 20’s, most of the things we hold on to are barely important in our 30’s. Stuff like money, food, material possessions. Learn to share cause these memories are the ones that we keep. Be real with every real person around you.
This takes me back a few years. The Philadelphia DA felt he caught “Streets” workers at extreme wage theft.
The city had gone through a series of bad snow storms requiring both city employees and contractors running snowplow on the streets for over a week.
A few months later the DA holds a press conference that a particular employee is being charged with felonies related to false time sheets (getting paid for time not worked). It might have been the soft kick-off to their campaign for mayor or governor — showing how they could fix problems like this.
In next day or two the employee is arraigned in court with lawyers from the union. The DA (usually an assistant associate low level attorney handles these hearings) give a speech about how it was not humanly possible for the employee to have worked the hours claimed (from memory: between 120 and 160 hours in a week) so they had to be sleeping on the job — “stealing from the taxpayers of our fine city, this just shows how the union abuses the city.”
Union attorney gets to say their piece. A few flowery words about clueless wealthy elected officials overreaching. Then the attorney drops the appropriate section of the contract (again: from old memory so not exact quote) “so long as any contractor truck is on the road performing snow removal and an employee is *available* for work, they shall be paid.”
This was exactly the situation covered by the contract. It was written that way so the city could bring in help for emergency-level snows but not outsource the employees.
A bit of evidence how the employee *worked* a lot of hours and then slept “on-site” (where they would normally pick up their truck) so they were clearly “available”.
The criminal case was thrown out. There may have been a $ settlement to the employee for false arrest and the DA’s political career petered out.
Beef and Mushroom Stew with Caraway Dumplings
Browning meat in the oven reduces the amount of fat needed for cooking. Serve with julienne parsnips and carrots.
Ingredients
Stew
1 1/2 pounds round or blade steak
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
Bouquet Garni*
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (if necessary)
1/2 pound small mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cups beef stock
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
* Tie together with kitchen twine 1 celery stalk with leaves, 3 or 4 sprigs parsley, 1 bay leaf and small sprig of thyme
Dumplings
1 cup soft fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup melted margarine or butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 egg white
Instructions
Stew: Cut steak into 1 1/2 inch cubes. In a bag, combine flour, pepper and salt. Add beef, a few pieces at a time, and shake to coat with flour mixture. Shake off excess and place meat on wire rack in flameproof casserole. Bake in 350 degree F oven for about 25 minutes or until browned. Meanwhile, prepare Bouquet Garni.
Set meat aside on platter.
Place casserole over medium heat. Only if necessary add all or part of the oil. Add mushrooms, cap side down, and cook until golden, transferring to platter as they brown.
Add onion and garlic; cook until onion is transparent. Add stock, wine and tomato paste; bring to a simmer, stirring and scraping bottom of casserole with wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits.
Return meat to pan; add Bouquet Garni. Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour or until meat is tender. Meanwhile prepare dumplings.
Dumplings: In a bowl, toss bread crumbs and melted margarine together with a fork. Combine flour, baking powder, caraway seeds and salt. Mix lightly into crumb mixture. Beat together egg and egg white; add to crumb mixture and mix lightly (mixture will be soft) shape into 8 balls of even size.
Remove Bouquet Garni and discard. While stew is simmering, add dumplings, cover and cook, without removing lid, for 18 minutes.
I had a scheduled interview for an OFFICE job! Up to that point I had been doing piecework sewing, processing chickens, and guarding slabs of foam rubber… This was a HUGE step up!
During the night before the interview, it snowed 4 inches in Baltimore. Now this is not that big a deal… except in Baltimore, it IS. Public transport did not run. Traffic was pretty sparse first thing in the work day… I decided to walk the 3 miles to the interview. I got there in plenty of time, changed my hiking boots for heels in the ladies’ room, and went to the office where the interview was to be held.
Nobody home.
A guy showed up and asked what I was doing standing in the hall. I explained I was there to interview as an accountant’s assistant. He asked how I got there. When I said I walked, he looked dubiously at my heels. He said, “In THOSE shoes?” I admitted my boots were in the ladies’ room. He asked to see the boots, so I went and got them. As soon as he saw that I really did have boots I was hired. I had not yet even entered the offices.
I always field strip my cigarettes and stick butts in my pocket. Yes, it smells disgusting.
I have a P38 on my keychain. This is a tiny can opener used to open cans of C-rations. It even gets used once in a while.
5. Take my hat off when going indoors. Because of this, I rarely wear a hat.
6. When a passenger in a vehicle, I act as “assistant driver.” I let driver know if it is clear or not on my side.
7. I act as a ground guide for people backing up. I will often ask people to ground guide me when I am backing up, often to their puzzlement. Of course, they do not know the correct hand signs to use and those I am helping often don’t understand the signs I give them.
8. I scan the side of roads more than necessary in the US. Not too many IEDs on our roads.
9. I say, “I got your back” or “Do you have my six?” too much.
10. I use the military phonetic alphabet. D is for Delta, not Dog.
11. I use the word “task” a lot.
12. I tend to try to help people with what the military calls hip pocket training. Many people find this annoying and would prefer to screw something up than get some quick pointers.
13. Finally, I learned to never put more than eight words on a power point slide because the Army puts hundreds of words on one slide. Along with this, I also learned to NEVER ask someone to read a power point slide with hundreds of words on it.
China would be burning a lot of bridges if they do and China is hesitant to do that
The West knows it’s dying and is thus ready to inflict every horror on it’s population
They are prepared to subject their population to everything from inflation to starvation knowing that they have tamed their population sufficiently through propaganda
They can cause China to lose quite a bit of money if they invade Taiwan and that could make a lot of Chinese unhappy and cause some strife within the country
Plus more importantly, China believe Taiwanese are their brothers and killing them is a no no because at least 30% Mainlanders have family in Taiwan
So that’s what’s stopping China
Otherwise if China decide that they don’t care, China can pulverize and decimate Taiwan into a graveyard overnight and nobody can do a thing to stop them without risking WWIII
Yep, my brother fell out of a Huey. He was in Nam and the radio went wild, with troops needing to be evacuated from a hot zone. He jumped in as the M-60 machine gunner. It was the first time he flew into a hot zone. His adrenaline was high. Because of that, he forgot to strap in. The Huey headed out over the paddies and couldn’t land because there was a nest of Charlies that needed to be taken out first. The pilot banked to the left super hard so my brother could shoot the 60 down at Charlie’s nest. The pilot banked too hard and my brother fell out right on top of two Charlies. The wind was knocked out of all three of them. My brother was the first to come to his senses, and realized he didn’t have a weapon. He looked around and found one of the Charlie’s AK and as they started to get up he blasted them both. Killed them dead, he did. The chopper picked the GIs up and then came back and rescued my brother. When he got back to the base, the pilot said, “That is the bravest thing I have ever seen, jumping unarmed out of a Huey, kill two gooks, and saved a squad. Boy I am going to put you in for a Silver Star.” My brother told him, “I fell out and was just trying to save my ass.” He still got the Star. Analyse and improvise. A motto to live by!
The first time a European owned company announced a round of layoffs in a month. I was the new guy in the group and figured I was disposable. The day of the announced layoffs I went into work wearing my “Gone With The Wind” tie.
When I was summoned to the boss’ office, my desk had been cleared of all personal effects. My pulled out a paper and made to read it. I stopped him and said, “I know I’m being laid off. What are the details?” Boss was rather startled and we started talking about it.
I told him that he had a good old boys club where engineers from headquarters would rotate in then return for a raise & promotion. U.S. employees were treated as second rate. Thanks for the layoff. I was pretty disappointed in the company.
When he asked how I knew that I would be laid off, I told him that the company had announced the layoffs a month earlier. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I was one of the newest people in the group and not part of the “club”. Of course I was the easiest to lay off.
I also told him that it was pretty stupid to announce the layoffs a month previous. Everyone quits working and it encourages mischief. Oh they hadn’t thought of that.
The bosses were gone within 3 months.
The other was a company where I was the entire engineering department. My boss & I were always at odds. He wanted to get rid of the product line. I’m sure the fact that his brother worked for a competitor had nothing to do with his decision.
The company staged an ambush layoff on January 2nd. Oh well, at least they didn’t screw up the holidays.
Although they offered $10k, I refused to sign their termination agreement and collected unemployment all through the covid lunacy. Made out like a bandit.
Why sex is important.
Men know this instinctively. Modern 20-something, 30-something women, are having trouble with this.
I was at home, having broken my foot in a stupid accident, when the head of HR was “in the area” and wanted to see me. After the pleasantries, she told me that I was being made redundant and my job no longer existed.
In the UK, firing someone is not easy or cheap. A company can find itself in court and it can all get a bit grubby. So a more usual tactic is to say that the employees job is no longer needed. Employers like this, because it saves it all getting public, legal and unpleasant, and employees like it because the employer has to pay to make it all go away.
So we negotiated a redundancy fee and the next day a car came with my personal things from my office. I trousered the (generous) cheque and picked up the phone.
The irony was that I had just had an exceptional year. I had won a load of creative awards (I was a creative director at Saatchi and Saatchi) including a Cannes Gold. I have no idea why they wanted me out. To this day I don’t know.
Two weeks later I signed a contract with a rival company for a bigger salary.
The local supermarket includes a hot table where they sell hot cooked chickens for $10.99 It’s a good deal – I’ll get one occasionally. It looks like this; if this is unfamiliar in your area:
The pack includes a cardboard handle for easy carrying.
One day, I noticed that whoever had labeled the latest batch of chickens had made a mistake. Instead of $10.99, they were labeled as $0.99. Cool! Cheap chicken! lol. Not really – I like the folks there and quickly let the lady in the meat line know. The chickens had only just come out; no loss to anyone.
Except – I was not the only one that had found it. A woman of – how do I say this – limited intelligence saw it and began screeching at the top of her lungs “Chicken for a buck! CHICKEN FOR A BUUUUUCK!!!” and began loading her cart.
The manager arrived right at that moment, apologized and began to correct the matter.
The woman went ballistic; screaming, shouting bloody blue murder, accusing him of stealing, of trying to starve her to death, etc. etc. etc. The price was 99 cents dammit, she deserved chicken for 99 cents!
The manager, in an effort to ease the situation, agreed. He told her that alright; she had ‘found’ the error; she could have a chicken for 99 cents.
There was a long pause as the woman looked dumbfounded. Then she launched herself at the table, screeching, trying to grab every chicken she could possibly get her hands on. Chickens were falling everywhere; spilling onto the floor. The manager tried to intervene but no help – she was grabbing, stuffing, howling; it was a disgusting display of a complete lack of dignity.
She was taken out of the store in handcuffs; without her 99 cent chicken. The entire batch of roast chicken was destroyed.
Of course I agree with you absolutely, and any person could see it unless you are in denial or made brain dead by the western media.
They offer consistency and continuity in their policies to investors and business yet the protect their citizens against the ills of raw capitalism. In other words Socialism with Chinese characteristics takes the best of both worlds and rejects the flaws of both systems.
Hence the growth of both economies of China and Vietnam both grow phenomenally and consistently. For decades and now generations through ups and downs of the economic cycle. Westerners scream democratic and freedom but ignores the fallacy of this costly, inefficient and mostly corrupt system that put their people at the mercy raw capitalism.
If you look at the U.S. for example, 1% have more money than they ever need, 10% are wasteful and selfish but can afford to live comfortably , while 70% are poorer than most advance economies and in fact are like the majority of Chinese except that the Americans has to bear the burden of it’s weaker purchasing power in their country. The majority of Chinese has high disposable income. And while Chinese cut out the destitute poor in the past 10 years, the U.S. raw capitalism allowed the 19% in Americans to have to worry where their next meal is coming from and they barely have 500 dollars to their name!
A government role in a society is surely to bring prosperity, peace and harmony and healthy living for everyone. From that count the Chinese population enjoys that. Western liberal democracy allows the rich to get richer and the poor to be destitute. But because they wrongly thinks they need to overlord the entire world, they barely have enough money left to pay for infrastructure, college education or healthcare. So they fail the poor and pamper the rich!
Are you surprised that according to western surveys, 91% of Chinese favour their government and 36% of Americans favour their government! I am not! Are you?
My son was given a car for his birthday. We bought it. It was nice little car that had been wrecked and was repaired and had a salvage title. That meant that a previous insurance carrier had totalled it following the wreck, and it had been repaired and state certified to be safe.
Anyway, he had been driving it for several months to school and to work after school. This one day he was in his way to work and came to a stop sign. Stopped, insured the traffic was clear and went to make a left turn. Older lady than him (he was 17, she was 36) had stopped at the opposite stop sign and gunned it, hitting my son’s car in the back quarter panel and rear door on the passenger side. He called me and I went to the scene. The accident was on state highway, inside city limits. I had the option to have the highway patrol called to work the accident, however I decided to just let the local police work it. I spoke with the lady and she was all apologetic and saying she’d take off it…yeah, right…
She took care it alright. She whines and said that it wasn’t her fault, that kid just stomped on the gas and caused the accident. They took her word for it. Even though you could about tell from my son’s damage that she caused the accident.
So the next day, my son is home in bed sick. I’ve medicated him and he’s sleeping. The phone rings, it’s the insurance adjuster from her insurance. Absolutely demands to speak with my son. I tell him no, that my son is sick, had been medicated and it’s sleeping, and that I won’t wake him. Adjuster didn’t like that and was insistent. Well he woke Mama Bear…I told him that my son was 17, still a minor, and that he (the adjuster) would wait until I said that my son could talk with him, then I hung up.
Could days go by. Another phone call from someone else in that company. Says that my son was assigned 50% blame (no fault state here) because he turned into a four lane road and didn’t stay in the closest lane. I laughed and asked what town did your adjuster go to? My town has zero four lane roads, only part of the highway with a center turn lane, that ended 2 blocks before the intersection where the accident happened. They wouldn’t budge, so I said fine whatever, just cut me a check. BTW, they wouldn’t pay for a rental since my son wasn’t 21, and wouldn’t get one for me so I could let my son have my car, since I wasn’t in the accident… we only had liability insurance on my son’s car as it was so expensive, so they couldn’t do anything.
So I took pictures and sent them to the insurance adjuster and asked him to show me where the four lanes were. He tried to say the wide shoulder was a lane, yeah.. No.
Get another call, they do they’ll cut a check for less than half what we paid for the car, since it had a previous salvage title. Even with the salvage title, this care was with 4 times what they offered and twice what I paid. I only wanted them to pay what I had bought the car for. They refused, so I told them I’d let my attorney handle it from there on out. That gal said, “go ahead, we hear that all the time”. I said that fine, but do you hear this “I’m the biggest bitch in the state and I mean what I say”. She started spluttering and I just hung up.
We engage our attorney. The vehicle was towed to an indoor storage facility (the window was busted and the interior would have been exposed to weather). In the meantime, my son graduates high school and joined the army. After several months our attorney calls and says that the insurance company wants me to release the car to them as it’s racking up a huge bill. I asked if they were giving me what I wanted, he said no, they’d only come up to about 3/4 of my demands. I laughed and said no.
Another few months go by. Now my son has graduated basic and is almost finished with his advanced training and is days away from getting married. Insurance is whining about the storage fees again. Again they don’t want to pay. Of course once I hired our attorney, the suit included the insurance paying my attorney as well as the storage fees and the original cost of the car. So again I say no. I got a call from the storage facility. The was a tow truck there for the car. I drove there and told the driver nope, you can’t have it. He tried to say that he had orders to impound it… I laughed at I called my attorney.
So now it’s been over 2 years since the accident. My son and his wife are in Germany. I get a call from my attorney. He’s laughing his ass off. Said he had a check for me, $500 more than I asked for and all storage fees and his fees as well. Said the person he had been dealing with was whining about how hard I was to deal with and that I should have compromised sooner. Attorney told him that had I been given what I asked for at the get go, it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper. Was told that since hardly anyone actually engages an attorney, it’s the risk they take, and since their attorneys were on staff, they didn’t cost anything extra.
So because they wouldn’t pay out a measly $5400…it finally cost them almost $30,000.
I kept the extra $500 and sent the $5400 to my son.
So it might not have hurt the insurance company to shell out that $30k, but to me it was the principal. They thought because he was 17 that they could take advantage of him. They didn’t count on me.
I see a couple of answers that are good but don’t answer the whole question. Manufacturing is important but it is more than just that, but they are good at manufacturing.
1 – SpaceX has a strong bias toward action. Elon wants it done tomorrow and he expects you to work all night if you have to in order to make it. They definitely push action now. (Blue Origin started before them and still hasn’t made it to orbit. SpaceX did in 2008).
2 – SpaceX has a willingness to learn. They test early and often to learn about basic design flaws early. An example is the Starhopper. It was the simplest version you could ever build of a Starship. It was a tin can (actually fuel tanks) with an engine and a flight computer. They tested the engine and the control algorithm using that.
3 – SpaceX has a bias toward simplicity. One of Elon’s favorite sayings is “The best part if no part”. In other words they always look for ways to eliminate whole systems. Starship and the “catch” is an example of that. They eliminated landing gear and a few thousand pounds of structure to support it.
4 – SpaceX is willing to dream big and innovate. In 2010 when Elon said they would land boosters on the Falcon 9 and reuse them people laughed at him. That is impossible! They lost a couple figuring it out but they have now landed 239 of them as of 12/19/2023 according to their website. I assume that is updated for last night’s launch. (They launch a couple of times a week). For Starship they will catch the rocket during a controlled descent!
5 – SpaceX understands where the real cost of space travel comes from and avoid it. They try not to drop millions of dollars of flight hardware in the ocean. They also launch often to avoid accumulating costs (salaries) without income (launches) and are moving to improve both with Starship.
6 – They avoid silly costs like buying multi-million dollar NASA certified flight components. Instead they usually build their own from off-the-shelf commercial components and save millions.
The end result is they are doing things no one else can or will ever do. Next stop Mars!
My wife and I were visiting friends, and we’d all been joking around for a couple of hours. Some of the jokes were “mean” in the “I’m just busting your balls” sense, but I didn’t think there was any genuine meanness going on.
On the way home, my wife got really quiet. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “You really don’t know, do you?” She then told me I’d seriously hurt her feelings.
My heart sank. That’s the one thing I never, ever want to do. She’s my best friend, and causing her pain is unforgivable. But, no, I didn’t know what I did. I had no idea what she was referring to.
She found this hard to believe, because, from her point of view, I embarrassed her in front of our friends by, out of the blue, accusing her of being “bad” in a very specific way (which I won’t go into here, because I’d hate to humiliate her, again).
Immediately, I remembered saying it, but … but … it had been a joke! We’d all been joking around, in a cutting sort of way, and I’d just joined in.
My wife said, “It didn’t sound like a joke!”
“But why would I purposefully want to hurt you?”
“I don’t know. I was flabbergasted when you said it. I guess you must resent me.”
I apologized. I hate it when people make excuses for themselves while apologizing (“I really, really meant it as a joke!”), so I didn’t. I said “I’m very sorry. I should never hurt you. That’s terrible. I love you.”
She gradually got over it—or pretended to—but I didn’t. I realized this has happened to me before, and, a few days later, I discussed this with my wife, being careful not to make anything sound like an excuse.
“I think sometimes, when I’m joking, I don’t signal the fact with an ‘I’m just kidding’ voice. Would you say that’s true?”
“Yes,” she said. “You have a very dry sense of humor. It’s often hard to tell if you’re joking or not. Sometimes I have to explain to people that you’re joking.”
I’m autistic, and though (after decades of work), my social skills are mostly indistinguishable from a non-autistic person, that’s one way I screw up. When joking, I have a totally flat affect. I don’t realize it at the time. I don’t feel like I have a dry sense of humor. In my head, I’m goofy, not dry, but the goofiness doesn’t always translate.
Once, at work, when, at the end of a meeting, my boss asked “What will you be working on tomorrow?”
I said, “I don’t plan on coming to work tomorrow. I think I’ve worked enough for one lifetime. I’m going to stay home from now on. That sounds like more fun.”
There was a long pause. Everyone stared at me. Finally, in a really quiet voice, someone asked “Are you joking?”
To me, it was obvious I was joking. But I was in a minority of one. And this wasn’t in a stodgy, conservative office. This was a partying crowd. (Part of the problem is that I tend to joke when I feel like it. I don’t wait until there’s a general “we’re joking now” vibe. This mistake isn’t terribly conscious on my part, but I’m vaguely aware that I do it.)
In addition to being autistic, I come from a part of the midwest where people naturally have a flat affect. I grew up around folks who sounded a little bit robotic, and I inherited their tendency to talk without much vocal music. (If you’ve heard Martin Starr’s voice on “Silicon Valley,” you know what I’m talking about.)
I thought more about that night, with my wife and our friends, and realized I’d been trying to impress them. Once the jokes got started, I wanted to out-joke everyone else, and I stopped caring about who I trampled on. While I hadn’t purposefully hurt my wife’s feelings, I had used her to get a cheap laugh.
And then I thought some more about it. The thing I’d “jokingly” accused her of was something about her that irritated me at times. Had I acted out, in a passive-aggressive way, instead of talking to her, directly? I can’t discount that possibility. If that’s what I did, I was an asshole.
I went camping with my dog. We arrived at night and ended up in a remote area. I managed to get the tent up, get a fire going, plopped myself down with my dog at my side on a leash.
Suddenly she jumped and barked at something, I then smelled this weird smell, it was a grassy metallic smell that stung my nostrils. In that second i didn’t realize it was fresh skunk odor. My dog startled and lunged at the skunk and sprayed my girl right in the face, her eyes were slammed shut.
I had to take her to the water pump and wash her eyes out and wash her face and head as best as I could late at night.
Then I had another problem, where would my dog sleep ? I couldn’t leave her tied up outside due to the skunk and/or bears. If I left her in my car I would never get the smell out. So she slept in the tent and stunk the tent up.
I stuck it out, gave her several baths of dish soap,.hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Still took,.weeks for the smell to go away.
She has a thick coat and for months I brushed or.petted her the skunk smell would drift out of her coat.
I never forgot that grassy metallic smell of fresh skunk odor and I hate skunk smell.
I’m originally from Edinburgh, Scotland but now live in Perth, Australia. I had decided one day to visit AQUA which is Perth’s aquarium and was using a bus instead of driving. When we arrived at the stop for AQUA a young male and female were getting off too and asked the driver how to get to the aquarium ( it’s at the far end of a complex with shops, cafes, beachside etc) so I said I was going there too and would show them the way.
On walking we chatted and I realised the girl was Scottish and asked whether she was here on holiday. They both were and we discussed where she was from ..it was St Andrews. Further conversation re courses at Uni etc and she said she was studying Physics and Space Science at Edinburgh University. That was a coincidence as my niece had done a very similar course at Leicester Uni as Edinburgh didn’t have that course when my niece was at Uni. I told her my niece had done the course at Leicester and she said a friend of hers had also gone to Leicester. I mentioned my niece by Christian name and was asked what her surname was. The friend was my niece. Then I remembered my sister and her OH had friends who lived in St Andrews. This girl was the friend’s daughter and was only in Perth for a few days as she and her b/f were having a tour round Australia.
This girl’s father had been my sister and her OH’s best man at their wedding. If I hadn’t been on that bus on that particular day or if I hadn’t overheard them ask exactly where the aquarium was we would never have known the connection. Quite the coincidence.
If war means China going to the U.S. to fight America, then you are right. But it is a not factor. China does not want to do that unless the U.S. hit China. China won’t be the first to lay its hands by
If war means China fighting off U.S. in China which include Taiwan, China then let me make it super clear. China is super duper ready now to give the U.S. such a hiding it will collapse the U.S. financially, economically, politically and militarily that the U.S. will never be the same again. Don’t even think about it. Your media, your politician and say what you like but if we have to sink all you dozen aircraft carriers we will in the defence of the motherland.
I think the U.S. knows that, that is why it won’t dare. But god help the U.S. if move beyond talking shit.
The research company I worked for was downsizing. My previous boss had already been let go and my new boss kept sending his employees to learn everything in my department. Well one fave employee thought she was better at my job and kept trying to change our protocols. She never actually did any work, just made our lives miserable.
Then the day came where new boss walked in and started handing out moving boxes. He didn’t even say a word, just passed out the boxes. We all packed up and left. Now my lab was a resource lab that did a ton of work for the other labs. Suddenly me and all my staff were let go and the new boss handed it over to his people.
Guess what? They had never done these procedures, used the high tech equipment or even understood the complicated algorithms to process the data. First week I get 9 phone calls asking for help. That was met with a big NOPE. Then I get a call that the favorite employee had mishandled one of the very expensive robot units and it was out of order. They wanted ME to come in and reprogram it and get them back up and running. Oh heck no! I never went back and never helped.
Lesson of my story is don’t play favorites and make sure you have the staff to accomplish the job.
It was in the 90’s on an international flight. There was a middle aged lady with a Gameboy playing a game at full volume after the lights went out and most of the passengers were sleeping.
People were asking her, then telling her, to shut off the sound. It appeared as though she did not speak English. So one guy rang the flight attendant, who came quickly, but could not communicate with the lady. She got another flight attendant who spoke the woman’s language, who seemingly asked her very politely to turn off the sound. Sorry, I don’t know what language it was. And if I did I wouldn’t say.
As soon as the flight attendant walked away, she started another game. Beep, beep, boing.
Angry passengers were yelling at her. Her husband got up to defend her. Someone rang the flight attendant again. You could tell by the exasperated sigh of the flight attendant that she knew what was going on.
She scolded the woman (assuming from her tone), who pretended to be hurt. It just kept getting stranger and stranger.
The woman shut off the Gameboy and put it away. But as soon as the flight attended walked away, she pulled it out and started another game. Beep, beep, boing. Here we go again.
Finally, a big burly man walked over, put his big hand on the husband’s shoulder and warned him, “I have no problem with you, but you better sit down if you know what’s good for you.” The husband might not have spoken English, but he sat down.
The big man pulled the Gameboy out of the woman’s hands, pulled off the back, took the batteries out, and gave it back to her. She was now screaming in a language I did not understand.
“You’ll get the batteries back when we land. If you had just turned down the sound this wouldn’t have happened.” He was raising his voice, partially because he was angry, but partially because he thought she didn’t speak English.
Finally, as he went back to his seat, she stood up and yelled in perfect English, “F**K YOU!!! IT’S NOT AS FUN WITHOUT THE SOUND!!!”
I once offered $5,000 toward state-of-the-art proton beam radiotherapy to a very good friend of mine. After speaking with his mother, he told me no, because she had advised him that, when he was unable to pay me back, I would sue him.
I, in fact, never made this $5,000 loan. — That he turned it down made him, in a way, a stranger to me; it’s almost impossible to go from a state of literally talking about everything little thing of the day with your buddy to … in all likelihood, slowly, he is dying of cancer; he probably won’t be here in five years.
I hope he’ll be here in 20. — For a cancer that is only responsive to surgery yet located in a place that barely tolerates any surgery, much less surgical resection, — for a cancer that has no effective chemotherapy treatments, curative or palliative; that, even for proton beam therapy, it’s probably not going to work.
And, you only get one shot (pretty much). — Getting the proton beam therapy twice carries about the same risk of catching another fatal cancer, so the utility-maximizing function aspect of this changes.
The part of my brain that is finance-oriented — that manifold — expects a forecast of a certain result, and deviation from that result, whether up or down, is necessarily bad.
If you forecast profits of $0, and in reality, you received $100,000, then great, but it’s still a problem from a risk perspective.
People do small things now. They will choose not to homestead their homes. I don’t know why; always reason. Perhaps… not planning on staying here all that long. Yes, but the money you’d save in taxes would… pay for the radiotherapy.
Do you see where this is going?
The whole new-money/old-money part of the film, Titanic, is interesting in how correct it is, and how misleading it is.
Rose is everything great about old money with none. Jack, of course, is fictional.
—
Jack woulda lost the best. Jack woulda died under the bridge.
Jack would’ve been of a mindset that you could not trust him with a blue diamond necklace but for if he were even accused of stealing it, he would never see the light of day again. — William Blake writes of circumstances like this (see: end of Auguries of Innocence).
This person and his mother are not crazy. There is no reason to think they would not be able to understand that you cannot sue someone for return of a gift.
But, it would take someone, for lack of a better term — like me —, to explain this to him/them, and they don’t want to believe it. I don’t know.
Maybe $5,000 was never enough. — Or, maybe we should not second-guess people. I know what they said.
Hungarian Stew with Noodles
Ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large garlic clove
5 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 medium onions, sliced
3 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf
1 (16 ounce) package bow tie macaroni
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon minced parsley
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon caraway seed
Instructions
In an 8-quart Dutch oven over medium heat in hot oil, cook garlic 1 minute (discard), add stew meat and onions. Cook until meat is lightly browned.
Stir in tomato paste, water, paprika, salt, pepper and bay leaf. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 2 hours or until fork-tender, stirring often.
Cook noodles, drain and toss with butter and parsley.
To serve, sprinkle stew with lemon peel and caraway seed.
You need to be able to read through English and dissect what CNN says
In most of the Media propaganda, they generally don’t lie about the content, they mislead people through the Headline and the Conclusion
For instance, they say Chinas Economic Growth will decline
It will
China grew at 7.41% from 2013–2023 and now will grow at around a worst case of 3.93% from 2023–2033
That is a decline in growth by 47%
Any non economist who reads this will say the same thing
However let’s look at 2003–2013
Chinas average growth was 11.21% from 2003–2013
Thus Chinas growth rate ALSO declined from 2003–2013 to 2013–2023 by 34%
Now let’s see another thing
How much population growth contributed to GDP growth in each decade
2003–2013 – it was 4.9%
2013–2023 – it is 0.8%
2023–2033 – it is going to be 0%
How much Government spending contributed to GDP each decade?
2003–2013 – It was 13.90%
2013–2023 – It is 6.30%
2023–2033 – It’s going to be 3%
How much will Real Estate contribute to GDP growth each decade?
2003–2013 – It was 15.75%
2013–2023 – It is 10.77%
2023–2033 – It will be 0%
What do you see here?
You see that the GDP Growth for China from 2023–2033 will be entirely from solid areas instead of paper growth
High Technology Manufacture & Domestic Consumption which accounted for 1% in 2003–2013, 3.1% in 2013–2023 will account for 14% of Chinas GDP Growth in 2023–2033
So Chinas 3.93% will almost entirely build it’s foundation economy and not it perceptionary economy
By 2033, China will have an immensely strong economy and resilient one
I had a classmate who must have married a rich guy. I didn’t even try to keep in touch with her after high school. But we ended up friends on Facebook. That was the time I just accepted every friend request from everybody I’d ever met in life.
After a while, she started to get on my nerves. She constantly complained about her upper class problems.
I don’t think I have time to get the cabin ready for summer. All the linens I ordered haven’t come in yet. I want to kids to sleep on new sheets, not last year’s garbage.
Paris was great, but now we don’t have enough time to get the boat ready for the lake.
I just hope the new furniture arrives at the cabin on time.
The painters came on the wrong day. They were supposed to come before the new carpet, and before the furniture arrived. So we had to put our new living room furniture in the theater room. It’s so inconvenient.
Can somebody teach me how to use the navigation system in my new Mercedes S Class? I miss my BMW 740i. I just can’t learn a new navigation system every year like this.
Just got back from Hawaii for Christmas. Now I have to supervise these caterers for the New Year party.
I later found out that they had a second mortgage on the house, credit card debt, and they were a month away from foreclosure. That didn’t make me happy, but it explained why she was always complaining about her problems. She was trying to make people that she hadn’t seen in a decade think that she was doing fine.
I was given a notice that I was going to be let go and a slap-in-the-face job offer from the same employer in the same week! let me explain….
I had been working for the same employer for years (on and off) and my group was getting a little light on work, although there was a lot more work on the horizon. One day, I was pulled into the Manager’s office and was notified that I would be laid off in 2 weeks. I wasn’t really shocked, as I could see the writing on the wall due to light workload. I was offered 2 months severance at my current salary and would be paid out my remaining vacation time. Considering that I was being fired, the severance package offered was pretty good. I signed on the dotted line!
With my impending unemployment looming in the distance, I began working my network for a new gig. After about a week, I had a few interesting local prospects. It was then that a supervisor in another part of the company that I was being let go from contacted me. He said that they would like to retain me and rip up my forced resignation letter, but only if I would agree to a 20% pay cut and a relocation. I had 5 days to decide, which was pretty stressful, considering that I had a family to support and potentially uproot.
I was slightly insulted and my soon to be former co-workers thought it was a big slap-in-the-face, considering that I had been slated for a lot of future work at my current salary. Come to find out, the company had realized that I was needed, but wanted to make some extra coin off me by paying me less and billing me at my previous higher rate to clients. After all my years of service, commendations, and happy clients, the company I had worked weekends for, neglected my friends and family for, and sacrificed my time with my kids for, was trying to take advantage of me by trying to put me in a bind and forcing me to decide quickly on a bad offer.
Anyhow, a direct competitor was interested in my services and immediately offered me a slightly better salary than I was currently making with better benefits. They wanted to scoop me up before I accepted the bad deal. I turned down the 20% pay cut offer, accepted my resignation and 2 months severance package and took a wonderful 1 month vacation. After a month, I began working for my new employer, which happened to be across the street from my former employer. Within a year, my former employer was bought by a huge international company and a lot of people quit or were fired. I am very happy with my new employer.
I worked in admin with only men in my departement in a company that worked at airplane propellor⁹ services, a very strickt environment. I needed a better chair and some cabinets. The head of the supply departement, a gorilla type man, accompanied me to a shack on the premesis. We went inside and he locked the door with a padlock. I acted like I hadn’t noticed. I babbled along about what I thought was suitable, testing some chairs, opening cabinets, heart pounding! Meanwhile he laid out some flat cartboard boxes on the floor. I knew if he’d assault me I could never win. Again I pretended not to notice and asked about his kids who were back in school after the summer holidays. That made him snap out of it. I asked him to load up a few items and he did. He opened the padlock and we went back into the main building. I went straight to HR. I told the shocked woman over there I wanted him to be warned because he had a family but never let him be alone with a woman again! He was mad at me for making him look bad ‘because nothing had happened’. My direct supervisor let everybody know what happened and all the men took my side. He was not fired (my request, everybody needs a second chance) but they added a black page in his file.
My husband and I were coming home from Puerto Rico, flying into Pittsburgh that night. A small, stereotypical family sat in front of us: attractive father, beautiful young mother, and two adorable kids, one still an infant and the other a toddler. We’re minding our own business when, out of the corner of my eye, I see the toddler looking at me from the openings between the seats.
“Hi!”
I smiled and said hello, and she took that as an opportunity to tell me literally everything about her life. Her mom kept giving me this patronizing look (like, “God, I’m so sorry she’s talking to you; if I could get her to shut up I totally would”) and saying “Maggie, let’s leave them alone and sit in our seats, OK?”
She told me her name was Maggie and she likes pink, blue, and black. She’s 3 years old, and how old are we? “You’re 22? And he (my husband, Joe) is 24? So you’re both 22. OK!” Maggie lives in Ithaca, New York, and loves flowers like the ones I have on my arms (tattoos) but “you shouldn’t draw on yourself with markers so much Miss Katie!” While she was in PR she “did some bad but also cool things,” and she’s going home to see Uncle Mark, who’s sick right now, so she isn’t going to hug him. “Who’s that guy with you? Joe? So Mr. Joe is your son, right? Miss Katie, can you tell your son to wake up? I’d like to talk to him.”
This carried on for the entirety of the two and a half hour flight we were on. I loved her, but my husband wasn’t so fond: she really liked him for some reason or another, and he wanted to sleep. Maggie’s mom kept telling her to turn around because, as Maggie had already put it, “the sun was going into the water so it’s almost bedtime for my brother. Do you want to see my brother? He’s a baby still.” At which point she proceeded to pull her infant brother’s foot over to the side of the plane by the window and show him to me through the cracks of the seats. I cackled.
Joe kept trying to sleep. He had headphones on, and she told him that she liked his earmuffs, but hers were nicer because they’re pink and black but she only wears them in the winter. As my husband drifted off to sleep, she yelled, “Wake up Joe!” I cackled some more, and she kept playing with him, poking him and saying that she “got him,” and asking Mr. Joe questions about his games and what movies he likes.
Meanwhile, her parents were asking the entire time for her to leave us alone, stop bothering them, “Maggie, do you want to color? Maybe if you’re quiet and color you can show them a picture when you’re done!” and all sorts of other mom things. Once, Maggie left for a few minutes and distracted herself with a game, but came back after a bit and said over the top of the seat, “I know I left, but I came back because I like you guys. You’re very fun!”
I loved Maggie. She kinda grew on my husband towards the end there, and I think he actually liked the attention. After the flight, her parents turned to us and introduced themselves, and apologized for her bothering us the whole flight. I said it was fine, not to worry about it, and that she certainly wasn’t bothering us. They thanked me for being so nice to her, and her mom said, “Yeah, but I want you to know that now, you both will be members of our household for the next two months. She’s going to go to bed every night and say, ‘Momma, do you remember Mr. Joe and Miss Katie? Can you tell me a bedtime story about them?’”
I think about Maggie often and hope that one day her mom tells her about Mr. Joe and Miss Katie from the flight back from Puerto Rico. I miss her sometimes, especially since she was better at waking my husband up than I am.
Ambush | Full Movie (action Movie with Nicolas Cage)
Beware the following email originating from John Liu <chinaregistry177 (at) aliyun.com address individually to you. It is a scam trying to get you to part with your money. The website at the end of the message does not exist.
Mine was a Mr. Albert Liu.
Albert Liu<albert.liu@chinaregistry.org.cn>
Subject: CN Domain and keyword
“(It’s very urgent, please transfer this email to your CEO. Thanks)
We are the domain name registration service company in China. On Dec 30, 2015, we received an application from Huaxun Holdings Ltd requested “XXXXXX” (name removed) as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?
Kind regards
John Liu General Manager China Registry (Headquarters) 8052, Douhai Building, No. 59 Baolian Road, Shanghai, China Tel: +86 21 6191 8696 Mobile: +86 138 1642 8671 Fax: +86 21 6191 8697 Web: www .chinaregistry.com.cn Email: john (at) chinaregistry.com.cn
Phone numbers and URLs are equal to what what I got in my mail.
Comment and Advice
The unsolicited email you receive is from a Chinese domain registrar (could be a certified registrar, agent, affiliate or private person).
In the email they explain that a supposed company (try to Google the name) is interested in some available domain names (typically .hk, .cn, .tw), which correspond with your brand name.
In only a few days the other party will register these domains, unless you secure them first. The domain registrar can even send you an email from the interested third party (it comes from a hotmail address) claiming that they want to register your domain names, and they are only waiting for approval from Mr. Jim or whatever his name is.
Identical to what happened to me. Only this was from a sina address.
Zhihai Ning<zhihaining@vip.sina.com>
There is a similar domain name: www . chinaregistry.org.cn.
Yes. This is the URL.
In trying to connect to this my anti virus protection gave the following message so beware:
“When we visited this site, we found it may be designed to trick you into submitting your financial or personal information to online scammers. This is a serious security threat which could lead to identity theft, financial losses or unauthorized use of your personal information”.
It can be very expensive if you fall for it. Just ignore it.
Yuppur. It’s a pretty well established e-mail scam.
Remember the name of the organization that registers domain names is CNNIC. Not “China Registry”.
Thank you for asking. It is easy to understand. Western governments need to hoodwink their own people who are now very wary about their dropping standard of living for close to 3 generations now. The average westerners are now worst off then their parents and even their grandparents.
Homelessness is rampant, inflation exceed their growth rates and set them back further. Take the UK. In 2023 it’s economy had a negative growth of -3% yet its inflation is a full 4.2%. Together British people suffer a 7.2% deterioration of their standard of living.
The U.S. grew by 2.4% in 2023 but suffers a 3.4% inflation. So once again it’s standard if living fall by 1%. But it has deteriorated back to the levels of 1960’s. Even life expectancy has dropped below that of China! Homelessness has reached a million and a third of Americans cannot afford their health insurance and their college debts consume most of them.
So with such a scenario, it is hardly surprising that they used their media to channel western minds to Chinese economy that is purportedly deteriorating. These are simply a pack of lies to deceive the westerners. Just imagine 2020–2022 over the 3 years post pandemic China grew by 5.5% per annum while most western economies had negative growth.
But what is worst is that it suffered close to double digit inflation while China’s inflation rate is on average 0.5%. In 2023 China grew by 5.2% with a mere 0.2% inflation. Chinese people’s standard of living grew by a net +5.0% in 2023! Yet if you read western media it accuses China of a host of things casting doubt on China!
By right westerners ought to be mad at their government for lying to them. But most pretend to be living better than the world. It’s a fell good factor! It is not good because truth will dawn on them sooner or later.
I realized my mother was verbally abusive when I was around 13. One of my first friends invited me to dinner. I was worried, but I went. It was a normal dinner, with home cooked casserole and green beans. I wasn’t used to that. Everyone sat at the table, and the father cleared his throat. Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes.
Then, he launched into a funny story about how he and a coworker kept hiding each others waste baskets, and how he had won the last round thanks to his daughter’s suggestion of putting a plastic lei on it and photographing it as though leaving the office.
Then her older brother spoke. He was in college, and told an anecdote about a professor who kept losing chalk. Mum spoke up about Chippy, a little squirrel that she fed by the back door. My friend moaned a little about a huge homework project.
Everyone turned to me. I actually spoke, suggesting that we should build our school project in such a way that it blocked the principal’s door. None of these stories were actually that good. but there was a tenderness in the telling and listening that I had never seen. People listened. They chuckled. They talked. They praised Mum’s cooking. No one said one derogatory thing.
They were a normal family. My friend teased her brother about his lack of hockey prowess, and Mum and Dad liked different baseball teams. My friend got grounded for sass, sometimes. But, instead of the parents trying to destroy the children, they held them up.
I cried all the way home. It was winter, and the tears froze on my face. Mother was there. Her first comment, what did you do to your face? My God you were an ugly baby and it’s just gotten worse. It’s good you don’t wear make up, lipstick on a plow horse.
And it didn’t stop until I went to bed. It never really stopped until I left home, always under the guise of helping me fix my flaws.
But after that dinner with the B family, I knew there was another way to live. And that made all the difference.
Pasta con le Sarde
If there is any pasta dish that represents Sicilian tradition to its fullest, it is pasta con le sarde. Combining the culinary footprints of Sicily’s kitchens, this classic recipe mixes maccheroncini (macaroni) with fennel, tomatoes, pine nuts, raisins, anchovies, onion and fresh sardines.
The pasta is always ladled out of the pot, never poured into a colander, and then put in a serving dish. During two weeks in Sicily, we never had a piece of overcooked pasta. Test, test, test was Chef Tino’s rule, and, apparently, every other chef’s.
Ingredients
1 pound fresh sardines
1/2 pound fennel bulb
Olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 onion, chopped
8 ounces uncooked tomato sauce*
4 ounces pine nuts
1/4 cup raisins, softened in water
2 salted anchovies
1 pound macaroni
Pecorino cheese
Instructions
Bone the sardines. (If you slit the fish lengthwise and grab it by the tail, the bone easily strips out). Chop the fennel and boil under just tender in water that you will use to cook the pasta. Strain the fennel out of the pot and chop finely.
Heat a sauté pan over medium heat and add enough olive oil to just cover the bottom. Brown garlic and onion in oil until soft. Add tomatoes, chopped fennel, pine nuts, raisins, and anchovies. Simmer for 10 minutes. At this point, start the macaroni and add the sardines to the pasta sauce. If the sauce is too dry, add a very small amount of the fennel water. Don’t stir the sauce once the sardines are added, to avoid breaking them up.
Place the cooked pasta in serving dish and pour the sauce over, finishing off with a sprinkling of Pecorino and a little olive oil.
Serves 4 to 6.
* This is best made with fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped, skin and seeds included. If tomatoes aren’t in season, you could use good canned tomatoes.
The first Emperor of a unified Germany, Wilhelm I, was a strict and conservative man. His son, Frederick III, was a liberal mind. A brilliant man and a keen reformer, he was full of ambition to transform German society, do away with stuffy nobility and its ancient war-like ways, and usher in a new, open-minded and scientifically oriented Germany.
Wilhelm I, however, kept on living… born in 1797, he didn’t die until 1888, aged almost 91 years old. Frederick had to wait for a long time for it to finally be “his turn”. He was eager, and excited for the task. But then, three days before his father passed away, Frederick was diagnosed with throat cancer. He had been ill for a while, and his health rapidly took a turn for the worst. By time his father was buried, he was already too weak to walk in the procession. He looked on from the palace window, and wept…
No small part of Frederick’s sorrow? His son and heir, Wilhelm, was a war-like man, imperialistic, aggressive, expansionist, conservative… the polar opposite of his peace-loving, progressive father. Frederick wanted desperately to make good use of his remaining time on earth. But cancer of the throat soon took away his ability to talk, and a botched operation to fix his pain resulted in even greater pain and discomfort when the resulting wound became infected.
“I had so hoped to have been of use to my country. Why is Heaven so cruel to me? What have I done to be thus stricken and condemned?” wrote Frederick III in his diary. He died in June 1888, a mere 99 days into his reign, aged 56. It is often speculated that, had Wilhelm II not ascended to the throne, his father would have moved away from Prussian militarism and Germany may never have entered WWI. WWII would have been averted as well.
We were all working overtime and being stressed out. Sales weren’t doing well, people were quitting, and everything was dysfunctional. Some items at the store weren’t even there or expired.
My boss was in a bad mood, taking it out on everyone. Nitpicking, tearing others down, and calling people incompetent. I’d already gotten a warning for talking back. I had told her that she shouldn’t be treating people that way. We were all working hard and doing our best. She said that if I didn’t like how she ran the store, then to get out. I was really tempted, but kept working.
It was the final straw when a pregnant co-worker needed to go home on time because she had to walk home at 11:00 PM. My boss refused and my co-worker was in a lot of pain. My boss told her to suck it up, that it was her fault for being an irresponsible wh*** and being stuck as a single mom. This made my co-worker burst into tears; her boyfriend had just broken up with her and left her after the news she was pregnant. She’d been taking it hard since.
I marched right up to this and told my co-worker to gather her things because she worked enough for the night, that I would drive her home. My co-worker listened.
My boss was furious for undermining her. I blew up at her, telling her that she needed to work on her morals and values. I asked her how she could even think about doing this to someone, especially her own worker? My boss answered that it was the wh***’s problem, not ours.
I told her that she should never call someone that and her behavior is exactly why she was losing employees. I said this was why nobody wanted to be around her or get to know her. She was an awful human being, no matter how many times she lied to herself.
I ended it that she was right, that I couldn’t work for someone like her. I didn’t like how she ran the store and I quit; the only time I ever did.
I drove the pregnant woman home and thanked me for everything. I explained that I quit, but would drive her if she needed me.
Apparently, I started a chain. Five people quit after me, including the pregnant woman.
The ironic part is that two months later, that boss was fired… for her treatment of employees.
I don’t know that it was the dumbest, but it was certainly an interesting and unusual complaint against me.
I was notified that officers were at a housing project and were requesting permission to force entry into an apartment. The officers had identified a man who had multiple warrants for his arrest. As they were arresting him he broke away from them and ran into an apartment where he did not belong.
I was a watch commander at the time and advised them to set up a perimeter around the apartment and I would be there in two minutes. Upon my arrival, I knocked on the door and spoke with the tenant who was very angry that my officers were threatening to kick down her door.
I had an advantage in speaking with this woman as I knew the complex manager and I also had studied the lease agreements with the various complexes. One reason for an immediate start of eviction proceedings was allowing criminal activity to be conducted at the apartment. I explained that I did not want to see her violate her lease, or have to pay for the door if the police had to break it in.
I explained the search process, and that we were just going to take the man who had run into her house into custody, and leave, without messing anything up inside. She allowed the officers to enter as long as I agreed to stay at the scene. I entered with the officers and actually helped in the search, checking one downstairs closet.
The man was found upstairs fully dressed in bed under the covers (so creative!). He was taken into custody and transported to the department for processing.
Several minutes after I get to the station, I receive a call from the resident. She said, “One of your cops stole $1000 from my apartment.” I advised her that I would take the particulars of her complaint and get to the bottom of this immediately.
I asked where the money had been located and she answered: “In the downstairs closet.” I thought for a minute and replied, “I’m the only one who searched the downstairs closet and I didn’t see or take any money.” She replied rather sarcastically, “Well, it was there before you came in and it’s gone now, so if you didn’t take it, where’s my money?”
Now my mind is going over each minute of the search, with no reasonable explanation. I asked to place the woman on hold for a minute and went to the processing room where the accused was.
Also in the room was a young woman who was counting out a pile of cash. I asked whose money is this. The girl replied, “It’s my money and I’m posting his bail.”
Now I remember, the girl was in the house. I said, “I saw you at the house. Where did you get all that money from?” She replied, ”From the closet downstairs.”
I put the resident, who was the girl’s mother, on speaker phone and had the daughter explain where the $1000 in bail money came from.
I spoke to the mom afterward and she apologized repeatedly. I told her it was already forgotten, and how much I had appreciated her cooperation at the scene, putting her trust in me.
After that, she thought I was a good cop and would wave to me or stop and say hello. Out of a silly misunderstanding, a higher level of trust would develop. So much of police work is about building trust, one person at a time.
I learned how to do some simple programming on my own. I wrote simple programs at work for my own and my department’s use. My boss knew about it. One day she came into my office and demanded that I write a program for another department. I tell her, politely of course, that I would be happy to do it but she had just hired a well-trained person to do just that sort of thing and it might be better if he did it. She quickly turned on her heel without saying a word, walked immediately to HR and wrote me up for insubordination. HR suspended me with pay immediately and I was escorted out of the building by security. I hired a lawyer, the best employment lawyer in the area and a friend, immediately. The lawyer told me that I would eventually get fired and then he would go into action. He also told me that my boss would be fired in 6 months and her boss would be fired within a year. Soon I got fired in person by my boss, who smiled throughout the whole ordeal (I had been with the company 21 years and had nothing but excellent reviews), while a security guard stood behind her. I was smiling on the inside.
My lawyer went to work. With 3 weeks my status was changed to retired (at age 56), my legal fees paid, was given a sizable settlement, and never had to go back into work. In about 8 months my boss was fired and her boss was transferred to corporate Siberia. To my surprise, a year or so later the company newspaper published picture of me standing in front of a beautiful new RV in the retiree’s section of the paper. I had bought the RV with part of the settlement check and sent the picture in as a joke. No one probably knew that it was a joke.
Back in about 1990 I was waiting on a group of six men at Baker’s Square. Five of them were normal people, but the sixth was just a funnel when it came to coffee. He wanted me to leave a pot at the table, which we weren’t allowed to do. I told him I’d keep him topped up. He was skeptical, and he was right to be.
I have never seen any three people drink as much coffee in an hour as that guy. I couldn’t keep up. I asked my manager if I could leave him a full pot and was told no. The guy was going from kind of irritated to outright crabby, probably partly due in part to the caffeine overdose he had to be on the cusp of. Glares, passive aggressive remarks, like that.
Near the end of their meal I got kind of slammed and the poor man’s cup was probably empty for five minutes. As soon as I had the chance I hustled to the table and was filling cups. Coffee Man was on the far right and I was going left to right. As I was tipping the pot over his cup he snapped at me, “Could you take a little longer with that fucking coffee?!”
Instantly aborted the pour with less than a teaspoon in his cup. Looked him in the eye with a smile (more of a smirk tbh) and said, “Yes, I absolutely can.”
Turned on my heel and left, with the sound of his friends laughing behind me. Went to the break room and had a cigarette. A whole one. Customer’s always right yeah?
Told the manager what happened on my way back out to the floor. He couldn’t keep from laughing but also said you can’t do that and he was taking over the table. I think he comped Coffee Man’s meal, but I never heard another word about it after that.
Ended up with a pretty good tip, I assume from his friends.
Passport Bros – The Men Fleeing The West | Japan Street Interviews
Bob loved me unconditionally and always respected me during our entire relationship.
We were married for over 31 years. We worked together for much of that time in a very public business. We met on the job when Bob was hired as the news director at a TV station I was already working for as a reporter/anchor. So not only was he my boss, but we co-anchored the evening news as well.
Bob was incredibly careful to make sure I was never granted any special privileges in the newsroom. His decision at work, went. He would always listen to my point of view and that of the rest of the staff, but his decision was final.
He was always able to switch to the mindset that we were equal when we went home.
He loved me like nobody ever had before , even when I didn’t love myself. He loved me when he was mad at me and when he really didn’t like something that I had done or said.
Bob was my husband…my partner and my best friend. He was my teacher and teammate as well.
Although he was not purrrfect (sorry, we were owned by cats), he was purrrfect for me.
I lost Bob to suicide. He had gotten incredibly sick and wasn’t going to get better. I believe that even this final decision and action, was done with me in mind. He didn’t want me to live the rest of my life as his caregiver while our bank account dwindle to pay his medical bills.
One thing about his final decision. In my opinion, Bob wasn’t wrong very often, but for me, this time he was wrong. The problem is, he was DEAD wrong. I will love and honor him forever. I work hard to make sure people remember his career and his accomplishments instead of just his final decision. I also work with several mental health organizations, including the local medical college, in both suicide prevention programs and postvention efforts (following up with people who have lost a loved one to suicide). I have done very television and radio interviews about Bob as well. I believe that since we spent most of our careers telling other people’s stories, that I should be willing to share ours.
Bob loved me, unconditionally. That is what he did for or to me.
Several years ago, my job was to sell robots to SWAT teams. Every SWAT team (except two of them) wanted one, but they couldn’t all afford them, so the problem wasn’t that the potential customers didn’t want to buy. The problem was that it was difficult to get to the SWAT teams. Lots of people wanted to get to them to sell them various things they didn’t want nor need, so the department didn’t make it easy to reach the SWAT commanders. I had several different ways of getting to them, all of which worked some of the time, but none that worked all of the time.
Then one day I figured out a new approach. Whenever I saw a cop along the road waiting to catch speeders and such, I would deliberately speed up in order to get pulled over. When the cop walked up to the window, I would say, “I have a SWAT robot in my trunk.” The response was always a variation of, “You have a what?” I would then ask if he wanted to have a look at it.
Sometimes the cop got very nervous about me opening the trunk, but they always wanted me to. (Could have been a guy with a gun in there; the cop had no way of knowing.) Once the robot was revealed, I would hand the cop the control and show him how to operate the robot. Then I would ask for the department’s SWAT commander’s name. The reason for this was that I wanted to be able to say “Officer so and so told me you would want to have a look at this robot.” It worked every time.
However, one time the cop was already writing the ticket on his way to my car. After the standard conversation and demo, the cop said that he couldn’t tear up the ticket, because he would get in all kinds of trouble for a missing ticket number, so he wrote me up for 1 mile per hour over the speed limit. If I had gone to court, the judge would have thrown the case out, but I just went ahead and paid the ticket instead.
Later, when I told the founder the story, he said, “From now on, the company will pay for every ticket you get while on the job.” I never got another ticket, though.
Ukraine SitRep: Finally A Wonder-Weapon That Does What It Promised To Do
The city of Avdeevka, (not to be confused with the small town of Andreevka near Bakhmut), is situated immediately north-west of Donetsk city. It has been used for years as a Ukrainian fortress well positioned for artillery attacks on Donetsk. The whole city, and especially the coke and chemical plant in its northern sector, was well prepared to defend against Russian attacks.
But despite all attempts to hold on to it the Ukrainian garrison within the city is about to be encircled and fall. Source: Live UA Map – bigger
The Russian attacks are coming from multiple directions and are more progressed than the Ukraine friendly map above is showing. The biggest danger to the Ukrainians is the Russian move in the north west which threatens to cut the city off from its supply line through the northern coal and chemical plant.
The Russian victory in this battle was accomplished with the help of one type of weapon created during the current war in Ukraine.
In the early 1990s the U.S. developed a strap on kit for unguided bombs that turned dumb weapons into precise ammunition.
… a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or “dumb bombs”, into all-weather precision-guided munitions. JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, giving them a published range of up to 15 nautical miles (28 km). JDAM-equipped bombs range from 500 to 2,000 pounds (230 to 910 kg).[5] The JDAM’s guidance system was jointly developed by the United States Air Force and United States Navy, hence the “joint” in JDAM. … The JDAM is not a stand-alone weapon; rather it is a “bolt-on” guidance package that converts unguided gravity bombs into precision-guided munitions (PGMs). The key components of the system are a tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces, a (body) strake kit, and a combined inertial guidance system and GPS guidance control unit.
The JDAM kit, of which more than 500,000 were produced, allowed for the use of large piles of cold-war era bombs with previously unknown precision.
After the 2022 start of the war in Ukraine Russia engaged in a program to develop an equivalent to the JDAM kit. The program was finished by the end of 2023. The Russian version can be strapped onto a 500kg or a 1,500 kilogram dumb bomb extending their range by attaching wings, guidance kit and control surfaces to already existing dumb bombs. Prototype of a FAB 500 with (folded) wings and guidance kit
After being programmed with target coordinates the bomb gets dropped, turns 180 degree around its length axis and unfolds its wings. The wings enable the bomb to fly some 50 miles before hitting the ground. This allows the planes dropping these bombs to stay outside of the enemy’s air defense envelope.
The guidance kits are cheap and can easily be mass produced.
Yesterday some 65 FAB500 and FAB1500 were used against targets in Avdeevka.
The use of these bombs, which carry 300 kilogram and more of explosives, near one’s own troops requires careful planing and observation. Observers on the ground have to make sure that their own troops are outside of the deadly circle of these bombs and that the coordinates of targets are submitted in a disciplined but secure and timely manner. Pilots have to make sure that the received coordinates are programmed into the bombs and that their release is done at the right attitude and positions.
This kill chain requires intensive training and disciplined soldiers. Yesterday’s attacks demonstrate that the Russian army and air-forces have mastered this discipline.
Any detected resistance or position of Ukrainian troops was visited by a precise FAB attack within just a few minutes.
There is no defense against these weapons. It is no wonder then that any resistance against the Russian onslaught is breaking down. Russian troops can proceed through bombed out Ukrainian positions without taking losses.
Previous reports have talked about a Russian superiority in artillery by a factor of 5 or higher. But consider that a 155mm artillery round has a weight of some 50 kilogram, 60% of which are explosives. One FAB carries 10 to 30 times the explosive equivalent of one artillery round.
The Ukrainian army has nothing comparable in its arsenals.
The introduction of mass FAB500 strikes onto the Ukrainian battle field have given the Russian forces a new qualitative advantage that will change the course of the war (though not its outcome). The U.S. political and military specialists who still believe that attrition is a viable strategy for the Ukrainian army are clearly way off the path of reality.
On February 1 the German broadsheet Bildreported of the conflict in the Ukrainian leadership:
The Bild publication writes that Zaluzhny wanted to withdraw troops from Avdiivka a few weeks ago, but Zelensky refused him this and on December 30 he personally went to the city to the front line to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters.
So all the coffins that arrived from near Avdeevka to Ukraine since December 30 are solely on the conscience of Zelensky and his passion for narcissism.
Zelenski had asked Zaluzny to resign which the General rejected. The Ukrainian president has since made clear that he wants to fire the more popular general but is still looking for the right time and reason to do so.
The loss of Avdeevka may give him a marketable excuse to finally do that even when it is clear that it was Zelenski’s narcissism, and not Zaluzny’s advice, that has caused high Ukraine losses while inevitably losing a not holdable position.
Posted by b on February 8, 2024 at 12:38 UTC | Permalink
It was my last job in Vietnam before I moved to the U.S. I was in that job for almost 5 years.
When I first started my position and reported to my boss, he was extremely difficult with me. He questioned everything and demanded an explanation for everything I did, including why I did it the way I did and how I came to that solution. This continued for six months. I felt so ‘roasted’ by him.
After those six months, one day, I received an email from him saying, “Read this email thread and tell me what I should do.” In another email, he replied to someone else’s email about a solution, added me to the loop, saying, “++ [my name]. I will approve this after [my name] has reviewed and gives me the green light.”
I had earned his trust.
One day, I messed up something important in an important project. I panicked, ran to him, and asked him what I should do. He sat me down and told me, ‘Remember, after you mess something up, admit the issue and come up with a solution to fix the problem yourself. You need to control how YOU are going to fix it; do not let anyone tell you what to do, because it won’t be in your favor.’ Listening to him, I calmed down and thought of a solution myself.
That was the most valuable lesson I learned from office. He is the best boss I’ve ever had, and I am thankful for the time I had the chance to work with him.
My dad was called as a witness to an accident that a member of the public had allegedly had on a building site he was foreman on. The victim had apparently fallen into a deep hole that had not been labelled clearly and then been laughed at and not helped by my father. Apparently when the victim had spoken to my dad he had refused to offer any help. The victim was suing the company for actual injury and for pain and suffering.
Prior to appearing in court the victim’s lawyer had contacted my dad and told him what was going to be said (I don’t know why, the case was a long time ago) My dad replied with “Are you really sure you want to do that?” The lawyer said of course and see you in court. My dad repeated “Are you really sure you want to do that?” The lawyer hung up.
On the day of the court case the victim told their story then they called my dad to the stand. The lawyer asked what job my dad had been doing onsite on the day of the accident. My dad replied with “None, I wasn’t on site on that date.” The lawyer called my dad a liar so my dad got his passport out which showed an exit date of 2 days before the alleged date of the accident and a re-entry date 6 weeks after.
Guess who ended up paying costs for that little debacle!? The victim’s lawyer was less than impressed.
She got a gold star
Guys give out the relationships. Women give out the sex.
All I can add about what to do if captured. At first simply give name, rank and serial number. During the class I asked the following, “what do you do when they bring pliers and a few other devices?” The instructor replyed, “ask politely for a ream of paper (a ream is 500 sheets of paper) and a dozen Bic pens; as long as you are writing they’ll leave you alone that is until they send the notes you wrote up their chain of command.” LOL. We always had a cover story that would make us so low on the classified stuff and if they persist; I would if captured I would tell them that I’m simply a cook. If pressured I’d ask them to let me cook them a meal. LTC Nick Rowe convinced his captures that he was a cook, this worked until they found out his real MOS; that he was a Special Forces 1LT. Nick knew that after 24 hours anything he told his captures would have been changed and will no longer be of any use to his captures. Nick was the go to guy on how to survive capture. He escaped after five years as a POW.
During capture you’ll always be looking for an opportunity to escape. Nick was assassinated while on duty in the Philippines.
The Famous belief that an emerging power will always be a threat to an existing power and war between them is inevitable
The Belief is incomplete
This is the case only when the Emerging Power desires to be a global hegemon
This is NOT the Case with China
China needs Cooperation for its growth and development
China needs Energy, Oil and Gas from others
China needs almost 23% of it’s Food from others
China needs Global Markets for its Trade
Thus China lives on a WIN WIN cooperation
China can flourish only as part of the Global Economy
The only thing that has changed is SO DOES THE USA
Until maybe three decades ago, the US could flourish on its own domestic economy, it’s own Oil & Gas, it’s Western and Japanese allies and satellites
Today the US needs many more countries to flourish and CHINA is one of the most important of them.
US needs China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and several other Nations in order to flourish as an economy
This the US does not like
The US doesn’t want to be dependent on China for it’s welfare and prosperity
The US policy has always been to CONTROL ANY NATION ON WHICH IT’S PROSPERITY DEPENDS
Thus it has two options :-
A China that is shaped as per US requirements. A Lackey basically. Like Japan and South Korea and now even Germany and France OR
A China weakened enough to accept US guidelines on what constitutes FAIR PLAY
China of course will not agree to either
China believes in a direct win win cooperation in the “May the best man win” mode of competition
So it’s the US that wants to keep the OLD WORLD ORDER rather than the Chinese wanting a new one
The Chinese just want to make money, grow and develop their economy and not be subject to throttling by the West and so to develop their own independent and safe technology and financial systems and military
Maybe 50–60 years later China could change but today there is zero chance of China wanting a New World Order or be a hegemon
We bought a used couch from someone on the Facebook. Seemed too good to be true. $1000 for a couch that goes for $3500 new. Leather sectional with 4 electronic leg rests, cupholders, USB charging ports, etc. A very nice upgrade from our existing sectional.
So, we went and checked it out. They had it in their garage. I asked why they were selling it for such a low price. Aside from some scratches on one seat, it looked almost new. They said he was a surgeon at the university and he was getting a job in North Carolina. So they were packing up and preparing to move quickly. We plugged it in and tested the leg rests. Everything worked. We had a minivan, so it was going to be three trips to get the whole thing home. 30 minutes each way. Kind of a waste of a Saturday, but I felt it was worth it.
On our first trip home, the smell hit us. It was a strong smell of orange, like they used an orange scented cleaner to clean it. This should have been a larger red flag than it was at the time. We still needed to move our existing couch to the basement, so we decided we’d kill two birds with one stone. Move the new couch into the garage, let that orange smell dissipate, and take our time disassembling and moving the other one to the basement.
When we went back to the seller’s house, we asked about the strong orange scent. They downplayed it and basically said they used whatever cleaner they had on hand to clean it before selling. Red flag #2.
We accepted their answer and continued making trips back and forth. They seemed trustworthy. All the pieces of the set smelled of orange cleaner, but especially one section. That piece was much more intense. We left the couch in the garage and sure enough, the smell faded. We moved the living room couch to the basement and the new one to the living room. The orange smell was gone. However, it was replaced by a much worse odor. I don’t know how to describe it except that it was musty, pungent, and kind of stuck with you. It was mostly coming from the leftmost recliner piece.
We reached out to the sellers a couple weeks after buying it. We asked about the smell. She played dumb and said they had hardly used the couch. They had it in their basement and there was never a problem with it. No water damage, no nothing. Clearly lying to us. Red flag #3.
Over the next few weeks, we tried multiple off-the-shelf products and home remedies for removing smells from furniture. None of them improved the smell at all. We finally contacted a fire restoration type of place. They had specialty equipment to deal with all sorts of problem smells in furniture. The cost was high and we didn’t know if it would work, so they offered us a deal. They said, bring in the problem recliner. They’ll try to remove the smell from that one piece. If they succeed, we’ll bring in the rest and they’ll fix each piece at a total cost of $700. If they can’t fix that recliner, no charge and we go our separate ways. Handshake, done deal.
I brought the recliner in and the guy who received it immediately started sniffing all the parts of it like a dog. He got underneath and focused on that area. From under the back, he exclaimed, “Tomcat! Nothing’s gonna work. We’ll try, but it won’t come out. Nothing gets tomcat urine out of furniture.”
Why I’d question the expertise of a guy who crawls under furniture and identifies tomcat urine is still a mystery to me. He was absolutely right. Their process didn’t put a dent in that scent, and we didn’t pay them a dime when I picked it up.
At this point, we’re pissed. We spent $1000 on a couch that’s unusable, and we’ve moved our clunky sectional to the basement and back again, not to mention spending a Saturday moving their couch home. We keep reaching out to the seller. She tries different tactics, from ignoring us to just refusing to do anything for us. All the while, she still insists that the couch never smelled in their house and she sold it in good faith.
Finally, I’ve had enough. I tell my wife to tell this woman that they’re going to return our money and take the couch back or we’ll take them to small claims court. Then she offers to give us $100 back, still not admitting there was a problem with the couch. No. Everything or you’ll be sued. Finally, she agrees, but somehow is able to act like she’s the victim. Great. She transmitted our money back to us, but doesn’t say anything about the couch. A couple days pass, and she demands that we bring it back to them. My wife asked me when we can return it to her. My response? “Oh no. She can come pick it up from us. I’m not spending one minute or a single calorie on bringing her that useless couch.”. She says fine and asks for our address. She responds a couple days later and says they don’t want it either. Yeah, nothing wrong with it. Sold it in good faith. But you don’t want it at all. Huh.
We put it up for sale for free on the Facebook. We were very up front on its condition. The guy who came to get it was excited about it. I warned him that the scent is strong and nothing will improve it. He didn’t care. Said his sense of smell is very bad and he didn’t think it’d be a problem.
The reason most fights come down to bare knuckle brawling is simple. All that stuff you see on TV, MMA, martial arts tournaments etc are people that are trained to fight like that.
I have had my fair share of fights over the years, some I won, some I took a beat down. I have never seen anyone win a street fight using martial arts. Its probably not because it isn’t effective. Its because 99% of people are just watching TV or taking weekend course at Bob’s Dojo and that makes them think they are qualified to put the moves on Joe the drunk.
Pro Tip: Joe is not interested in style points or looking cool when he fights.
The worst thing in the world you can do if your not a trained professional is to try to kick someone in a street fight. Your foot leaving the ground means you have lost all your balance, your center of gravity is gone and your probably so slow doing it any reasonable healthy twenty-something man see’s it coming a mile away.
When I was young I had this happen to me once (not bragging) I caught the guys leg and slammed him into a brick wall. His Bruce Lee impersonation was over in less then a minute.
That wasn’t special. If you are not highly trained do not try any fancy kick moves you saw last night on TV. It wont end well. To effectively get away with kicking someone or doing most martial arts type moves like you see in the movies requires tons of training. It isn’t something Joe average can pull of just because they saw someone else do it or they took a couple of classes at the local community center.
#1: I went to high school with this girl, Lisa. She kissed me once. Later, in my early 20’s, I kept randomly running into her, all over the world: in a dive bar in New York, on the street in San Francisco, and in an obscure back alleyway in Oaxaca, Mexico.
#2: When I lived in New York, I had a dream in which some voice kept repeating a 4-digit number, like 3264, 3264, 3264, like it was very important. At the time, New York had a lottery you could play by choosing four numbers. I thought about playing 3264, but then dismissed the idea, as I had to go to work. As I was about to get on the subway, I noticed that my subway car was numbered 3264. That did it for me, I ran to the nearest lottery kiosk and played that number. The following day, the winning number was announced: 3265. One digit off. I was rather annoyed with the universe over that one.
#3: I exited my gym and hopped into my car, at that time a rather sad and beat-up green mid-1980’s Toyota Tercel. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I noticed that there was someone else’s stuff scattered around. And then it hit me: This was NOT my car! It turns out that for that particular model, the keys are sometimes interchangeable. Toyota made about 13 possible key shapes, and the woman who had already driven MY car away, had the same key I did. It took her longer to notice.
My wife would occasionally smell something odd. She couldn’t describe it. It happened at random times in random places, like in her classroom or at a concert or on the sidewalk downtown or in our house. If she was with someone she would ask, and nobody else smelled it. This happened over the course of at least two or three years that we can remember.
She also occasionally stumbled or lost her balance, which she attributed to natural clumsiness.
One Saturday afternoon in late March 2022 I came home from an errand to find her shivering under a blanket but not cold, and stammering her speech. I declared “something ain’t right with that girl” and took her to the Emergency Room. There a CAT scan revealed “a concerning mass” in her head. She was transferred across town to the major regional medical center. Sunday morning a MRI showed detailed pictures of a mass the size of a tennis ball behind her right eye.
That Tuesday she underwent 9 hours of surgery to remove a meningioma – a tumor of the meniscus tissue surrounding the brain. It was contained (not invasive) but growing. It had been growing for some years before it pressed on nerves and on the brain itself enough to disturb their function, including vision and smell and balance and eventually seizures. I brought her home that Friday afternoon, six days (to the hour) after we entered the ER.
Beginning immediately and now two years on, her olfactory hallucinations (remember the question was about smelling something?), tremors, and problems with balance and coordination are gone. She has a new eyeglass prescription. Follow-up MRIs continue to reveal no recurrence, and her brain is expanding to re-occupy the space from which it had been shoved aside by the tumor as it grew. She has made a more-than-full recovery, engaged with new sporting challenges, and enjoys every day as a teacher, musician, and Grandma.
By the grace of God expressed through a surgeon’s skillful hands, she no longer smells things that aren’t real, I get to enjoy more years with my lovely bride!
Here in my little town we had this business called the Executive Whirl-A-Sage. It offered massage and spa services for the “discriminating client”.
Everyone knew what it really was.
Anyhooo… The IRS decided to take notice. But they couldn’t figure out how much money the place made because it did everything in cash. They got clever.
Sent an agent in as a “client”. (I always wondered which lucky dude landed THAT plum assignment!) He had his “service” (which I suspect didn’t include the happy ending, but who knows???). He carefully counted the number of towels used.
The IRS then demanded all the laundry bills for the business. They counted the total number of towels and divided by the number used per client to determine the number of clients. Some simple math and they had their estimated revenue.
Needless to say, the place was closed down when it couldn’t pay the bill.
I’d just like to start off by saying, gentlemen, I love y’all. You’re half the world. Most of you are great, many of you are just sweet and adorable.
And then there’s the rest of you who come out of the barn in which you were raised just long enough to scare me out of leaving my house.
The right to have sex with me is earned. It’s not transactional, it’s not a bought and sold commodity, and I don’t owe you just because you bought me dinner or even a lousy cup of coffee. In fact, I owe you nothing of myself except my public courtesy, and that can be withdrawn at any time if you show yourself unworthy of it.
What you men—and this is where you stop being gentlemen—do to really creep me out is that you forget that I am the ultimate keeper of my body, and try to wear me down when I say no. Constantly badgering, hinting, whining like a toddler in a checkout line full of candy. Like a toddler you sulk and stomp around when I say no, and double down on trying to get your way. And just as the toddler screams “I hate you!” because mom won’t buy them a Kinder egg, you turn on me when I won’t give in.
“Bitch.”
“Fat pig.”
“You’d be lucky to have someone like me, you ugly piece of shit.”
Yeah, that’s just the right way to get me into the sack.
You don’t respect the word NO, and in that you disrespect me. That’s just creepy and you make me question my lifestyle choices.
To me I believed most of the global south world agree with me. I am sure the U.S. dog and slave nations very much prefer to lie to themselves that the U.S. is the most powerful for their own self interest and wishful thinking.
No matter how pretentious you can be, the world’s most indebted nation, the world’s highest deficit nation, the nation that spends more on defence than the next 10 biggest defence spender, the world’s most over reach, over extended war monger and trouble maker cannot be powerful. So the U.S. is at best is a desperado trying to grasp at anything to stay relevant at the cost of bringing its economy down further.
The real power is China whose respect comes from its actions. Not like the U.S. on coercion and threats. China has overtaken the U.S. in most counts. Even militarily. China does not want a poor U.S. or even a collapse U.S. it still wants a good trade with the U.S. but one that has mutual respect.
Why are universities making students pay for classes that have nothing to do with life
I work with a woman whose WHOLE family doesn’t “do funerals.” I asked her why.
She told me that it started when her paternal grandfather passed away, and they were planning the funeral. It was emotionally draining to plan while grieving, not to mention expensive.
Her paternal grandmother decided she didn’t want a funeral, and that Thanksgiving, with the whole family (my co-workers parents, co-workers in-laws, aunts, uncles, extended family on both sides) she made a declaration.
“I don’t want a darn funeral. Donate the money you’d use for a funeral for me to an animal shelter or a food bank.”
After a long discussion, it became a tradition.
They just don’t have funerals, they put up an obituary and ask for donations to whatever charity the deceased picked.
On the anniversary of their death, the family members take the ashes of their loved ones and spread them.
I don’t think it’s such a bad idea.
EDIT: (04/24/2020) Wow, I have gotten a LOT of feedback on this answer. Thank you all!
One thing I’m going to suggest to all of you is, if you choose to be cremated, please get your cremation set up and prepaid for as soon as you can.
My mom was diagnosed with Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer in March of 2017. One of the first things she did was get her cremation set up.
She prepaid for her cremation, she picked out an urn (a plastic box.) She also separately bought “keepsake urns,” for my sister, grandmother, one to be interred and one for me. She bought 10 death certificates (my dad had passed away on 2010, and she knew you’d need a lot of them for different things.)
When she passed away in February of this year, all my sister and I had to do was call the funeral home and they picked up her body. They had my sister and I go in a few days later and sign paperwork.
They didn’t try to sell us anything, they were able to be human to us. To help us grieve.
When you pass away, your family won’t have to pay anything extra out of pocket unless taxes or death certificate prices rise. We actually received a refund check for $11.38.
The cost of her “package” in 2017 was around $1,600. The funeral liaison we met with said today, it would be around $1,800.
At the time of the loss of my mom, I was so grateful she took care of it for us. It was an amazing gift.
I was doing part of my internship in a bank in the safe deposit department. It turned out to be quite fun, actually. One day a client came down and asked to rent a safe deposit box, a large one. He was in a hurry, so I did the paperwork as fast as possible, and then took him to his box, leaving him alone to deposit whatever it was he wanted to leave with us (as we were not supposed to watch) and then he left.
About ten days later, the gentleman came back, and, by chance, I was the one who went to open his box with him. I was about to leave him at it, when he stopped me and said “No need, I’m just getting this and I’ll return the box.” I looked and he had a big bag of chocolates which he was pulling out of the box! I gave him a puzzled look and he laughed: “My wife demanded I buy Swiss chocolates for the whole family, but then I had to add a leg to my trip, and I couldn’t take them with me. I thought it would be a pity to throw them away…so…”He raised his shoulders and left.
Still, he’d paid one year’s rent for a large sized safe deposit box, which was about 500 to 600 francs, to avoid throwing away maybe 200 francs of chocolates. And created an insect infestation risk for the bank, if he’d forgotten or neglected to return for his chocs!
I never had a situation like that,but just last year one man that has a restaurant in Rovinj,Croatia called my ex boss to ask him for my phone number since he saw me work the previous season.He then called me and said that he wanted me to work at his restaurant,and since he knew that I’m good at my job he offered me 3000€ a month,accomodation and food.He said that he knows that I’m worth it and that he won’t haggle because he wants me to work for him.I accepted and got there,and started to work. To cut the story short,from all the things he promised,nothing was delivered. It was close but not what was promised.When I got the first salary I noticed that the money paid to me was off,but since my first month there I didn’t work the full month i decided to wait for the next salary and to see what is what.The salary for the full month I got 2300€.When I called him to speak about it he said;”The conditions are what they are,if you don’t like it,good luck!”,and he raised his hand like he wanted to shake my hand.I grabbed his hand right away and said “I don’t like it.”He was surprised,and when I was walking away I heard him say that 2300€ is still a good salary and non of his other workers had that much.But to me it would have been the same if he gave me 1€ less than promised.I would still left.You can’t lie to me like that and expect me to take it.And besides the way he said that”if you don’t like it,good luck”that would be humiliating if I were to stay.Fuck you and your 2300€ a month.If he offered me 2300 from the start,and kept his word I would still come to work for him,and I would be satisfied.But anyway when it comes to your case,I think that saying to people:”If you don’t like it,you can go.” is degrading,and I would go.I think that there should be mutual respect between the worker and the boss,not just respect for the boss.
Some of what was said in the interview by Putin:
– Russia is ready to supply Europe with gas through the “Nord Stream 2” pipeline, but Germany does not want to
– The United States was the one who blew up the “Nord Stream” pipeline.
– Elon Musk’s creativity cannot be stopped, but rather an understanding must be reached with him
– Russia and Ukraine will reach an agreement sooner or later
We want to reach a solution to the Ukrainian crisis through negotiations
– NATO has options to recognize Russia’s control over the new territories
We have information that the United States supported terrorists inside Russia
The West fears a strong China more than it fears a strong Russia
– The Americans pledged not to expand NATO eastward, but the expansion happened 5 times
– The world will change regardless of how the crisis in Ukraine ends
– Russia becomes the first economy in Europe in 2023 despite the sanctions. American attempts are of no use.
– Ukraine is an artificial entity established in the Stalinist era
Russian relations with Ukraine are distinguished by language, kinship and religion
We proposed that Russia join NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they refused
– When NATO refused to let us join it, they feared Russia as a large and powerful country
We will never attack Poland unless we are attacked by them
How the heck did Andy Dufresne walk into nearly a dozen banks in the Portland area and walk out unrecognized with hundreds of thousands of Warden Norton’s money the day after his escape from Shawshank Penitentiary?
Signature cards, no photos on driver’s licenses, and no CNN or World Wide Web.
This stumped me for a long time, too. I couldn’t figure out how someone could use a phony driver’s license with no picture on it, and take out tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars out of any bank in the United States.
But apparently photos weren’t always required on driver’s licenses in every state. The first photos appeared on driver’s licenses in California in 1958. Texas didn’t require them until the mid-1970′s. Even New York and Tennessee didn’t require pictures until 1986.
I couldn’t find what year Maine began putting photos on theirs, but, it’s probably safe to assume that in the mid-1960’s, Maine didn’t yet require pictures on a legal form of ID.
The Maine driver’s license Andy presented to the bank was probably state issued and not forged, if we assume it was Warden Norton who created the alias to hide the money he was making by taking bribes from construction companies who didn’t want Shawshank’s cheap labor taking over major construction jobs in the local area.
Also, I remember, from working for a couple of years for a bank when I was in college that signature cards are placed on file with the bank, so if someone comes in without ID, they can just match the signature to the card, and accept that as legal identification.
We would think of that as somewhat of a lax form of ID in today’s day and age, but fifty years ago, the world was different.
Anyway, it makes sense that Warden Norton would use Andy and his wealth of banking knowledge to create all these accounts under the alias, Randall Stevens (Peter Stevens, in the novella) even having Andy sign the signature card (that doesn’t always have to be done inside the actual bank, believe it or not) so as to further insulate Norton from the crime.
As for why no one in the banks or on the street knew Andy by his face, someone else mentioned that this was 1966 (or 1975, if we’re talking about the original text) and in that era, it took a day, or so, to get someone’s photo into the newspapers (which was the World Wide Web back in those days) to get a photo distributed to the three major broadcast companies, and maybe a couple of days to reach all the local TV stations state- and nation-wide.
The instant gratification of the Information Superhighway was still a couple of decades away, so the wheels of communication could take a few days or even a week to get up to full speed back then, so it’s completely plausible that Andy Dufresne could have walked into a bank the following morning to clean out all of Warden Norton’s false bank accounts without anyone even knowing there was an escape at Shawshank, much less recognize his face.
The only thing that’s a little bit implausible is that he could get to eleven banks, all in one day. It has always been a tedious, drawn-out task to go into a bank and close an account, especially if you get an accounts officer, then an assistant manager, then the bank manager, all trying to talk you into keeping your account open, which Andy would most assuredly have run into, considering the money he was taking out of each branch, so the idea of getting to that many banks in a single 24-hour period is a bit of a stretch.
She was young and timid and always wore full-length skirts and hats whenever she was outside. She was one of the three women who ran the gifted program in my middle school. That may have been a part of her student teaching (internship), now that I think about it. Like I said, she was very young.
The gifted program in middle school was a one-hour-per-week pull-out program. Three or four kids from each class (I was one of them) left our regular class for that hour and went to a different room where the three teachers played logic games with us, discussed current events, and generally tried to challenge us more than the regular teachers were able to, since the regular teachers had to aim for the middle of the pack, student-wise.
The best part of that program was the field trips. It was nice to spend extra time with just that group of classmates and those three teachers. I happen to have some pictures from an 8th-grade gifted class field trip, and she is in some of them. I can tell now that she was maybe 25 years old at best back then.
Two years later, when I was a sophomore in high school, she got hired as a full-time English teacher at the school. It was cool to see her again. All of us former gifted class students of hers were happy to see her again, but sad that she wouldn’t be teaching the advanced English class we were in.
Within two weeks, we saw her for the last time, jogging down the hall mid-class period, crying, heading for the exit.
She was used to working with gifted kids in small groups… Kids who were well-behaved and genuinely interested in what she was trying to teach them.
As is the norm with high school teachers, the newest teachers get the last pick when it comes to classes. So she was stuck with teaching the remedial English class… the students who had the most academic and behavior issues. Apparently, those students were able to get under her skin so much that she walked out on the job. Broke her contract and everything. We never saw her again after that.
I remember seeing the assistant principal running down the hall shortly after that, into the room that she’d left teacher-less. It was the first time I’d heard an adult actually swear at students. (Although I was told that the coaches did it all the time to their student athletes.) He got the class back under control for the rest of the period, mainly by yelling at them like a drill sergeant.
But perhaps that’s what they needed all along: someone with the demeanor of a drill sergeant, not the timid young lady whose teaching career they ended quickly.
I’ve read many of the comments on this topic, and I believe my offering here can be helpful.
I worked in food service for 14 years and held the title of Executive Chef at two American institutions. The most notable was at the Augusta Country Club in 1987 up to the Masters’ Golf Tournament of April 1988.
The grilling, broiling, or searing of a Rib Eye steak will bring a distinct flavor to the flat surface of the cut, which is common for all beef seared grilled or broiled. However, that flavor will not be present along the outer perimeter of the cut, and tenderness is not guaranteed, especially once it cools down. (I’ve had to use a jacquard tenderizing device on some.)
A roasted Prime Rib can be prepared in an oven to achieve a dark brown upper/outer surface and can then be placed under a broiler/salamander to add more of that coloring/flavor to the outer surface. Also, a sliced Prime cut can be seared to get that browning onto the face of the cut. Au Jus is a lesser preferred option for me in that it “waters” the flavor as it rinses off some of the rub/seasoning.
Now, just last year I developed what I believe is the pinnacle of prep for Prime Rib. (I moved away from buying ribeye after I got less-than great results in tenderness after paying a high price per pound.)
What I did was to season a whole Prime Rib with a plain mustard binder, and my custom rub. THEN I thoroughly pierced the entire Prime with a long skewer to promote self-basting INSIDE the cut. The final step is the “ringer.” I put the Prime into my Cuisinart pellet smoker on 250 degrees, until the core temperature reached 200 degrees. (about 10 hours) I use dark wood pellets like Cherry, or a dark fruit blend. The outer surface comes out as dark as any sear. The smoke ring all around the Prime is always at least 1 centimeter wide, and the inside is always full of flavor!
Some of my guests who like rare meats believed they got rare from me. “Rare” is (arguably) around 165 degrees internally, but my Prime at 200 degrees was so tender, juicy and flavorful inside and out, that it pleased all my guests.
I am retired from my career, but I’ll be smoking another Prime Rib for visitors at my home next week!
Both. We had one restaurant that charged all cops $2 for a meal. It was a greasy spoon that health departments and vegans despise but it was the only place in town open 24/7 that we did not have to worry about some crackhead cook “doctoring” our food.
That $2 was usually supplemented with a $5 tip, which covered the meal and the waitress’ tip.
The chief stopped us from going to the diner unless we paid full price. So we paid full price. Orders are orders.
When the owner found out why we were paying full price, he was livid. He went to the next city council meeting and actually yelled at the mayor and city manager about how they were trying to dictate to him what he wanted to charge cops and firefighters. He had been doing it so long, everyone knew about it and didn’t care.
The day after the city council meeting, the chief rescinded his order and $2 meals were back with the $5 tip.
This was a place we could bring a homeless guy on a cold night for coffee and a meal and we did many times in the winter. We always left enough money for both and when we came in for our meal hours later, the waitress would give us our money back.
The owner would always feed someone in need for free and didn’t want us to pay for it. He felt it was his duty to do so.
Great food and a better man who, sadly, passed away many years ago.
I was born to answer this question. I have three distinct instances when my neighbors have called the cops on me, well rather my parents but still.
When I was a child I had a neighbor who would literally spy on my family and called the cops on us several times. The first time she called the cops on us was because she saw a sleeping bag on the roof and was calling because she thought one of us was on the roof. So the police come to our house and ended up waking my mom who was asleep (she works night shift as a nurse). What had happened was one of my sisters had spilled water on the sleeping bag and thought it was a sunny day she would just put it on the roof to dry.
As you can see my house has a window above the one roof so it’s not particularly hard to do this. Anyway the cops came questioned my mom and then went about their merry way.
The second time my neighbor called the cops was when we all were getting ready to go somewhere and my dad was at work so it was just my mom and us kids and so we all got loaded into the van and we were going about our merry way when the cops call my mom and ask if she has all of her children with her. She says yes and the cop asks if it’s okay if he comes and checks. She says yes and he comes and sees that we are all there and goes on with his life.
The third and final time was the most serious. The neighbors kid threatened me and said if I didn’t come over to her house in the middle of the night she would burn my house down. Now of course that wouldn’t make sense but I was under nine and she was three years older than me and I was scared of her. So I went over and spent the night. Her mom was totally okay with this and didn’t call my parents at all. Instead in the morning she gave us breakfast because we were hungry and we went home. Later that day she calls the police on my parents because she said we were not well taken care of and were starving. All because we had asked her for breakfast because after all we had not eaten all night. So the police came and inspected our cupboards and such. They decided that my parents were fit parents and left.
So that’s my crazy neighbor for you. I hope you enjoyed my stories.
My girlfriend back then was working at a hotel near my house. She went to work in the morning, and noticed a puppy in the back of a pick-up truck in the parking lot. It was yelping and whining, like puppy’s do, so it was hard to miss.
When she left work 8 hours later, the puppy was still in the back of the truck in the parking lot… in Texas. No water. No food. It was a hot day. She grabbed the dog and brought it to my house.
She was a yellow lab mix, and my girlfriend named her Vive. The girlfriend didn’t last, but the dog did. Best dog I ever had. We traveled together through thick and thin for the next 12 years. From small apartments to horse farms, and for a few weeks living in my truck, we were best friends. I could take her anywhere. Never on a leash to control her. Only when others demanded it. She was good with children, kittens, horses, and I could leave a steak dinner on a low coffee table, and she’d never touch it.
She had 2 drawbacks. The first, was that she loved the smell of a dead skunk. Thought it was Chanel No. 5 and loved to roll in it whenever she could find it.
The second, was that she didn’t live as long as me.
I attended college in the ‘80s, when miniskirts were (again) in fashion. In one class, a lovely young woman sat beside me in the front row.
During the first week of classes, the professor dropped the chalk mid-lecture (intentionally, I suspect) and peeked up her miniskirt. Her legs were not crossed.
She was taking notes, so she didn’t notice. He saw that I had, and he quickly resumed the lecture.
In the hallway after class, I asked did she have a moment. She was wary, probably used to being hit on by strange guys. I told her what had happened, and that she should probably switch seats.
She switched out of the class. I should have.
The professor had seen me talking with her in the hall. From that point forward, he nitpicked my assignments and test answers. (It was an English course, so all answers were written.) Nothing was ever wrong, but he’d find ways to subtract a point here and there until the deductions added up. I had a D in the class at one point.
I was naive, never before having received a bad grade. (Yes, overachiever.) I assumed that eventually the reprisal would end. The realization that college professors are almost completely unaccountable came too late — after the period to drop a class.
My final grade was a C. I was distraught, not only because it was my first C, but also because it threatened my scholarship, which required that I maintain a minimum GPA.
The assistant dean called me in for a conference. I explained what had happened, bringing exhibits of his grading of my work. I also provided the name of the peeking victim to corroborate my story.
A few weeks into the next term, I received a notice that my grade had been changed to a B. It was my only B in my major field.
And I avoided future classes with that professor.
Green Lasagna with Two Sauces (Lasagna Verdi al Forno)
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients
Meat Sauce
8 ounces bulk Italian sausage, crumbled
4 ounces smoked sliced chicken or turkey, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 medium stalk celery, minced
1 medium carrot, finely shredded
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 3/4 cups water
3/4 cup dry red wine
1/3 cup tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon Italian herb seasoning
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Dash of ground nutmeg
Green Noodles
8 ounces fresh spinach or 1 (10 ounce) package frozen spinach, cooked as per package directions
2 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 1/2 quarts water
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Cheese Filling
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup snipped parsley
Creamy Sauce
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of ground nutmeg
3 cups milk
Instructions
Meat Sauce
Cook and stir sausage until light brown; drain. Stir in remaining ingredients. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, 1 hour.
Green Noodles
Remove root ends and imperfect leaves from spinach. Wash several times in water, lifting out each time; drain. Cover and cook with just the water that clings to leaves until tender, 3 to 10 minutes. Rinse spinach with cold water; drain.
Place spinach, eggs, 1 tablespoon oil and 1 teaspoon salt in blender container. Cover and blend until pureed, about 20 seconds.
Make a well in center of flour. Add spinach mixture; stir with fork until mixed. Sprinkle with a few drops water if dry; mix in small amount of flour if sticky. Gather dough into a ball. Knead on lightly floured cloth covered board until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes.
Divide dough into halves. Roll one half into a 13 x 12 inch rectangle; cut rectangle into 6 (13 x 2 inch) strips.
Repeat with remaining dough. Spread strips on rack; let stand 30 minutes.
Heat water to rapid boil; stir in 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon oil and the noodles. Cook uncovered over medium heat until nearly tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
Drain; rinse with cold water. Place in single layer between sheets of wax paper.
Cheese Filling
Toss all ingredients together.
Creamy Sauce
Heat butter over low heat until melted. Blend in flour, salt and nutmeg. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth and bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for 1 minute; cover and keep warm. If sauce thickens, beat in small amount of milk. Sauce should be the consistency of heavy cream.
This happened a very long time ago in Corporate America.
Our department worked closely with another that was managed by Marsha, a 40-year-old workaholic who was brilliant at her job. In fact, headquarters had her conduct workshops twice a year to share her methods and to update procedures.
She was totally immersed in effective management, efficiency, quality control and motivation.
Occasionally, she would ‘come up for air’ and momentarily consider that life included much more than work. She would look around for something to do that would benefit the less fortunate and made donations of money, goods, old clothes and books.
Then it was back to being a workaholic.
She was approached by Stan, a fifty-eight-year old, homeless man who refused charity and asked for a job. She spoke with him several times at a cafe where he was sometimes given meals in return for doing odd jobs. Marsha was impressed by his attitude, but most of all, by the love he had for his dog SweetPea, a Lab mix.
That was a side of Marsha that none of us were aware of.
She put her reputation and position on the line, cleaned him up and got him a job in the company’s mail and supply room. Stan lasted two days: he insisted that SweetPea had to be with him.
Marsha didn’t blink. She negotiated a position for him in the large parking area of the office building. He and SweetPea were still there, three years later when I moved on to a different place.
Whatever the US do, or tries to do it does not matter. At the best it will only slow dow China the the U.S. expense of slowing it selves even more. China will grow till it is effectively be 5–6 times the U.S. real size. It may take the most of the 21st century but it will ultimately come to that.
The reason is simple. China has 4 times the U.S. population but it’s political and social system is simply far more superior and stable. It’s growth is sustainable and very healthy. Hence it should put grow the U.S. on per capital basis. But in the real sense. Not in U.S. dollar or even in GDP narrow sense that is frankly a farce and meaningless.
Chinese people are harder working, they are certainly more discipline, the learns more and are more industrious and highly driven. The Chinese language may render its people less descriptive but it makes them more learned and helps them learn faster and better. China is not distracted like the U.S. to get itself into endless wars like the U.S. hence it ought to be at least 50% more successful over time.
That is provided there’s us no war with the U.S. but if war happened it either end the world as we know it or it it world totally implode the U.S. till it becomes several nations. Both are not good outcome for the U.S. To me the U.S. needs to accept that the best option it to hang on to being a strong number 2 till India get its act together sometimes by the 2nd half of 21st century.
I needs to partner not try the shit of containing China right away. It needs to benefit most from China’s inevitable ascendency. Not obsessed with stoping China by cutting of its own limbs.
“You told my granddaughter her shirt was ugly,” an angry woman I’d never met before told me as I was supervising my kindergarten students during their breakfast time.
I looked down at my little student, then up at the grandmother and asked, “I’m sorry, what’s this all about?”
She repeated her claim, saying the girl came home from school the day before and told her the teacher said her shirt was ugly. I couldn’t even remember what the little girl had worn, and I most certainly never said that to a child.
Speaking to the girl, I asked her who had said her shirt was ugly and she replied, “The kids.”
Grandma went berserk at this and yelled at the girl, “No! It was your teacher who said that! That’s what you told me!”
At that point I suggested we take it to the principal and asked the other teacher in the cafeteria to cover my class. Once grandma and I were in the principal’s office, the whole conversation was repeated. The principal told the woman that she’d known me many years, that I would never speak to a child in that manner, and that clearly it was indeed other children who had said the shirt was ugly.
Grandma threatened to take her accusation to the district office. The principal pointed to her desk and said, “There’s the phone.” Grandma turned and left the office without another word, and that was the last I heard of the strangest complaint I ever received as a teacher.
Debt – had a sgt, when I first started, that lived about a mile from me, so we hung out sometimes. I get a call one day that he got arrested for bank robbery. He bailed out and my roommate and I went to talk to him, because we couldn’t believe it. He said, “I was just trying to show them how weak their security was.” We were new, but we weren’t born yesterday. Apparently he had some big gambling debts and was desperate. He went to prison.
The slippery slope – A team of narco cops decided, amongst themselves, that they weren’t being treated fairly. They were bringing in all this money in seized assets, but the department wasn’t giving them money for equipment they felt they needed, like night vision scopes. So, they kept (stole) some of the the money they seized to buy the equipment they felt they needed. mmmmm Okay. But then the equipment they needed turned into houses, cars, jewelry and boats. They went to prison.
Greed – A case I heard about recently, a deputy offered up his services to provide security for dope shipments. He said he and his coworkers would escort shipments for a certain amount of money. His “coworkers” were actually just people he knew. They all went to prison.
Born dirty – A kid from a generational gang family was raised to stay out of trouble and get good grades. The sole purpose was to get him hired on the sheriff’s department so he could help with the gang’s jail drug smuggling operation. He was found out and arrested. Within a week, he was all tatted up. He went to prison.
Stupidity/Naivete/No good deed goes unpunished/Blackmail – Inmates have nothing but time. Career criminals use that time to plan. They will try to identify, target and “groom” young naive deputies. In a case a few years back, 2013, or so, a young kid graduated from the academy and was assigned to one of the jails. An inmate started making conversation with him and being friendly. At a certain point, he gave this kid some sob story about his family and that he couldn’t get in touch with them, or something like that. Whatever it was, this young deputy decided to do something for this inmate, like take a message to his family, or something and then bring a message back. I forget exactly what it was, but it was against policy and being in his first year, he could be fired. The inmate used it against him and blackmailed him into smuggling drugs into the jail. The inmate was caught, gave the deputy up and the deputy went to prison. He made a video for the department about it that the department now shows in the academy.
Until a few years ago, when my mom was still working, she had a very strange habit — She would come back from work tired, request for a glass of coke, a couple of papad, and sit down for a few minutes before resuming other household work.
We would often tell her that rather than coke and papad, you can eat something healthier, perhaps a glass of juice and some fruits. But no, these advices would just fall on deaf ears. I wouldn’t just understand why would she not want to stay healthy.
She would often have headaches in the morning and would wake up tired. Being an advocate of yoga, other fitness activities and it’s importance, I would keep persisting with my efforts to convince her. But no, she would just not have it.
For me, it was difficult to understand why would she not want to have a better life.
Just, why not!
Surprisingly, my father, who used to go for jogging and would really care about his fitness, started ignoring the healthy bits of his life and slowly, with time, stopped doing it at all. He seemed to be following mom’s route of not caring about his health anymore. I tried to persuade him to restart with the brisk walking again, but to no avail.
Years later, I realised the reason — It was the stress that was killing them from inside — something I was not aware of, until recently, especially about the intensity of it they were dealing with.
When it was my turn to get a share of their stress coupled with some of mine, I found out how it overpowers your willingness to do things which makes you happy. It smothers you slowly, makes you want to avoid putting any extra efforts, even for those things which are absolutely essential. You become a person who just wants to do things which makes them feel normal, if not better — like having some unhealthy meals in my mom’s case; or stopping the exercises in my father’s.
Advices, suggestions, words of wisdom are the most readily available things in this world. Every body seems to give it, very few can follow it under every circumstance. What a person is going through and whether he can even make something of your suggestion (intended in a helpful way) is way beyond our understanding at times.
And unless you can be in someone’s shoes, you will never understand why that someone behaves in a certain way, or chooses not to.
I think a story from 2005 illustrates it fairly well.
This was at the Norrtäljeanstalten prison, Sweden’s highest security facility. We’re talking murderers, armed robbery, that sort of people.
One fateful evening, there was a major slip in security. Total disaster. In one wing, the cell doors remained unlocked as the staff went home for the day.
So. It’s not like the inmates could get out – they were still behind several secure layers. They just had the run of the building for one night.
So what did they do?
They made their way to the kitchen, baked a cake, and ate cake and watched TV all night. They all said it was the best night ever.
In the morning, they were unceremoniously put back in their cells, but faced no further consequences. The two staff who had managed to forget to lock got a weeks’ pay docked, and a stern warning.
Swedish prison: turns bank robbers into cake bakers.
My cat went missing for several months. He was a stray that kind of adopted my home as an inside/outside mellow lap cat. I searched and asked around, posted flyers all around town but he was just…gone. One day went to a customers home and on her living room couch is my missing cat!! This older lady had been feeding it and coaxed it inside and he stayed. He remembered me, I pointed out a little crook in his tail that convinced her it was him. I told her that he seemed pretty happy and I guess he lives here now. I gave her his vet records, cat bed, and favorite toys. Part of me was mad because she HAD to have seen those missing cat signs but I was at the same time glad he was warm and happy and not flattened by a truck or something.
About a year later, this crazy lady comes to my door with VET BILL! He got a bladder infection and she took him to the vet and asked them to charge me for it. She took the paperwork I’d given her and told them it was on my account. A bill had been mailed and I was on the phone with them before it even arrived letting know it was her cat and her problem now!
Back in the 1970’s there was this fad. It was the CB Radio fad, and everyone seemed to end up with a Citizens’ Band radio in the car. Ah. We all had slang that we would use, and there were many a useless discussion over the air that we all endured.
I had one. My brother had one. My parents had one. My friends all had one.
It was so “hip” at the time, don’t you know.
Now, we have cell phones, social media and all the rest. But every now and then, I get an itching to reach for the CB to find out what is going on regarding an accident that I just passed on the road.
Fads come and go.
And everything that we consider normal today, will eventually be viewed as a strange fad by others. Enjoy them while you have them.
Yes. The paramedics brought her in from a nursing home and they had been doing CPR for a while. The patient had been in and out of perfusing rhythms the entire time. She looked very old and frail and chronically ill. I asked the medics if she had a DNR order and they just rolled their eyes. The lead medic told me that they asked the same thing but the nursing home staff couldn’t locate the paperwork and because they couldn’t be sure they initiated resuscitation.
We didn’t have anything on record either but I wasn’t really committed to CPR and shocking and all the drugs necessary to keep this poor woman alive when her quality of life was likely so bad. I decided to give one round of drugs and then stop if there was no response. We did just that and much to my surprise she responded. Her heart started out slowly and gained momentum. Within a couple minutes she had a stable blood pressure. After a while she even began to attempt breathing on her own.
It wasn’t long before the family arrived and told us that the patient’s wishes were to NOT be resuscitated. They told us that she would never want to be kept alive this way and demanded that we stop the ventilator and medicines. So, I did. Despite stopping all support she continued to live. Ultimately, we admitted her to the hospital and she continued on in a sort of half-life state. This went on for days. Days!
I went to see her and the family a few times when they were there in the hospital and just felt terrible for them all. They were unhappy with me but they also understood why we did what we did. Ultimately, they sort of took it out on the nursing home staff and not the medics or me.
In the end, she died with her family all around her. Several members were able to travel in to say goodbye before she passed because of the hospital course. I suppose it all worked out the way it was supposed to. I still regretted it though.
It’s fun until it isn’t
English Beef Steak Pie
Ingredients
1 pound boneless round steak, trimmed
6 to 8 russet potatoes, pealed and cubed
1 large onion, sliced and separated
1/2 cup flour
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup water
1 pie crust (to cover top of pie)
Instructions
In a deep glass baking dish (either round or square, Corning or glass), layer meat, potato and onion, sprinkling flour over each layer.
Salt and pepper each layer.
Pour water slowly over layers and top with rolled out crust.
Roll edges of crust under around the edge and flute to seal edges to pan. Vent with knife several times.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about one hour until water bubbles and gravy have formed. Pierce with a cake tester through vents for doneness of potatoes.
Maybe it wasn’t rediculous as you mean but it was the biggest and it was Mine. I was representing a 15 year old pregnant girl. CPS wanted her sent to a reformatory. I wanted her sent to a girls school. The CPS worker testified that the girl should go to jail because when she was 5 yes five she seduced her father ( an executive with a big company). The girl had been raped by her father for years.
The girl said to me “ you told me that wasn’t my fault.” In the courtroom before God Judge and country I grabbed that CPS worker and tried to pound her into the floor.
It wasn’t looking good for me but the judge made an immediate order. He ordered the CPS worker to personally pay for the girl to go to the private girls school. (about 3times her annual salary) . I waited all day to be arrested. Finally a call came that I was wanted back in court.
It was announced that no charges would be brought against me and the order against the CPS worker was dropped and the order to pay made against the agency. The CP S worker was also to resign.
I’m not a violent person but only so much can be let go I guess at time I lost sight of my life and career and could only see my client.
I have gotten some nice comments. I need to add that before I went for this person the judge asked her if she had done everything she could for the girl. Her response was “I have been wonderful”. I am not proud of getting violent. It is very rare in my life. I was happy with the outcome but I risked getting my license and going to jail. I need to make a clarification here. I was in law school then. i was representing her as her probation officer. It was in the early 70s. A child’s right to an attorney was based on the parents ability to afford one. I was the closest thing to a lawyer she had.
PS. if you read about incest cases, or any sexual abuse cases of very young children, the children are usually taught by their abusers how to “please” them. they are basically taught to mimic seductive behavior. They are not seductive. They are merely mimicking what they have been taught to do, but not everybody sees it that way. many overtly seductive Teenagers have been molested in this manner as a child, but they are just labeled as seductresses. I guess it is easier for some people to blame a child than it is for them to take the time to learn about the effects of abuse on children. I was often called in by other probation officers when they had an uncomfortable feeling about a case because I could see these types of behaviors even minor ones. i’ll never know how many cases I didn’t catch, but I was never wrong when I called it.
Killer Thinks He Got Away With Murder – Doesn’t Know 5 YO Survived | The Morrissey Family Case
Not quite fitting in, this applies to ALL overseas types, near ones (Malaysia, Singapore) and far ones. USA, Europe.
An example is this
vs this
Superficially we look similar but we’re quite different.
You stand me next to some China born Chinese and you’ll feel there’s something off.
The foreign diet in our formative years changes us. I was a LOT fatter (though thing for westerners) and had a rounder chunkier face.
The life experiences also make us stand differently. I’ve written previously that in the UK if you’re weak (doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, Indian or Chinese) people will pick on you. So there’s an outward portray of aggression already… probably why cops stop me so much.
That’s just the visual things.
Then we’ve got psychology, culture and language.
All of which means you fit in even less. You can as again fit in on a superficial level but go any deeper and you’re spotted.
Being different leads to disimilar treatment sometimes, sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad.
My wife and I brought her car in for service at the dealership and we’re looking around while waiting. A young salesman asked if he could show us around. I said we are just there for service.
After talking a while about their new cars, he went to get “the closer” a big fellow who obviously had been there for a while. He began to say things like what would I need to do to get you into this vehicle and make me an offer. I told him we weren’t in the market for a car; I research such matters before making such a purchase; and, for me to buy a car today, he would probably have to nearly give it to me. I told him if I made him an offer, I was sure he would find it insulting.
I did let him pull my credit. This would have made it very clear that I was highly successful in financial services sales. Which is what makes his subsequent rudeness particularly inconceivable.
He continues to insist that I make an offer. I finally offer him probably half of what the car is worth (because I would have bought it on the spot at that price). He is insulted.
He then leans over me (with my wife still sitting next to me) and says:
“At some point in your life, you’re going to have to become man enough to be able to make a decision.”
I instantly replied:
“It’s not my manhood in question here; I’m not the one who can’t close this deal.”
I only saw the stunned look on his face for a moment before he turned to walk away.
June 2nd, Midnight; a 15 yo boy Zohaib posted a suicide note over social media; stating he’s going to end his life today.
I browsed through a lot of tweets posted from other users on the topic, and learned that the boy lives in my city on XYZ road. That’s it.
The problem is that, on the said ‘miles long’ road there are dozens of towns and neighborhoods interconnected, I mean, that is very incomplete piece of information to effectively and timely counter such an issue of extraordinary sensitive nature.
I responded to him immediately, and also requested public to send me any information or clue they might have about this boy.
And that interaction of mine resulted in one of the most burdensome barrage of tweets and DMs I’ve ever received as social media handler of city police, the number was literally in thousands. That kid’s name was trending nationwide on twitter during this fiasco. But sadly, nothing useful came out of this interaction tsunami, all I had was first name of the boy and that he lives somewhere in my city.
I calmly reviewed the situation for a minute; I mean our field officers are ‘head to toe’ engaged with crime fighting day in & day out, responding to the calls, handling cases one over the other, and now comparatively… I have this first of its kind situation where a boy wants to commit suicide about whom we know nothing… could even be a prank for goodness sake.
Nope. I told myself.
We should find and rescue him, no matter what it takes…we gotta!
I got Police Chief in the loop, by his orders Police command & Control was now at my disposal. Which I believe is the most sophisticated and comprehensive system of surveillance, communication and patrolling all across the country. We were about to to execute a time sensitive search and rescue task. Our officers responded to the given locations and secured the entry exit points; while being on the look out.
And that minute, I learned over social media that the boy has fled home, he’s on the loose!
Holy cow!
We didn’t panic with the thought of him doing something foolish while on the run, though it was a legitimate concern. We kept striving, I dispatched teams here and there upon receiving bits of information from concerned twitter users, and then the magic happened…. we got his address. Somebody finally recognized him I guess even though there was no display picture or anything else but the that helped us greatly. Now that is something, I can work with.
He wasn’t home but now we knew who he is. So technical resources along with human intelligence played the good part, he was tracked and in minutes… secured!
And all of this happened under an hour.
He was anxious and nervous… but otherwise fine and safe. His parents thanked the Police, the situation came back to normal.
Next day while I was at work, various news teams arrived at my office and I was genuinely surprised to learn that this episode has made to the news, even to BBC. I was directed to speak a few words on camera, which I did even though I hate to.
Those of you who know me for a long time, I really do not appreciate the idea of being on the limelight for many reasons. I have politely excused out of numerous feature stories and interviews all these years.
I’m not a celebrity, never was. Super hero, Yes. But not a show off… for that is not what cops are meant to be. That is why you see the big-ass mask on me even though I was requested twice that it is perfectly alright to slide it down a little during the talk. Nope!
Do police officers care about you? YES. Dogmatically!
I’ll do whatever it takes to protect and serve you, I will put my life on the line to save yours! And here “I” stands for Police officers you see daily around you no matter wherever you are.
Start your journey
Not wealth, but really in the things that matter to you.
Figgy Pudding
Figgy Pudding is a type of Christmas pudding which was originally made with figs. It may be baked, steamed in the oven, boiled or fried. Figgy Pudding dates back to 16th century England.
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
300ml (1/2 pint) milk (10 fluid ounces)
225g (8 ounces) flour (2 cups)
175g (6 ounces) dried figs
150ml (1/4 pint) Brandy (5 fluid ounces)
110g (4 ounces) suet
110g (4 ounces) prunes
85g (3 ounces) raisins or sultanas
50g (2 ounces) dried apricots
50g (2 ounces) dates
25g (1 ounce) dried apples
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
On the day before making the pudding, place the dried apricots, prunes and apples to soak in water and place the raisins or sultanas to soak in the brandy.
Remove the stones from of the dates and prunes.
Butter a large pudding basin or double boiler bowl.
Sift flour into a bowl.
Stir in suet and mix to a fairly soft dough with cold water.
Turn out on to a floured surface. Lightly knead until smooth.
Roll out two-thirds of pastry into a round and use to line a well-greased 2-pint pudding basin (or double boiler bowl).
Melt the honey and stir in the ginger and cinnamon. Add to the soaked fruits and brandy mixture. Mix well and place into the pastry lined bowl. Moisten edges of pastry with water. Cover with lid, rolled from remainder of the pastry. Press edges well together to seal. Cover securely with greased greaseproof paper or aluminum foil.
Steam steadily for 2 hours. Ensure that the water does not evaporate, topping it up from time to time with boiling water.
Three years back, in 2013, one evening, I was having casual discussions with my friend, lets call him “Mr.S”. We were discussing on different topics like current trends, jobs, future life, family and friends, money. At that time, I was working in a software company with little experience of 1.5 years and some cash in my account. S was studying hard to clear his remaining subject which forced him to take a year gap. And same was the case with “Mr.P” too, he is the third character in my story.
Let me tell you, we all are intelligent students. But because of some mistakes and their habit of taking things lightly cost them a year gap. In fact, Mr.P was smarter than me in every department. Mr.S was not good at academics but he was too good at marketing and some other “special” skills.
We three were together from last 7.5 years. We sat on one bench. We studied together. We stayed together. We tripped together. We partied together. We lived together. We participated and won lots of competitions together. And most important – we dreamed together. Everyone from our batch including teachers used to tell us — you 3 idiots are awesome.
Everything in life was going in a right direction. But let me remind you one of the laws of Mr.Murphy, “In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right, something is wrong.” [src: http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-laws.html]. And exactly, same thing happened with us.
Lately, I was thinking a lot about starting a business. Starting a start-up. Starting an IT Company. Starting an IT Training institute. Starting something related to IT. I discussed these thoughts with Mr.S. And guess what, he completely agreed with my ideas and within a few minutes we were business partners! I started giving more time to the thoughts on business. Within some days, we decided to include Mr.P in our team, as he was our best friend and also a sound person with technical knowledge. We shared all these thoughts with Mr.P and he also agreed to join us on the long adventure. But assured us that he’ll join the company after a few months.
So basically everything needed to start a startup was ready. We had a team. Me as a sole investor, lead technical person and of course, the CEO. Along with that I also had a role of Software Engineer in the company where I was working concurrently. It was a big task for me to handle both the tasks – a job and a start up.
My job was the main source of finance for my family and for the startup also. Mr.S was assigned the role of getting assignments and marketing department, while Mr. P was going to look after the training and in-house development. We also had few projects to start with. We also hired 2 people to work with us.
After few months, I made an investment of ₹2 lac (~$3000) and bought 4 advanced PCs, also rented out a small place to start our work in. And, within a span of 4 months, our small startup was on its way onto a long journey. We held a small inaugural function and celebrated. Yeah, that was quite an achievement for us. We started our working together.
But there was a small problem, Mr.P was yet to join the company. He earlier promised us to join the company, yet after 3 months, he was not interested in joining the company. After thinking a lot, I decided to talk to him about his decision and why he was not joining office. His answers gave me the biggest shock of my life. He refused to join the company. His reasons were like, “I am not seeing future in your company. Another friend of us started another startup and he is taking me in his team. I need money right now.” Guys, let me tell you, I also offered him mighty amount of salary. But still, he refused my invitation politely and sent a long message reasoning why he won’t join the company. Most of the reasons were BS. And story of Mr.P was finished. Completely.
Lesson#1 learned [in a hard way]: Do not trust the promises of everyone. Everybody is not loyal to his/her own words.
I was shell shocked, shattered, and quiet depressed after hearing his decision and answer. I was scattered from inside. I decided to keep the work running with Mr.S along with the two hired people. Things were getting more and more difficult.
Fast forward 4-5 months.
Mr.S was looking after the marketing and product sales things, he was the main guy our customers were dealing with. Whereas I was busy in development and resource management.
One day, while managing balance sheets, I figured out there was a record missing for a sum of ₹20000 (~$300). Out of curiosity, when I asked Mr.S about the missing ₹20000, his answers were not logical. They were irrelevant. They were lies. I got to know that he was playing some tricks and using the company’s money for his own personal use. His most funny reply was, “Dude, chalta hai… busy log hain hum, chhoti chhoti details par dhyan nahi rakhte“. [Dude, We are too busy people, we should not focus on such small details]. For him ₹20K was a small amount, but it wasn’t for me.
We had a bitter argument on this and it resulted into disagreement. And we decided to separate. Decided to drive on our separate ways. But he put one condition. He will retain the “business name“. As he was looking after the marketing and other things, he decided to go after the name and customers. And in such way, my first startup was dead.
Lesson#2 learned [in a harder way]: Be careful who you bring to the top with you, not everyone is loyal.
Image Source : Google
P.S. I allowed him to use the business name, because of two reasons:
I was ready to work with anyone, but not with a treacherous friend.
I trust myself, I was alone at the start and will fight the battle alone, will re-build everything from scratch. One can delay me, but can never stop me from achieving my dreams.
Edit 1: From last 2 years, we 3 have never met, talked or discussed about each other.
In June, 1954, US Senator Lester C. Hunt (D-WY) shot himself to death with a rifle at his desk in his US Senate office in Washington, DC. Senator Hunt had been despondent over threats he had received – from Sen. Joe McCarthy and two Republican colleagues, Senator Herman Welker (R-ID) and Senator Styles Bridges (R-NH) – that lurid reports of the arrest of Hunt’s son the previous year would be made public, both in Washington and in his home state of Wyoming, embarrassing Hunt and putting his upcoming reelection bid in peril. The younger Hunt had been arrested and charged with soliciting sex from a male police officer, who was working a sting operation in a Washington park. The charges were later dismissed, but McCarthy and his cronies discovered the fact, and pressured the police department into refiling the charges. Hunt was under great pressure from McCarthy, demanding that he resign, which would have effectively given the Republicans control of the Senate. At the time, Democrats controlled the US Senate by just one vote, and a Hunt resignation would have put the Senate into a tie, enabling the Republicans to gain control, since then-Vice President Richard Nixon would serve as tiebreaker. After Hunt’s death, the Republican governor of Wyoming appointed a Republican to fill Hunt’s unexpired term, who in turn declined to run for the seat in that fall’s election, a race that was won by a Democrat. Unfortunately, the Republicans flipped other Senate seats in 1954, and took control on their own. This scandal was downplayed for many years, but it also occurred in the shadow of the Army-McCarthy hearings, which were going on at the time of Hunt’s death. Even today, there is little awareness of the scandal in Wyoming, and few Americans know that it took place at all. Interestingly, though, Hunt is known as the driving force behind Wyoming’s famous “bucking bronco” license plate emblem, having commissioned the artist to create the design during his years as Governor of Wyoming.
I went to a famous pancake restaurant that was promoting its new burgers. I saw an ad offering them for $5.99 with unlimited fries and a free drink. I pointed to the jalapeno kick burger and asked the waitress to verify that this burger was, in fact, part of the $5.99 special. When she said, “yes,” I then ordered this burger. I had a $10 gift card, and my intention was to tip the waitress the remaining amount after taxes, which would have made it a 50% tip.
However, when I got the bill, I saw was charged $9.29 for the burger. When I called the waitress over to tell her about the mistake, she said that the burger I chose was not included in the special and that I needed to pay regular price. Naturally, I told her that I deliberately asked her if this burger was included before I ordered it and that she confirmed me it was. Her response was that she didn’t understand what burger I wanted.
I explained the situation to the manager, saying I would not have ordered it if the waitress did not tell me it was part of the special, that they cannot charge me for the server’s mistake. The manager called the server over and she had the nerve to deny that I even asked her about the burger being a part of the promotion. Unbelievably, the manager said she must take the server’s word for it.
In front of the waitress, I presented my $10 gift card, telling the manager, I was going to give the waitress what would have remained from my $5.99 burger, which would have been a nice tip. However, since she won’t own up to her mistake, she will now receive what is left from my $9.29 burger (which after taxes was about a nickel).
Waiting in line at an auto parts store and the guy in front of me sets down an alternator and asked the clerk for a water pump. The clerk naturally is confused and asks about the alternator. The guy tells him it’s a water pump and that’s why he asked for a water pump.
The clerk tries nicely to correct him, even shows the guy a picture of an alternator vs. a water pump for his specific car. To no avail the guy “knows more” than this poor clerk. Who I might add is 100% correct that the alternator is NOT a water pump. The power connections kind of gives it away specially when there are no hose attachments for it to pump coolant a.k.a. water.
Anyway, the guy just goes nuts. Throws the alternator at the poor clerk luckily missing his intended target. Makes huge threats about calling corporate; of course he has tons of friends on social media so he threatens to close the store down. On and on this guy goes about how much smarter he is than anyone behind the counter, how they always give him the wrong part. I swear it lasted 20 minutes. Anyway, the manager was in the back counting out the money or stocking something, not really sure, but she was in the back. She comes out, picks up the alternator, sets it on the counter, and asks the guy why he is throwing such a temper tantrum over an alternator.
Oh here we go again! How dare a woman correct him. She doesn’t know shit about cars. What’s a woman doing working at an auto parts store. The vile shit just kept going. Well, during ALL of this mess someone in the oil section decided to call the cops. At some point the cops sneak in and are right behind me and this entire mess. I’m gently pushed aside and they yell, “Sir!” real loudly. He turns and goes ghostly white. The cops start asking about the situation. One has taken the rest of us aside, found the caller, and we are telling them what we witnessed. The other officer is talking with mister alternator/water pump.
Next thing you know he is under arrest and as they are escorting him out we hear one officer tell the other officer that arguing about alternators was the dumbest thing they have witnessed all month. To which the guy yells, “It’s a fucking water pump!”
When my son was in elementary school he was beaten up by two older students to the point he required hospital care. Since the two boys were going into high school next year and it was the last day of school both the principal and superintendent said there was nothing they could do. I called the police and had them charged. One officer went to the hospital and saw my son and two more took the boys away in handcuffs at the school. When the case went to court I told my son to be honest and don’t guess. The boys had been in trouble before so the parents hired a good criminal lawyer.
My son was on the stand for over an hour being grilled by the lawyer and the judge was getting fed up. The lawyer asked my son how he knew who was kicking him. Basically he said “ I was being kicked by a Doc Martin shoe which was on a foot which was on a leg which was on a body and his head was on it” I could see the judge shaking in silent laughter and the stenographer laughing in her Dictaphone. The courtroom was silent with muffled laughter. The lawyer also stood away from my son and holding his ear said he had bad hearing and to speak up. My son was very nervous and scared showing it by speaking very quietly. Finally my son turned to the judge and said could he ask a question. The judge said sure. My son said “in which ear is he hard of hearing because he is going back and forth between both ears”. Same muffled laughter. The judge glared at my son and said “if his hearing is that bad he will be ending his questioning” with a wink to my son he told me later.
Apparently this went on with all the other witnesses and the case was dismissed from all the conflicting statements. This lawyer must have cost the parents a bundle. The police officer in charge of the case visited us about a month later to see how my son was doing. He also said that he was impressed with my son in court and gave him his card. All our children make us proud.
During my college, I took a course called entrepreneurial marketing.
The professor gave one interesting perspective regarding billing and customer experience:
When booking a flight ticket, if the price is $220 instead of $210, the customer wouldn’t feel anything. The $10 on the top of $210 he is paying seems insignificant.
But if you charge him $210 at the beginning and later ask him to pay $5 if wants a water bottle onboard, he might find the experience disappointing. One, he thinks $5 is too expensive for a water bottle. Two, he has to check if he has the cash. Three, he has to worry about conversion charges if it is the card. Overall, there are so many things that make the experience complicated.
So just add $10 more on the flight ticket and give him two water bottles if you are keen on giving a comfortable experience.
Same thing with star hotels. Just charge $20 more on the $150 per night and give complimentary water, canned drinks, and coffee rather than billing for every item inside the mini-fridge.
The same logic applies to tipping.
When you go to a restaurant for a pleasant dining experience, you are made to do all sorts of calculations for taxes and add them to the amount in the menu. On top of this, you have to do calculations for tips and then add to the final amount to see if the item is really worth that price or not.
It ruins the whole experience.
Secondly, this tipping is completely optional. It is in the customer’s hands whether to pay it or not. And if he wants to, whether it is 5% or 15% is also his choice. There is no guarantee that the one who did the best service will get the maximum tip.
Thirdly, does anyone who what is best service universally? For me, not bothering me by enquiring every five minutes ‘Do you need anything else?’ or standing beside my table is a better service. For someone, being approachable by waiting near his table is better service. It varies from person to person and it is near impossible for the waiter to figure this out.
Fourthly, the tip for bringing $50 for 100ml single malt is more than $5 1L water bottle, when the former requires less energy. Is there any logic here?
And lastly, the owner thinks that waiters get high tips and pay them low salaries. The customer thinks that the waiters are anyway paid and hence don’t give them tips. So the waiters are at a complete loss here.
The best way to solve this is to treat waiters like any other worker- chef, security guard, delivery guy or equipment operator. Pay them market salary rather than putting their livelihood at the mercy of the customers. Why do you need to tip waiters, when you don’t tip nurses, delivery guys, security guard, police, or janitors when they are also doing service?
English Muffins
Ingredients
1 cake or package yeast
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 cups milk, scalded
1/4 cup melted shortening
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour
Instructions
After kneading, place in greased bowl and let rise until double.
Roll out to 3/4-inch thick. Cut with 3-inch cutter. Cover circles and let rise until very light.
Bake on greased electric skillet or at 375 degrees F in the oven.
Don’t comb your hair on the table at the restaurant. I don’t want your hair-strands in my food. I prefer that you use the restroom even if you want to touch up your lipstick.
If you know that you have smelly feet and that you have not washed your socks in several weeks, don’t take off your shoes in crowded places. Not even in the aircraft. You should have thought about this before you boarded the plane.
Let people who are sitting in the front of the aircraft deplane first! If you have a connecting flight, you can politely ask them to let you deplane first.
Let people exit the elevator/train/bus before rushing in.
Follow the queue. Yes, even in the washroom. Just don’t stand in front of the bathroom stall when 572 people are waiting in the queue.
Buy earphones, or headphones. Whatever you prefer. Because I don’t want to listen to rock music during my morning commute.
Give your seat to the pregnant lady. Or the lady carrying a small child. Or the old lady/gentleman. If you are a young lady in perfect health condition, this applies to you as well. Not just the boys.
Wear washed clothes, because the smell of the sweat sticks. Use deodorant. Specially applies when you are traveling by public transport.
Also, don’t keep your clothes next to the kitchen area, as the smell from spices sticks.
Don’t leave the texts as “seen” or with the “blue ticks”. Either respond, or never respond. Don’t respond to a text which was sent 4 days ago. Just be honest and tell them “that you are busy” or that “you don’t feel like talking to them”.
Show up with a gift. Don’t come empty-handed, after all the host took the time to invite you and do the preparation, didn’t they?
Don’t dump your negativity onto others. Not many people are accepting of it.
I had stopped dating someone who had just been divorced and wasn’t ready to settle (and wasn’t right for me). I had been invited to a party but didn’t want to go. I’m not going, I decided. Finally, two hours after the party had started, I went, alone. The loft owner’s friend opened the door — and we started talking. He was sweet, funny, had just graduated from college, was 7 years younger than me, was planning to move cross country in 2 days. We hung out at the party and then he asked if he could walk me home. We’d walked 2 blocks, making all sorts of witty comments about street signs,etc., and I thought, “This guy is so different than the ones I usually like…he’s not all dark and dramatic (which usually hooked me)…he’s like being with a best friend.” And then I asked myself, “Why shouldn’t I be in a relationship with a guy who treats me as well as my best female friend does??” I remember my small decision precisely: deciding that I’d be open to this…even had a mental metaphor of it being like a Japanese paper lamp I’d hold gently…not try to force anything…but just be open to connecting with someone who made life fun, who was kind, who wanted to know about me and share himself.
He’s been an extraordinary husband and father and after more than 30 years, is still the most fun person to hang out with. We’ve traveled all over the world, gotten grad degrees after the kids were born, created books and apps and games, gone through family stresses and losses, relationship issues, gone through everyday boring ol’ life.
It was a small decision I made, but a profound one: to love myself. To allow myself to be loved by someone who treated me (and others) well. To let myself be with someone whose company I flat-out enjoyed. It wasn’t sudden roses and symphonies…it was playful and sweet. But I see the depth and beauty now. I so wish everyone this.
Maybe it wasn’t rediculous as you mean but it was the biggest and it was Mine. I was representing a 15 year old pregnant girl. CPS wanted her sent to a reformatory. I wanted her sent to a girls school. The CPS worker testified that the girl should go to jail because when she was 5 yes five she seduced her father ( an executive with a big company). The girl had been raped by her father for years.
The girl said to me “ you told me that wasn’t my fault.” In the courtroom before God Judge and country I grabbed that CPS worker and tried to pound her into the floor.
It wasn’t looking good for me but the judge made an immediate order. He ordered the CPS worker to personally pay for the girl to go to the private girls school. (about 3times her annual salary) . I waited all day to be arrested. Finally a call came that I was wanted back in court.
It was announced that no charges would be brought against me and the order against the CPS worker was dropped and the order to pay made against the agency. The CP S worker was also to resign.
I’m not a violent person but only so much can be let go I guess at time I lost sight of my life and career and could only see my client.
I have gotten some nice comments. I need to add that before I went for this person the judge asked her if she had done everything she could for the girl. Her response was “I have been wonderful”. I am not proud of getting violent. It is very rare in my life. I was happy with the outcome but I risked getting my license and going to jail. I need to make a clarification here. I was in law school then. i was representing her as her probation officer. It was in the early 70s. A child’s right to an attorney was based on the parents ability to afford one. I was the closest thing to a lawyer she had.
PS. if you read about incest cases, or any sexual abuse cases of very young children, the children are usually taught by their abusers how to “please” them. they are basically taught to mimic seductive behavior. They are not seductive. They are merely mimicking what they have been taught to do, but not everybody sees it that way. many overtly seductive Teenagers have been molested in this manner as a child, but they are just labeled as seductresses. I guess it is easier for some people to blame a child than it is for them to take the time to learn about the effects of abuse on children. I was often called in by other probation officers when they had an uncomfortable feeling about a case because I could see these types of behaviors even minor ones. i’ll never know how many cases I didn’t catch, but I was never wrong when I called it.
Few people walk into a recruiting station and tell them they want to leave that afternoon. You do have to chat with a recruiter for a while. Granted, they’ll tell you the Army line. Rarely will they lie but they will leave stuff out.
For a lot of people, the Army sounds way better than the situation they’re in. In my first meeting with the recruiter, he told me the Army would train me in life skills (HAHA, at least, not from my MOS), they’d cloth you and give you everything you needed, I’d get a bed, desk, and wall locker, they’d feed me as much as I wanted to eat, I got to choose me MOS (This is where you need to do your research), they’d let me blow stuff up and play with some of the biggest toys the Army has, they’d give me $15K for college, and they’d pay me on top of it.
To a seventeen-year-old kid who’d worked a dirt farm in N. Colorado his entire life, that sounded pretty good. The Army helped get me my Eagle Scout and gave me some perks for that. The recruiter worked with the school to make sure I’d graduate. I was failing a class, and I told my recruiter I wouldn’t graduate. He went to the school and talked to the admin and they made sure I’d pass.
Researching your MOS and the Army is a good idea, but nothing prepares you for stepping off the bus. I have a Ranger buddy whose son just went through basic. He had his son meet with all the vets he could find and we gave our experiences. That wasn’t enough to keep him from calling home and wanting to come home.
No matter how prepared you are, once you get boots on the ground and jump down the rabbit hole, you’re in for a ride. I think people with less prep do better as they have no idea what to expect and they just roll with it instead of standing around thinking this is nothing like what everyone said.
The USA government that was designed back in 1776 can no longer function. It is not suitable for the new global order. The USA is at a strategic inflection point. Great discussion by Colonel Douglas Macgregor.
See below deep in the article.
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There is a formula used by wives that wish to leave their husbands. It is a devastating reality to the husbands of the West. The “three step rocket“. It is a template that is followed over, and over, and over again. It is important for all married people to know about this reality.
See below.
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Guys, back in the 1970’s. I would guess around 1972, my father came back from a work trip and gave me a present. It was a tiny book. The cover was plastic, and it was about 2 cm thick. It was about 4cm x 5cm or so. It was red. A little red book.
Because the cover was plastic, it was flexible and compact, and easy to slip into the pocket of my Levi jeans.
It was (the now infamous) “little red book”. And I loved it.
It was in English.
And it was page after page of sayings. All of which seemed to make a lot of sense to me, even though I was in my teens at the time.
I carried that book with me to college. To my various homes as I worked, and all the way up until I moved to China. I cannot say for certain that it influenced me to join the Chinese Communist Party, as I wouldn’t even begin to consider how to do so. But it absolutely DID influence me.
I could feel the “revolutionary spirit” of what was being birthed so far away at the other end of the world.
The Three Main Rules of Discipline are as follows:
(1) Obey orders in all your actions. (2) Do not take a single needle piece of thread from the masses. (3) Turn in everything captured.
The Eight Points for Attention are as follows:
(1) Speak politely. (2) Pay fairly for what you buy. (3) Return everything you borrow. (4) Pay for anything you damage. (5) Do not hit or swear at people. (6) Do not damage crops. (7) Do not take liberties with women. (8) Do not ill-treat captives.
“On the Reissue of the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention – Instruction of the General Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army” (October 10, 1947), Selected Military Writings, 2nd ed., p. 343.
How can you possibly not be impacted by such profound and intelligent direction?
Me and my friend were about 17 hanging out at the local McDonalds. Let me remind you my friend had the physique of a 25 year old because he constantly roofed with his dad. We heard a father screaming at his son if he didn’t finish eating his food he would pull his pants down right there and beat his bare ass. He would jump up and act like he was going to punch the child who appeared to be maybe 4 or 5. When he did this the child would jump and cower in his seat. Then the father would let out this horrendous laugh making fun of him. Me being a child from a physically abusive father knew exactly how this poor kid felt. My friend who had always protected me saw the look of horror on my face.
The next time he jumped up screaming he would beat his bare ass, my friend jumped up grabbed his arm and screamed “you will not be touching him as long as I’m sitting here!” The mans facial expression changed to sheer horror as he saw this kid twice his size threaten to put him in his place. He suddenly asked the boy if he was done. and scurried out of the restaurant. That day my friend grew about 10 feet tall in my eyes and saved that little boy from receiving a severe beating for such a small infraction.
I was truly desperate for work. My husband and I had returned from his Naval station in Italy to find that the military was being cut back so he was out. It was August, so I couldn’t find a teaching job anywhere and he was having trouble finding anything at all.
The local paper yielded only two jobs for which I was qualified. One was as a cashier at a supermarket for $1.95/hour (1972…what can I say?) and the other was as a paste-up artist at a newspaper for $1.90. I figured the newspaper job might be more upwardly mobile, so I applied.
The manager didn’t ask for an interview. He called to tell me that he appreciated my interest, but that I was over-qualified for the job so he wouldn’t hire me. He said he figured I’d quit if I find something better. I told him my story. He still hesitated, pointing again to my advanced degrees. I waited a beat then said, “Even college graduates have to eat.”
He hired me right then and I made sure he never regretted that decision.
Look at how serious they look and how old they are
Their Median age is 61.3 years
They are all extremely talented people with tremendous ability and have proven themselves over and over again
These Generation of Chinese in the 1970s and 1980s could have easily recognized their ability and merit and voted them into power due to their sheer efficiency
Even the 1990s generation would have voted for them to a great extent, understanding the value of long term planning and hard work
Todays generation?
Naah
They are all modern and highly opinionated by Social Media and the outside world
They have more money than any previous generation and have seen so much development that they are liberal by nature in their Outlook
Sure today they regard the Government and the Party as Grandfatherly figures who make the laws like they see their own grandfathers. As Strict people who will take care of you and who shouldn’t be questioned
However give them a choice and it’s likely they will fall for the same BS that others in democracies fall for including issues that are:-
LGBT related
Feminism related
Ageism related
Nationalism related (Vote for me and I will take Taiwan in a week type of Chinese versions of Modis)
Separatism related (Freedom for Uyghurs, Freedom for Hui, Freedom for Bouyan etc)
These are the Hu Jintao period Chinese
I wouldn’t trust them to vote for the best leaders over most populist or handsome or the best talkers or some other version of divisive propaganda
The Next generation is fine
Xi Jingping has instilled a revival of the admiration for the One party meritocracy and these guys will vote always for the Party over any other
So maybe 10–15 years later, if free elections were held, the Party may win heavily as bulk of the 18–41 voters would be proud nationalists of the One party meritocracy
Today?
Bulk of the 18–41 voters would vote stupidly
So I hope not
India becoming China is admirable in its own way
China becoming India is a nightmare scenario
God help China having 100 parties and doing the idiocy Indian leaders do
US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor Reveals TRUTH About China
This primarily shocked me because of where I live (Chicago) and my profession (teacher). I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was this bad:
Seventy-six percent of Chicago’s high school students, and forty-five percent of Chicago’s elementary school students, do not go to their assigned neighborhood public school.
That means that 3/4 of all high school kids, and almost half of all elementary school kids, have parents who took one look at their local public school and said, “no thanks.”
Every student in Chicago is assigned a neighborhood public school, simply based on where they live in the city. The students who don’t go to those schools go to private schools, magnet schools, charter schools, or selective-enrollment schools. Or they homeschool.
Magnet, charter, and selective-enrollment schools are public schools, too, but they require some effort on the parents’ and students’ part to get and stay in them. The selective-enrollment schools, in particular, require the most effort to get into.
All of those “public, but not neighborhood” schools were created due to parental demand or necessity. It was either create them, or watch as, year after year, even more of the city’s tax base (parents who give a damn) move to the suburbs.
This has been in the local news a lot the last week, and it even made an appearance in the national news, because the city government passed a resolution to prioritize those neighborhood public schools (which the parents reject) over the selective-enrollment schools.
The stated goal is, of course, “equity.” The idea is that, without the selective schools poaching all of the “good” students, those “good” students will go back to their neighborhood schools, and help them improve.
Except those students would not actually go to those neighborhood public schools, no matter what. Their parents would just pay for private schools, home school, or move to the suburbs. I’ve been teaching in Chicago long enough to know that most parents really don’t see the regular public school as a real option. Students here use the neighborhood public school names as the punchlines of jokes or as threats. As in, “You better be careful, or you’ll end up at [local public school].”
Also, the “good” students aren’t a tool for the city to use to improve “bad” schools. It’s not the job of the “A” students to diffuse the averages of the “F” students by enrolling in the same schools as them.
While the stated goal for this new push by the city government is “equity,” the real goal is, as with most things in government, money. The Chicago Teachers’ Union, which gets most of its money and influence via the neighborhood public schools, contributed over $2,000,000 to our current mayor’s election campaign. The quid-pro-quo is right out in the open for all to see, but the only people who bother to open their eyes to it are the people who didn’t support the mayor in the first place.
So the city government has a five-year plan to prioritize Chicago’s failing neighborhood public schools. I’m making a note to myself to check back in five years and see how it went. I predict that things will actually be worse, but they will change the metrics by which they define success, to make whatever happens fit that definition. Then they’ll say it’s not enough, and double-down on their bad policies.
All the while, private schools in the city will see an increase in enrollment, suburbs with good schools will see their property values go up even more, and home schooling will become even more popular.
Ever the cynic, and opportunist, I’ve actually been exploring ways to capitalize on this. A colleague and I have been toying with the idea of opening a tutoring center. The competition for spots at the good schools in Chicago is so tight that a lot of parents gladly pay thousands of dollars per year for their child to receive 1:1 or small-group tutoring in specific subjects, or generalized test-taking tutoring. Three of my colleagues in the last five years have left teaching to go into tutoring, and are making much more money that way.
This TikTokker Finally Realized Why Men Don’t Find Her Attractive
Let’s scroll through Instagram account of Avicii, the world famous musician.
December 26th, 2017
Caption: Where am I?
Amazing. He is living life to the fullest. Damn!!!.
December 29th, 2017
Caption:Friends of Mine
All these friends to watch his back and enjoy the ocean of life. I am jealous.
January 11th , 2018
Caption:Music is a big part of my life
A blazing career with all the talented people around and loving everyday what he does with passion. God I am envious.
January 15th, 2018
Caption :A cuddle a day keeps the instinct away. (The hunting instinct.) (Just kidding.)
Awwww….
January 19th, 2018
Caption: Fact of the day: More people die every year from taking selfies than from shark attacks. Stay safe out there ✌️❤
LOL!!!!
February 18th, 2018
Caption: So I invested in Sweden’s first cold brew coffee company. Pretty cool startup that’s innovating the Swedish way of coffee drinking. You should definitely check them out.
Damn. This guy means business.
March 27th, 2018
Caption: Studio Mode
Workaholic and passionate. Damn I wish I could be like that.
April 5th , 2018
Caption: It’s always sunny in California
Woah!! Dude is rich. Dude is passionate. Has everything one can dream of.
April 20th, 2018
Caption:
So yeah.
That’s why I don’t use social media.
Edit: This answer is for people who don’t realize everyone is just a PR agent of themselves online. Everybody else sucks too. There is no reason for being miserable comparing your lives with social media. But I do believe social media should be used for generating content around your product or service like blogging, creating audio or visual content etc.
I would do just like I did for my daughter in Germany when she was going to a DOD (Department of Defense) school. She came home for a month and a half complaining about a boy bullying her on the playground. We called the school and told them almost every other day. They keep telling us the teachers are keeping him away from her. Well she kept coming home complaining. So I took it upon myself to really see what is going on. Sure enough he was harassing her. When she came home that day from school complaining about that boy. I set her down and told her that tomorrow is the time you have to do what Daddy has been teaching you how to defend yourself. Her response was, but I don’t want to get in trouble. I told her the only one that you will be in trouble with is me and how can you be in trouble if I am telling you to do it. Then I told her it is your choice if you want to end this or not. Either way I love you.
the next day around lunchtime I get a call from the school that she assaulted another student and I need to pick her up.
Well, well, well I took time off and drove miles and miles to get there. I told the officer who I was and that the principal is expecting me. She said yes Sir go on in. My daughter was standing in the corner of the office facing the wall waiting. I did not even acknowledge the principal and told my daughter to come sit in the chair in front of his desk. Then I ask the principal what is the problem ? His response was she assaulted another student. I told him that the next question I as you. I want you to think long and hard about your answer. Did she assault the student that has been assaulting her all these months! I then told him that he has 5min to respond and 4.5 of those minutes are gone! Go!!! He said Yes! Yes! Then I ask him so what are you going to do about it? He had the gall to tell me.that he was to suspending her for three days for putting her hands on another stoner. I leaned over his desks and told him that she it not going to miss another second of class. I told her to go to her class that she is supposed to be at this time and I will see you back home after school. Then to lighten her spirits I told her you are not beating me again tonight playing crash bandicoot!!! (Yes that was way back). After she left the office I locked the door to his office and turned around and told him that you made you decision, and now I have made my. I am going to take out the last two-to-three months my daughter, my wife and I have been stressing over and tag you are it!!!!
Sorry so long,but a true story.
When I went to jump over the desk. He jumped trough the window. The sad part was it was closed. 😂😂😂
Anyway, my Chain of Command knew all about the problem that my daughter was going through. I was a Platoon Sergeant at the time.
Now it gets good, my battalion commander was briefed on it. However he had to do something because because I threaten the principal and there was damage to government property, the window he jumped out of. So after the UCMJ (Uniform code of justice). My extra duty was to walk from the Commander’s Office down the street to my place of duty, which was only about 80 yards.
True story!! Need less to say my daughter did not have anymore trouble and got to get her education without any harassment from the students or the faculty.
I know this question was about a teacher slapping a student. If it was a teacher slapping my child I would have not gone to school. I would have followed that teacher after school and discussed it in another manner.
I got my first period when i was in 5th grade i was 10 years old. Worst part is i was in school, the last period was going on and I was sitting on the last bench in the corner row. i didn’t knew anything about it, and i was so clueless that wtf was happening with me. I told this to my bench mate and she said that she does not understand what I am saying. I ran to the teacher and told her everything, she said go to the office and ask the female staff to give me a sanitary pad.
I did that I went to the office and told the staff I want sanitary pads, she went inside the office. I was trembling with fear, but for a while I felt that everything would be alright.
The staff came out of the office and said that they are out of sanitary napkins, go buy them from the nearby shop.I was bleeding and literally begged her to come with me but she said she can’t leave the office and refused.
I was a kid and my body was not strong enough to bear the pain of periods. I was terrified, I couldn’t walk, I could feel the stains on my clothes. Still I walked to the nearest shop, and the shopkeeper was a male.
My eyes were downcast like I’m a terrorist, my voice was ashamed like I’ve committed a crime. And I asked him for a pad in a trembling voice, he took out a sanitary napkin’s packet and put 10 layers of news paper on it as if it were a bomb.
For me bravery is avoiding thousands of restriction and questions of the society and to say that yes I am a woman, yes I bleed and it is not my fault, it is not a crime.
I Saw the 11 Dimensions of the Universe in DETAIL! (Near Death Experience)
No, the Houthis are not a terrorist force indiscriminately targeting civilians, they are just an anti-American and anti-Israeli resistance force.
What the Houthis claimed was that they would attack boats “associated with Israel”. What are “associated with Israel”? Western bloc, of course.
70% of Europe’s oil shipments will pass through the Red Sea. Europe has already interrupted Russian oil and gas, and now oil and gas from the Middle East will be stopped by the Houthis. Things will get even harder for Europeans as winter approaches.
The purpose of their attacks on Western Group boats was to support the Palestinians. It is well known that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. And the United States is stubbornly biased in favour of Israel.
The Arab countries and the Muslim world, while not supporting the Houthis, are not against them either, and some even secretly support them.
Chinese boats transporting oil do not pass through the Red Sea, only merchant ships pass through the Red Sea, and there are china railway express that can replace merchant ships.
I recall that the last time when Taiwanese Shipping Company large container ship blocked the Suez Canal, the china railway express became the main freight transport route to Europe.
Taiwanese Shipping Company leased the Japanese shipowner’s ship and hired Indian crew to drive the “Ever Given” large container ship through the Suez Canal. It would be surprising that there would be no accidents.
The Houthis will not attack Chinese boats, and China has no intention of joining the Western bloc, which is the unjust side.
The U.S. and Israel or Western Group should be reflecting on why they were attacked by the Houthis instead of looking to China as a lifeline to grab when they are drowning.
Korean Braised Short Ribs
Serve Korean Braised Short Ribs with cooked cellophane noodles, dipped into the cooking sauce.
Ingredients
4 pounds beef short ribs, cut into pieces
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons ground sesame seed*
2 teaspoons chopped ginger root or 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon pepper
* Ground sesame seed is available in Oriental food specialty stores and some supermarkets. Whole sesame seed can be ground in the blender: 1 tablespoon whole sesame seed yields 2 tablespoons ground sesame seed.
Instructions
Trim fat from beef ribs; place beef in shallow non-reactive dish.
Mix remaining ingredients; pour over beef.
Cover and refrigerate, turning occasionally, 24 hours.
Drain beef, reserving marinade. Cook beef in 4-quart Dutch oven over medium heat until brown; drain.
Pour marinade over beef.
Cover and bake at 350 degrees F until tender, about 2 hours.
I was required to issue a monthly report of sales by geographic region, listing each project.
One was a project in China sold to New Sun (China) Energy. I dutifully indicated the sale was in Asia.
My boss protested. “No!” said he. “You need to report that in Europe.”
I blinked and said, “But it’s in China.”
“Yes,” said he. “China’s in Europe.”
“Um…no.. China’s in Asia.”
He slammed his hand on his desk and said, “China’s a state of Germany, now report it in Europe.”
Me: “Ok” while silently muttering dumbass.
We had another dispute over Egypt. Apparently Egypt is also in Europe.
I had a grand time explaining to our lead sales person (a Chinese lady citizen of China) and our production manager (a German citizen) that Germany had expanded its population by a billion with this master stroke of geopolitical theater. They both rolled their eyes.
Oh yes. “Give me your purse you b*tch!. I want £50 now!” screeched the entitled teenage daughter of one of the company partners. I was PA to both partners and had only been there for a couple of months.
Princess was used to dropping into Daddy darling’s office if she and her little friends were shopping in town and she needed more money.
This particular afternoon Daddy was away at a meeting and our accountant was on a half day (she held the petty cash and was used to dealing with the occasional demands of the Princess).
I explained that Daddy was out and the accountant wouldn’t be back until tomorrow so nobody could help with her (obviously desperate and life threatening) need for cash. She decided that I should meet her need by handing over my own money. She threw a tantrum when I refused, and immediately called Daddy’s mobile, interrupting his meeting and demanding that he tell me to give her the money. He told me to do so, and I refused.
I didn’t have £50 in my purse (or even £10) but if I did she wouldn’t have had a sniff of it. After she stormed out I wrote my resignation and called the other partner to explain why I quit.
Found out a while later that the partnership fell apart and nice partner sued Daddy darling for financial mismanagement and fraud. Princess wasn’t the only family member thinking the business was her own personal piggy bank.
Can China Save The American Dream ? US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor Reveals
China is not a Muslim-phobic country. It’s all United States propaganda to destroy Muslim world.
China tells its Muslim citizens to live well and love their state and also their religion as Xi Jinping said.
If China got attacked, know that the aggressors will fail.
If the aggressors try to attack Uyghurs like they did in Middle-East, bombing their Mosques, etc. Know that the Uyghurs won’t be silenced defending their home and mosques.
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The Muslims of China will stamp out the hypocrite country.
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~ Sunni Muslim from Asia here, appreciating China.
I was once the daytime caregiver for a little boy with a massive brain injury. The damage was so extensive that a large part of his right brain had been surgically removed. He was paralyzed on his left side. He also probably suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, but the doctors were unsure. He hoarded food, because he had gone hungry many times in his earlier life. Altogether a really lousy start.
I was pushing little X in his stroller. He was about three years old at this point. We were walking toward the high school, and there was a group of girls on the sidewalk. Black clothes, black hair, smoking, swearing girls.
X was a bit unusual looking, due to his injuries. I was thinking that these girls were going to laugh at him, or tease him, or something. I was getting tense and defensive.
As X and I get close, he hollers out, “HI”, which was his only word at the time. I was not expecting the response he got from those girls.
They were totally sweet. They were all saying hi back and asking his name and saying how cute he was. One asked me about his injuries, and I gave her the short version. She started to cry, and then I did, too. It was hard for me to talk about his history. We ended up hugging each other.
I have always remembered that group of girls, and how completely wrong I was about them.
They remind me often not to judge people by their appearance.
Internet access is better than any other nation except maybe Singapore. The Public Wi Fi means you have free internet while travelling almost anywhere and uninterrupted
Sure many western sites are restricted as are many apps
You can use VPN but VPN is very unreliable unless it’s Nord VPN and that too for a proper router rather than for mobile phone
Yet with a proper VPN, you can access any and all apps and sites in China
IT IS NOT ILLEGAL UNLESS YOU MAKE COMMERCIAL USE OF VPN (Meaning downloading and selling pornography etc)
If you really want to go to western websites that are banned, you can visit a PUBLIC LIBRARY with your ID Card and access any website you want. There is NO RESTRICTION.
I accessed Quora openly in a Public Library whereas the VPN never gave me a connection beyond 6–7 minutes at a time
So yes, I would say if you really want to watch CNN and CBS and want to view the BBC Website and access Twitter all the time, then China is not for you
Otherwise if you simply want Gmail & your Online Banking & online calling & chatting – you have 1001 apps to ensure you are connected
Non Acceptance of International Driver Licenses
This is stupid again
China has NO ISSUES with a International Driver License provided there is INSURANCE available on that license
You want to lease a car in China with an International License, you either pay a fat deposit as incidental insurance premium so that if you bang the car, the rental company doesn’t shell out the cost
Otherwise you get a local license holder to co sign and you get your car in 3 minutes
Imagine you bump a car, park it and dash off to your country. That’s a huge loss to the rental company isn’t it.
You cough up the Incidental Insurance Premium Deposit which is FULLY REFUNDABLE on returning the car and they will accept your International Drivers License
This is nearly 3100 RMB so most International Drivers are cheapies who promptly blame the Chinese for not recognizing International Driving Licenses
Lodging restricted to certain hotels
Again a Stupid way to put it
Hotels in China connected to the Real Time Security Network accept foreigners all the time
That’s 100% of all hotels in Big Cities and 90% of Hotels in smaller towns
They scan your passport and in ten seconds, the data comes up from your immigration and that’s it.
Tomorrow if you disappear, no issues, the hotel informs the MSB who will promptly print out your passport and deliver a copy to your consulate
Sadly smaller hotels DON’T have this ready connection to the digital security system
They need to scan your passport, print that out, take the print out and deliver it to the local police outpost who will then deliver them to the main outpost
It will take 1 year to hunt for such a print out tomorrow if there is a problem
It’s too much effort so such hotels don’t accept foreigners UNLESS A CHINESE BOOKS THEIR ROOM with his Identity Card
Mostly such tourists have a Chinese Agent who will give his ID or his company’s ID and book the rooms
Our Vicky Bhaiya has no issues because his wives ID is sufficient
This isn’t only China
Even in France and Europe, many small provincial hotels don’t accept foreigners because of the same reason
They need you to get a clearance from a local gendarme who sees your passport and okays you
Hell in Scotland an Indian friend of mine couldn’t get a hotel until 12 Noon because of such a problem when a Local Britisher could get a room at 5:30 AM
Same for booking a car
Outside the West, an International Driving License doesn’t get you a car without a hefty deposit
All that China says is asks for the deposit towards Incidental Insurance
The Censorship?
Yes that’s unique to China among the big countries
Like I said if you want to access BBC and Twitter all the time, China is not for you
Maybe not into a completely different person, but it definitely will change you, and how you view life. Before I enlisted, I was an annoying 17–18 year old boy who played video-games all day, mouthed off to teachers, and had terrible acne. When I finished boot camp and AIT, I respected authority figures, I had better self-esteem, and I wasn’t as much of a smart-aleck anymore. I actually did stuff with my life.
I was still loud and sometimes annoying, at least when there were no senior NCOs or officers around, and I still made dumb jokes and toed the line around my family. I was the same kid as before, just disciplined and happier. More confident in myself, because I knew I could do stuff no one else in my family or my graduating class, except my father, could.
Then, I was deployed 3 times between 2004–2010, and actually saw, and participated in, combat and firefights. I saw the bloody, seedy side of things. It wasn’t like a movie or a video-game anymore, I didn’t tell jokes anymore, I was quieter and more serious. I didn’t tolerate people goofing off or making idiotic decisions around me anymore. Making the wrong decision, or playing games, on the battlefield could mean death.
Of course, I wasn’t firing my SAW at the Taliban and ISI 24/7. There was a lot of sitting around and waiting, marching, digging holes, and sitting in a hot, tiny truck for days, squeezed against another hairy, sweaty dude. That’s the part movies don’t show. It’s not action all the time, there’s a lot of stuff that goes into it that civilians and celebrities never think about when they hear the word “war.” And when there is action, you don’t have drawn-out speeches about family and honour, or whatever. You don’t goof off and walk up-right, unless you want a bullet between the eyes.
When I came back, I could not understand the struggles and pain of my family and friends that didn’t serve. Unless it’s an unexpected divorce or a death of somebody close to you, there’s no reason to grovel and whine about how hard and unfair life is, and how miserable you are. I’ve seen guys say they’re in “so much pain that no one understands” after a girl they knew for less than a year broke up with them. Especially these young Gen-Z kids and teenagers. All this “I could defeat anyone in a fight, I bench more than you” attitude is arrogant and laughable. You wouldn’t last a week doing the stuff we did, so stop acting like you’re so tough when you’re only 16 and cry in your room at night over a girl.
These (at least the males) youngsters also brag about Navy SEALS being better than anything and everything on earth, and use our military as a tool to justify their biases. You’re embarrassing us, and if any military veteran met you, they’d laugh.
Accurate depiction of what modern warfare is like: lots of sitting around and waiting, or guarding stuff.
In general, combat did change me a lot, and my outlook on life, and perspective on common civilian “struggles” and issues. It also gives shell-shock/combat fatigue/PTSD and nightmares to those who served, which changes them as a person. I personally suffer from some of these things. It does suck a lot, and played a part in changing me as well, there is simply no way to explain to a civilian what combat is like, what war-trauma is like, the things you saw and how horrific it was, how impossible it is to cope with things like that. In the moment, you never think about what you’re doing or seeing, you’re disconnected from reality, and in your mind you dehumanize the enemy. It is just “eliminating a threat” or carrying out orders, not opening fire on the 10-year-old coming at you with an RPG.
Later though, your mind thinks about what you did and what you saw over and over again, tries to rationalize it, process it, cope with it, and finds that a lot of the time, it can’t. It’s easier to push these things away and pretend it never happened, pretend you never saw that teenager choking on his own blood and gasping for breath in the sand after you shot him, or never saw your friend get blown to bits. I can’t say I regret doing these things, as they were threats to the livelihood of myself and my friends. I can say, however, that it’s inescapable to feel human empathy and sadness over what you done, even while knowing there was nothing else you can do, even while knowing that they wanted to kill you.
It’s just a natural human feeling, but you learn to suffocate it and push it down. I’ve had some idiots call me a terrorist and a war-criminal, for shooting enemy child soldiers, and the like. These people aren’t worth arguing with, they will never understand that morality doesn’t matter when it’s you vs them, and they’re literally a threat to your existence, no matter how young they are. They think in black and white, never understanding how complicated this is, and how necessary it is to defend yourself, even if it’s a child soldier.
Cop Warns How Women Manipulate Divorce Law
This is a pretty important video. The “three step rocket”.
“It’s really more of an in-person kind of explanation,” he demured, then suggested a dinner date.
I hesitated. Normally I don’t meet my online dates until significantly more text and phone contact. Partly for safety reasons, partly because I don’t want to waste my time on guys I know will not work out. But mostly because I have been on A LOT of bad dates.
He said he was living in his friend’s spare room because he’d hit a few “speed bumps,” in life. I totally got that. I’m the queen of speed bumps myself. I let myself dare to hope maybe— just maybe— I had found a kindred spirit. I agreed to the date. And just like that, there I was, listening to him tell his story from across the candlelit table.
”About a year ago, I went out with some friends after work,” he began, and I smiled and nodded to let him know he had my attention. “I met a girl at a bar and we really hit it off. We ended up going home together. Next day, there’s a cop on my doorstep. And yada, yada, yada… long story short, she didn’t LOOK sixteen.”
I stiffened. Did she look 30? Because you’re 44, dude.
“So,” he continued, “I have a felony on my record. I was put on probation, and my job fired me. And then, just to kick me when I’m down” —and this is my favorite part— “my wife left me.”
?!??!!
“Bummer,” I said, because what else is there to say?
“So I was out of work, and my mom and I couldn’t live off her social security check alone, so she started driving for Uber…
The current supreme leader of Vietnam, Nguyễn Phú Trọng, is a very typical pro-China faction.
This means that Vietnamese diplomacy should be like bamboo, whose branches and leaves may sway in the wind, but whose poles are very tough.
Vietnam may pander to the U.S. in some cases, but the bamboo’s backbone is straight. After all, they fought the Yanks, and US pressure doesn’t always bring Vietnam to its knees.
diplomacy
According to VnEconomy, in 2022, nearly 70 foreign affairs activities will be carried out by agencies under the Party, State, Government and National Assembly of Vietnam. According to statistics, by the beginning of 2023, Vietnam has established diplomatic relations with 190/192 countries; economic, trade and investment relations with 224 partners, and cooperation with more than 500 international organisations. The country is also a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum (APEC), the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Trade Agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and 15 other free trade agreements.
Vietnam-China relations
From 30 October to 1 November 2022, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Nguyễn Phú Trọng paid an official visit to China after General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President Xi Jinping assumed the office of the third President. He is the first senior leader to visit China after Xi assumed his third term as President. It was also Nguyễn Phú Trọng’s first visit to China after the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Both sides later deemed the visit a success. The Vietnamese side called China “a good neighbour, a good friend, a good comrade, a good partner, a good partner in the same boat, a good partner in solidarity and a good partner for the happiness of the people”. According to Reuters, the meeting between the two leaders was overly intimate, with no masks, They handshakes or hugs, against the backdrop of China’s strict embargo policy that it still maintains because of COVID-19.
Vietnam-United States relations
At the end of August 2021, the Vice President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris, paid a visit to Viet Nam from 24 to 26 August 2021. During Ms Harris’ visit, the US side also confirmed a land lease agreement worth US$1.2 billion for the construction of the US Embassy building in Vietnam. Before leaving Vietnam, the US Vice President said the visit “marks the beginning of a new chapter in Vietnam-US relations”. After the visit, the Vietnamese media also carried a message inviting Joe Biden to visit Vietnam by the General Secretary and President of Vietnam.
On November 12, 2022, at the 40th and 11th ASEAN Summits, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pạm Minh Chính met directly with US President Biden. During the meeting, Mr. Pạm Minh Chính continued to “convey” the remarks of the General Secretary and President of Vietnam inviting the President of the United States to visit Vietnam. However, VOA caused a wave of controversy when it released a video in which Mr. Pạm Minh Chính chatted with subordinate leaders before meeting with the United States and “make it clear, to be fair, what are you afraid of?” The video was originally posted on May 14 but was not edited and was deleted on May 23. However, the video was later released by Voice of America but with the offensive phrase hidden. The reason why VOA deleted the video was that Khanh Nguyen, an official at the Vietnamese Embassy in the United States, asked VOA to delete the video. The email said the video “violates the principles of respect for privacy and journalistic professionalism and ethics.” Furthermore, VOA’s reporting has been misused and distorted for political purposes. The deletion was later protested by VOA’s Vietnamese service because it believed press freedom was being hindered. RFA, considered VOA’s “sister”, also released the video but did not receive any deletion email.
On the evening of March 29, 2023, General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng had a phone call with US President Biden at request. During the phone call, the leaders of the two countries both emphasized that 2023 will be the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Vietnam-US comprehensive partnership. When Mr. Biden spoke by phone with a foreign leader who was not a head of state or prime minister, the calls were rare, Reuters reported. The United States is currently also Vietnam’s largest export market in 2022. Soon after, from April 14 to April 16 of the same year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a high-level visit to Vietnam. He visited Vietnam and met with Foreign Minister Bùi Thanh Sơn, Prime Minister Pạm Minh Chính, President Võ Văn Thưởng, and General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng. A contentious issue also arose during a meeting between Mr Phạm Minh Chính and Anthony Blinken, with only the Vietnamese flag in the background, not the American flag. According to Radio Free Asia, most of this information comes from Chinese media. The agency analyzed that because this was a meeting of different levels, there was only the Vietnamese flag in the background. According to BBC News, when US President Joe Biden may visit Hanoi in May or Vietnam’s General Secretary visits the United States in July, diplomatic issues between the two countries are likely to continue to heat up. The media also said in its analysis that the statement that Vietnam now “stands shoulder to shoulder with the United States at a time when we need each other’s support most” is often used only to refer to the country’s allies, but Mr. Blinken used it to refer to Vietnam.
And the Philippines is a blade of grass that falls when the wind blows. The Philippines was once a colony of the United States, and the colonial mentality of the Filipinos is deeply rooted. As long as the United States exerts a little pressure, Marcos Jr. will give in.
I got a notification from the Amazon app that my packages were here. They were my sons birthday presents. I didn’t go outside immediately though as I was changing my twins diapers.
When I was finished I went out to get them. Some woman was out there picking up my boxes. I asked very loudly what she thought she was doing.
She tried to spin some story about how my packages were damaged and had been recalled and that they would be replaced in a few days,
I called her story bullshit and to get off my property or I would call the cops. I wasn’t quiet about it. She started to leave WITH my packages.
Before I could yell again or call the cops my neighbors Rottweiler mix was in front of us growling loudly with my neighbor limping fast towards us. He’s an older guy and an absolute sweetheart. He told her to drop the boxes or his dog would attack. She dropped them and ran to her car and drove away. I got her license plate number and reported her to the cops.
I hugged my neighbor and thanked him for saving my sons birthday. I also baked him cookies and brought him a slice of my sons cake the next day.
Ok, this one has irked me for some time. I went to see a blood doctor. Had a bit too low iron in my blood. Called, confirmed my insurance co-pay, went to my appointment, paid my co-pay and left.
A few weeks later I get a bill for $250 bill for the visit. I call to remind them that I paid my co-pay (which was a hell of a lot less then $250). They acknowledge that, but “remind me” that this isn’t a co-pay, it’s a “facility charge.” I say I have no idea what they’re talking about. I never agreed to a “facilities charge.”
Well their office is in a hospital building so I should understand there will be a hospital “facilities charge.” I inform them that, I didn’t go to the hospital, I went to their office which happens to rent space from the hospital. They argue that it was in some paper package they gave me when I came for my appointment. I disagree refusing to pay, they insist I have to. I disagree after some argument end the call. They try to collect a few more times ending similarly. Eventually they get the point and realized their threats were falling on deaf ears.
They call me back a few days later, apologize for the confusion and agree to a one time reduction of the “facilities charge” to $75. I inform them I came to them for a doctor’s appointment, not to pay their rent and refuse. Another argument ends in me ending the call. More threats and calls ensue.
Finally I get a call from them stating that, “for this one instance” my “facility charge” is going to be waived but I’m going to be responsible for the full facilities charge for all future appointments. I assure them I understand, and make sure they understand that based on this fiasco there will be no future visits. The doctor that sent me to them also took them off his referral list.
After my husband passed away I drove his old Jeep Cherokee for a while, but it was starting to show its age and I could see some big repair bills coming up that I did not want to deal with. I started to look at new cars, and was impressed with the Subaru Outback. Then Subaru started a big promotion with discounts and 1.9% financing, so I drove the old Jeep to my local dealer. Talked to a salesman who qualified me (I had a good job in Information Technology, so the payments would not be a problem). I found one that I liked and we started to work out a deal. After some negotiating, I was summoned to speak with the Finance Manager – some dude in probably his mid-20s who informed me that, due to some late payments the previous year, there was no way I would qualify for their 1.9% financing, but he could offer me a loan at around 8%. I was startled, as my credit had been excellent for years, so I asked for clarification. Yes, there were a couple of late payments on a couple of credit cards that corresponded to the last few months of my husband’s life when I was… distracted much of the time, to say the least. Taking care of him was my priority, and sometimes other things, like writing checks to pay a bill got overlooked temporarily. Then the finance dude started lecturing me on the importance of being responsible and taking care of what is important (paying bills, of course), and how clearly my credit report was showing that I didn’t take the important stuff seriously. I looked him in the eye as I stood up to leave and said that maybe when he got a little more life experience he might understand what it is like to watch someone you love, with whom you were planning to spend the rest of your life, to watch that person waste away, in pain and terrible suffering, then we could talk about responsibility. During those months, my single highest priority was taking care of him. Yes, a few bills got paid late, but I know that I had my priorities correct. So don’t condescend, and do NOT lecture me on personal responsibility, frat boy.
I am writing anonymously because I hate pity and I have friends on quora that know me.
I was an orphan. I don’t remember ever enjoying my childhood except sometimes playing Cricket with other boys of my age in my village. I came from a small village just outside of Lahore, Pakistan. I was told that my parents had an accident when I was 4 Years old. My childhood memory starts from my uncle’s home. I can’t remember my parents.
When I was 7 years old, my uncle had enough of me and sent me to Lahore to work. He dropped me off to his friend who owned a teashop in a busy market. I didn’t want to work, I wanted to play and study. I loved to go to school which now I couldn’t. I was hired for 4,000 Rupees which was alot of money for me but I came to know that I will get only 1,000 Pakistani rupees for my work and rest will be paid to my uncle.
After one year of working there, I used to deliver tea to a complete surrounding area of the teashop. I was responsible for the collection of money, delivery of tea and retrieval of tea cups. One day, the teashop owner asked me to make a special delivery at a compound nearby. When I took the tea to the compound, there were men sitting around in a round table in an open area. I delivered the tea to a person named Aqil, which the teashop owener Mr. Bilal told me. When I delivered the tea, and asked for the money and said that “Please kindly give me the money because I have alot of other deliveries to make” I don’t know what happend but this Aqil guy flipped and threw two cup of teas on me which was extremely hot and I started crying because of pain and then he said to me “Do you know who I am” “Now you will remember me always, scum”.
I left from the compound scratching my neck from burns. Now, when I remember back nobody stopped me and asked me what was wrong. It was approximately 3 minute walk back to the tea shop. The market was full of customers and a child is crying and walking and nobody stopped him or asked him what happend.
Then when I reached the shop, Mr. Bilal asked me what happend and I told him everything. Then he accused me why I asked them for money. Then I replied, you told me to ask for these things. Then he said forget about it, you don’t ask those guys for money. Here keep this 50 rupees and buy toothpaste for yourself to put on the burnt area. Also Mr. Bilal was a bad guy who used to beat me and slap me around just because I was late or because somebody didn’t pay me.
From that day, I knew life was not fair. When I was 12 years old I ran away from the Teashop and started living on the streets. I knew from my time in the shop to keep distance from people who are living on the street. I used to eat from a shrine known as Data Darbar in Lahore.
Then I knew I wanted to get a job so I can become something like the people that are sitting in an AC car. I knew I had to get an education but how. I didn’t knew anything about studies. So I decided to join a canteen shop in a school. There was one school which was very famous, I went to the canteen shop of that school and begged the guy in there to hire me because I wanted to study. I don’t know why but he did hire me and used to pay me 3,000 Rupees per month.
There was a female teacher in this school who was very nice. One day she approached me as I was working in the canteen and asked me about studies. I don’t know what prompted her to ask me this but she did. I told her that I wanted to study but I don’t have any money. She just said that don’t worry about it.
The next week I was enrolled in the same school I was working at.
Now I am 37 Years old. I’m married and have my own software house and a small general store which I acheived with my sheer determination and hardwork and some help from extremely generous people.
I have three Boys and 2 Girls. My wife often asks me regarding the burnt marks on my neck and chest and I always reply it’s a burnt tattoo.
I am happy. I got lucky. Not many people get lucky. Child labor is one of the worst things that can happen to a child. It’s my secret and now nobody can call me lowlife scum. Nobody can use me as their punching bag. Life is beautiful now, but I know from experience how ugly it can be.
It happened in Dachau, when a dozen SS were executed by US army personnel who were appalled by the sight.
Remember that the Allies despised the S.S. for a variety of reasons: the Canadians despised them for the Normandy massacre, the Americans despised them for the Malmedy massacre, the British despised them for Wormhoudt, and the French despised them for the anti-bandit operations carried out by the 2nd Das Reich SS division in occupied France (for example, Oradour sur Glane).
Another minor episode occurred in Bavaria, when Twelve members of the 33rd SS division were executed near a forest by Spaniards of the Nueve; their bodies were never brought to France and were left to decompose.
Leclerc witnessed the fall of France and the devastation of French towns firsthand, and like many other Frenchmen, he lamented the loss of Ouradour sur Glane while actively seeking the annihilation of the Third Reich. During the liberation of Lorraine, his battalion was forced to untie from a community, and the mayor was later killed by the Germans once the village was retaken.
His division’s health service was retroceded in order to assist the released inmates from Dachau, and he witnessed the awful misery of the prisoners’ conditions in those sites; many of his fellow people were imprisoned in horrible conditions. He even got into a violent confrontation with a priest who was trying to keep an eye on what was going on.
So, sure, the execution of S.S was the culmination of months of frustration by Allies soldiers, which amounted to war crimes.
“Why should we hire you?” Luigi the arrogant recruiter asked.
“I have with me a written proposal of how I will positively impact your organization during my first 90 days in this position. We can go over it together if interested,” Mario said as he showed a sneak peek of his document.
“Sure, let’s take a look at it,” Luigi’s eyes shone with amazement while thinking, “Ohh wow! This guy has a plan? I’m curious as to what he is proposing.”
“Mr Luigi, has anyone ever brought you a plan before you hire them?” Mario asked, taking control of the conversation.
“I must admit, this is pretty uncommon,” Luigi said.
“Mr Luigi, I’ve done my homework. This is how I do things. You should hire me because I’m self-sufficient, I don’t need you to be all over me to give you results. I’m always ahead of the crowd.”
He paused to look Luigi in the eye.
“You should hire me because I don’t need to be micromanaged. You will never have to be chasing me or telling me what to do. You should hire me because I’m here to make you money. Mr Luigi, I’m an asset to this business, I’m a producer — not a taker.”
“Let’s see the plan,” Luigi insisted.
Mario got the document out and placed it on the table. Still holding it, he paused and said, “Well, Mr Luigi, I still don’t know if this is the right job for me. Can I ask you a few questions?”
Luigi arrogantly laid back on his chair and said, “Ok, shoot.”
Mario started asking questions, “What are the company values? Do you really live by them? Who will I work with? Can I talk to these people before I get started?”
“Interesting questions, Mario,” Luigi said.
“Mr Luigi, the reason I ask these questions is because I’m more worried about WHO I work with than my paycheck.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s important who I surround myself with. I like to work with smart people. I don’t like to be limited by what I can accomplish. I want to push my professional growth. A big paycheck is NOT worth being surrounded by idiots.”
To answer your question, what are the best answers for “Why should I hire you?”
It really doesn’t matter the accuracy of a 90-day plan document. It doesn’t matter if it works or not. It will definitely make you stand out by showing you invested time thinking and understanding the job description and the company’s needs. (Most people only care about what they’re going to get paid.)
Show self-confidence. Show you care about yourself and that you have high standards for the quality of the people, the challenge and the job. Make the future employer feel they need to deserve you. (Most people will be almost begging for the job; that’s not very attractive for a recruiter.)
During a 10-hour flight, she was heading from Seoul, Korea, to San Francisco, USA. This mother distributed more than 200 passengers on the plane a plastic bag for each one. The bag contains candy, chewing gum and earplugs as a kind of advance apology for using them in the event that her 4-month-old baby screamed during the flight.
The bag also contained a message containing (hello, I am Jan Woo. I am 4 months old and today I’m traveling America with my mom and grandmother for my aunt’s outfit. I’m a little nervous and scared. This is my first flight in my life. It’s normal for me to cry or cause some disturbance. I’ll try to stay calm, but I can’t promise you. Please use it if my voice gets too loud.. Enjoy your trip. Thank you)
I was 12-years-old. I had a paper route and my mom wanted to go out for a beer with her best friend.
Let’s get a couple of things straight before I continue. This was the 1970s and no, she’s not an alcoholic. Going out with the girls for a beer was pretty common in the 70s. It wasn’t quite “Mad Men”, but not far off.
The thing is, my parents were terrible with money. We were poor(ish). We frequently had to move because the landlord raised the rent. All of our furniture was used (if the couch cushions wore out, we flipped the cushions over). You get the idea.
There used to be a company called “Grenada” that would rent appliances to the poor.
My parents rented a colour television for something like 25 bucks a month when a new colour tv would cost $500.
Rather than do without a tv for a couple of years and then simply buy a new set, they went with the “just put it on credit” style of living.
My mom was in debt her entire life.
I said, “I’m not going to live like that.” After graduating from college, I lived at home for 3 years (paying $200 a month out of my $700 bi-weekly paycheques/$1400 a month). I saved $32000 in those 3 years and bought a small freehold condo (freehold means no condo fees. You have to mow your own lawn and shovel your own driveway).
I was 24 years old at the time. I was mortgage-free when I was 37, which was great because I was laid off SEVEN times in my career.
I worked 2 part-time jobs along with my full-time job.
I’ve never been in debt in my life. If I couldn’t pay cash (car loans and mortgage aside), I didn’t buy it.
I’ve only ever bought a new car twice in my life. I drove that first car for a decade. My car now is 12 years old. I hope to drive it for another 8 years. I’ll buy myself a new car before I retire and you can bury me in it.
I was immediately attracted to this question. My 79-year-old father is German and was a young boy during WW2.
I asked him to write something to respond to this question, and he provided this excerpt from his memoirs. (I’ve changed the names of my uncles.)
tl;dr: During the war, bad. After the war, worse.
“In the spring of 1942, as the RAF bombing raids started, our family was evacuated by the German authorities from Krefeld to the Black Forest in southern Germany. The operation was called MUKI (for Mutter und Kinder).
By train my mother and we 3 children arrived in Schönmünzach in the Black Forest. We were ordered into a requisitioned hotel. The money the government paid the hotel must have been pretty low, judging by the unfriendly service we received.
After a few weeks, we were moved another 15 miles deeper into the forest to the little village of Obertal into the Hotel Sonne and a little later to Hotel Günther. There we had a single room with toilet and washroom down the hall. The hotel was run by two sisters and a brother, who also was a blacksmith. Two of their nieces, Lilo and Inge, were the food servers. The food was without much variation: potatoes, carrots, mushrooms that we helped collect in the woods, and blue trout. I hated the trout because of their bulging eye balls and disliked the mushrooms, they were so slippery.
It must have been in the summer of 1942 when we kids played in the garden of the hotel. There was an umbrella stand with a heavy concrete base. In passing, I pulled the stand askew and let it snap back. Unfortunately, my brother Hans was close behind me and the pipe of the stand hit him in the face. He was bloody all over, but this guy is hard to kill, he healed soon enough, but today still has a scar under the left side of his nose.
In the fall of 1942, Hans and I started elementary school in Obertal, Walter, our younger brother, followed 2 years later. We were so proud of our satchels, packed with a slate board with attached sponge, and our freshly sharpened slate styluses.
One winter evening my mother left us alone in the room and locked the door (this was before the invention of baby-sitting). We were up to some mischief: I collected pine needles from the Christmas tree and stuffed them into an electric outlet. All of a sudden there was a big flash and the light went out. I had managed to put the entire hotel into darkness.
Shortly thereafter, in early 1943 we were moved to a farmhouse near the edge of the village. The farmer by the name of Haist and his wife were not happy at all to see the unwanted guests they were forced to take in. They had two children, Alma, who was about 4 years older than I, and her younger brother Egon. We were placed in the upstairs of the small house and had one bedroom, a living room and a small kitchen with a single spigot for cold water. The toilet was half a flight down and consisted of a board with a lid-covered round cut-out hole and a cesspool below, no running water. The bedroom had no heat but was placed above the stable where a pig and a cow were supposed to warm the room from below. It was not quite sufficient, and during the coldest part of the winter we had to hack the ice off the jug and wash basin that served as our bathroom.
One day my mother had to run some errands. She again locked us up in the living room and we thought of some new mischief. We found matches and tried to burn off the fringes of the curtains by the front windows. To our disappointment the fringes didn’t burn very well and only generated smoke. So we gave up on the idea, extinguished the smoldering fringes and looked for some other entertainment. I suppose my mother was upset when she came home, but I don’t recall any punishment.
Food in those days was strictly rationed and we had to use food stamps for every purchase. My mother managed to get beef bones once a week. First she made a soup from it, then burned the bones on the charcoal in the stove. She recovered the ashes and we had to eat them as our calcium supplement. It tasted almost as bad as the weekly cod liver oil that we had to swallow. (Cod liver oil is rich in vitamins and chemicals, such as iodine. The lack of iodine was causing a high occurrence of goiters among the locals.) One day the local grocery store, the Konsum, had a big surprise: they sold strawberry jam without food stamps. Everybody rushed to the store and bought as much as the store keeper would hand out. The jam was delicious, sweet and crispy. A bit later we found out that the crispiness was dozens of wasps that got processed with the strawberries.
In the spring of 1943 I got scarlet fever and an infection of the middle ear. I was quarantined in our bedroom while Hans and Walter were moved to stay in the bedroom with Egon. When I got worse I was sent by ambulance to the hospital in Freudenstadt, some 10 miles away. I must have been pretty sick because I had to stay at the hospital for more than a month. Later I was told that both of my ear drums had ruptured. When I finally was discharged the nurse confiscated my only toy, some kind of a construction set with interlocking wooden chips, because it was “contaminated”. Really they did disinfect it and let other kids play with it. I was very unhappy about the loss.
In the summer, war came to Krefeld. On 6/21/43 the Royal Air Force (RAF) launched a heavy air raid on Krefeld where we had lived. Our house took a full hit and was totally destroyed. We would not have survived had we not been evacuated before.
Once a week we were ordered by the school to collect potato beetles in the fields around town. The beetles were threatening to kill the potato crop and rumors were that the Americans dropped the beetles on Germany, an early application of biological war fare. We had to pick the beetles off the leaves which was ok; they looked pretty in their yellow and black stripes. What I didn’t like was crushing the larvae and the eggs between my thumb and index finger and, most of all, I didn’t like the young Hitler-youth supervisor who hit us with a switch in the back of our knees when we didn’t work fast enough. However, when we were doing well we received small propaganda stickers with a printed “Kohlenklau”, the energy thief with a sack of coal over his shoulder, and “Pst, Feind hört mit” the sticker to remind you that enemy spies where everywhere.
During the summer vacation of 1943 we helped our farmer to collect ferns in the woods that he used as bedding for the cow. The fern was spread in the courtyard to dry and piled up overnight. I still remember that one night the three of us kids were allowed to dig some cave into the huge pile and sleep in it. The fragrance of the dried fern was wonderful. We also helped to make hay, a very labor intensive process. In the morning the farmer went out to his large meadow behind the house and cut the grass by hand with a scythe. Every half-hour or so he paused, pulled out a whetstone from his hip pocket, and sharpened the scythe. Frau Haist, Alma, Hans and I used rakes to spread out the grass to dry. In the early afternoon, the grass had to be turned and in the evening it had to be collected into piles. This was repeated for several days until the hay was ready to be collected into a big net which the farmer then carried on his back into the hay loft above the stable. Every evening the farmer sharpened his scythe by straddling a stone bench that had a small anvil at the end, and hammering the edge of the blade razor thin. He then finished the sharpening with a whetstone.
To obtain firewood the forester assigned and marked one tree for each family and sent a notice where to find the tree. Our tree was up the mountain some 10 miles away near a logging road. The farmer, my dad, who was on furlough, Hans, Walter and I set off at 5 in the morning. After some searching we found the tree. Dad and the farmer cut it down, chopped off the branches and sawed it into 3 ft. sections. The 3 kids had to drag the pieces up the hill to the logging road and pile it up for pick-up by the forestry people. Hans didn’t like touching the slippery, mossy branches and decided to go home. He snuck away, took the cart with all our food and beverage and rolled down the road all the way home. You can imagine how furious we were, no food or drink and another 6 hours of work and a 3-hour hike back home. At home Hans got a severe thrashing, the only one my father ever administered to him. As a further penalty Hans had to do overtime in chopping wood after the man with the mobile band saw came by and cut the sections down to firewood length.
In the fall the farmer called in the local butcher to slaughter the pig. From our bedroom we could hear the poor beast squeal. When we went downstairs, the pig was already in a tub of hot water where it was being scrubbed clean and its bristles were scraped off. We kids had the job to wash out the intestines in the fountain in the courtyard and get them ready for sausage-making by turning them inside out. When the whole pig was processed we all sat down to a “Schlachtfest” (butcher’s party). The farmer’s wife dished out “Metzelsuppe”, the broth of the sausage cooker, and freshly baked bread, followed by various cuts of meat and sausages with potatoes and sauerkraut. It was truly a feast because we could eat without needing our ration stamps.
In 1944 we moved from the farm in Obertal to Baiersbronn into one side of a duplex that the town had built for bombed out refugees like us.
The house was very small, the living room was 7 by 12 feet, the eat-in kitchen was 8 by 14 feet, and there was a single bedroom upstairs, about 10 by 12 feet. Hans and I slept in a regular bed, Walter slept in the big bed with my mother and later, after my dad got back from the POW camp, he had a crib in an alcove. Later that year, Frau Ilse Mueller – who lived in the other half of the duplex – let us use her upstairs bedroom and the 3 of us kids had a bit more room.
The house had no road connection and no water. We had to haul the water by bucket from a neighbor some 300 yards down a path to the road. For three more months we kept hauling. When the town finally installed a single tap in the kitchen, it was truly a high point in our lives.
The toilet was a hole in a wooden bench, again with a cesspool underneath. It smelled terribly, especially during the hot summer days. Worst was the maggots that kept creeping up from down below. We didn’t have any toilet paper; none could be bought in the empty stores. So my mother sacrificed the love letters my father had written to her from the war, for us youngsters they were fascinating and so romantic.
Meanwhile, our neighbor, Herr Lampert, decided we needed a road, so he organized the neighborhood and we built a dirt road, about 200 feet long, to connect to the main road. We logged tons of stone from the nearby Sankenbach creek and set them by hand into a foot-deep road base. The bed was consolidated with rams made out of tree stumps. On top we put gravel and sand, and our foot path turned into a respectable piece of road.
In early 1945, the front was drawing nearer and bombs started falling nearby. One bomb hit Café Mueller and killed their only daughter. My mother barely escaped a machine gun salvo from a low-flying French fighter plane. She feared for our lives and we all went back to the more remote village of Obertal. There we shacked up with our friends, the Siehr family, into a 3 room+kitchen apartment. They had 3 boys, our best friends, and a younger daughter. Their father was a chemist who had volunteered to join the army in 1939 and was killed in action during the first few weeks of the war. Frau Siehr became a war widow at age 28 with four children, then 4, 3, 2 and 1 years of age. There was one bedroom for the children with triple bunk-beds for the boys, and the three of us doubled up with the boys head to toe. The girl had a small bed in the same bedroom.
Then, one day in April of 1945, the French army moved into the village. The German army had retreated to guard the next bigger town of Freudenstadt. Hans and I, at age 8, had to join the “Volkssturm” (People’s Army), the last resources of the army, consisting of men over 70 and kids of 8 to 15 (everybody between 15 and 70 had been drafted earlier). We had been trained, using wooden mockups, to shoot RPGs at the incoming tanks. But the German army retreated and had taken all the real weapons with them and, luckily, we didn’t have to make that “last stand against the enemy”. The village surrendered to the French without a shot being fired.
Then the French started to search each house for soldiers and also for quarters for their officers. They came to the upstairs apartment and knocked (!) at the door of the children’s room. My mother had posted all 7 children by the door; when the soldiers opened, they exclaimed “Mon Dieu” (dear Lord) and shut the door. We kids then moved swiftly through a connecting door to the living room where Frau Siehr posted us near the door. The soldiers knocked again at the next door and saw another mother with 7 more children. With a baffled “beaucoupd’enfants” (lots of children) they gave up on their search for accommodations in the house.
After the armistice was declared there was great joy all around. Our family went back to Baiersbronn to our “Behelfsheim” (emergency shelter) as it was officially called. There we found a big mess. French soldiers had celebrated the end of fighting with a big party and had turned the place upside down. Also, they ate all our food and we had nothing left to eat. One of the French soldiers, he called himself Bari Mulut, an Algerian, came by a few days later and asked my mother to hide him; he was a deserter and just wanted to go home. We hid him in the attic and played ignorant when the French MPs came by and searched the house. They overlooked the trap door in the ceiling, leading to the attic.
At that time, food rationing was not working anymore; the whole civilian service structure had collapsed. We went around to several farms and tried to get enough food but the farmers were reluctant to accept the worthless “Reichsmark” currency. My mother taught us some French and we went begging at the hotels the French had requisitioned. “Avez-vous des conserves pour nous?” we asked again and again. We also eagerly picked up cigarette butts, rolled them into new cigarettes of ever increasing nicotine content, and traded them against food at a farmer’s. One day we were very lucky, a French officer gave us eleven 32 oz. cans of meat and vegetables, it was a memorable day. Other days we were not so lucky and the entire food for the four of us consisted of a single sugar beet that the farmers usually feed to their pigs.
There were no toys around so we made some ourselves. We carved little boats from thick pine bark and let them float on the puddles in the ditch behind the house. We made whistles from willow branches, stilts from square-cut slats, catapults from beer-bottle tops and slingshots from inner tubes, discarded by the French soldiers.
The French commanded every inhabitant of the town to watch a film about the Holocaust at the movies. Everybody was horrified and some people said this was all propaganda. Apparently, they had lost their clear thinking after years of Nazi propaganda.
During the summer of 1945 stores had nothing to sell. To survive, my mother, Hans and I went on “Hamster Reise” (shopping trip), where we scratched up some tradable goods, among them mother’s pretty lingerie that dad had sent her from Paris, loaded them on a hand-wagon and walked first from Baiersbronn to Obertal, staying at Siehr’s for a short night. The next morning at 3 am we moved on across the “Ruhestein”, the watershed between the rain-drenched (130 in/yr) eastern part of the Black Forrest were we lived, and the fertile Rhein valley. We walked 22 km (14 miles) to Kappelrodeck, Hans and I barefoot because we had no shoes, to a farm where we traded our goods. We got some 140 pounds of potatoes, fruit and vegetables. By then it was almost noon and we started our trek back. While progress in the valley was fairly good, things got really slow climbing up some 10 miles to the “Ruhestein”. Luckily, that day there was a farmer who put a pair of oxen to work, trailing a bunch of ropes for us and other “Hamsterers” to hang onto, helping them to move their handwagons up the steepest part of the climb. Down the other side it was easier, 5 miles back to Obertal and then another 5 miles to Baiersbronn. We got back home just before curfew at midnight, an exhausting 21 hour, 33 mile barefoot trek. The trip added several new layers to the callused soles of Hans’s and my feet.
The next day we had to start preserving our food. All fruit was sliced and air-dried. For that we took the doors off the hinges and covered them with the fruit slices to dry outside on the grassy patch in front of the house. After the drying, the unpainted doors had a negative leopard pattern with light spots where the fruit slices had been and sun tan around them. Carrots, potatoes and beets were stored in a sand bed in the basement. Cabbage was shredded, salted and fermented into sauerkraut in a big ceramic jar, eggs were stored in silicone gel in another earthen jar, and bread was air-dried. We had no refrigerator, and only glass jars with lids, but without rubber gaskets which then rendered them useless (all rubber had been reserved for tire production for the army).
We did the trip twice more during that summer. On one of the trips we found another friendly farmer who too was trailing half a dozen ropes behind his tractor for people to hang on and get pulled up the mountain for a few miles. His tractor had a “Holzvergaser” (wood chip gasifier) that generated carbon monoxide by partially combusting wood chips in a man-size vessel mounted on the side of the vehicle. The monoxide was then burned to carbon dioxide in the engine, generating just enough power to pull the whole convoy up the hill.
My dad had a tough summer as well. During the last days of fighting in April of 1945 he was with a few other soldiers on the south-shore of the Danube River in Ulm. The Americans were on the north shore. My father was happy to see them, so he stood up and waved to them across the river. Next thing, the Americans trained their mortars on him and he jumped back into the trenches, barely surviving the attack. A short time later his unit was overrun and he ended in a POW camp in St. Avold in Lorraine, France. The Americans were mean to the officers, ignorant about the difference between the regular army and the SS-stormtroopers. My dad was regular army, but the Americans gave all of them their Holocaust special. They fed them 4 course dinners where, e.g., the fish course was a single sardine that had to be divided between 8 people. They made them sleep under the clear sky, no tents or other shelter. Luckily, it was a dry and warm summer, so they survived. My father weighed 210 pounds going into camp and 98 pounds when he was discharged 7 months later.
Things got better when my father came back from the POW camp in November of 1945. As a former officer, dad had to register and report every Saturday to the police station in Baiersbronn. Hans and I were with him one day when Hans saw a sign on the way out where the new administration was looking for “Applicants with business education”. Dad applied and just a few weeks later got a job with the “Preiskontrollbehoerde” (price control agency) in the newly established regional administration. He got a 98cc motorbike as the official vehicle. His job was to visit shops and businesses and control that they adhered to the fixed prices set by the authorities. But his main concern was how to feed the family. So, he always brought a brown bag with him when he checked the local butcher or baker. He told them “I am not corruptible, but I have to feed my family with 3 small children”. Depending on the “crimes” he discovered, the bag got filled, more or less, with food. Once he brought back 4 pounds of lard, an exceptionally good day. At home, we cut it all up into little cubes and rendered it on the stove. The greaves tasted delicious with some salt, and the grease was a welcome change from frying potatoes without any fat. We didn’t mind that the grease was more like wax and stuck to the roof of our mouths.
Here ends the WW2 story and what it was like for me to grow up during that time in Germany.”
I’m a service dog handler so I’ve seen quite a few.
This Time I’m in the bathroom with my dog. We’re at the mall and I really have to pee and my dog has just alerted me I’m about to pass out. I really want to use the bathroom before I pass out so I don’t pee myself.
I walk into the bathroom and I see this mother changing her kid.
I think “oh god. The kids gonna notice and get upset she can’t pet Callie.@ I was so worried because I really needed to use the bathroom and I was already dizzy and had blurry vision.
To my surprise (and relief) this little angel is smiling and giggling at her mom as she gets her diaper changed and she’s too busy to notice Callie.
So I get out of the stall and the mother looks up at me.
She didn’t see Callie who was sitting behind a pillar between me and the woman as I washed my hands. This woman starts interrogating me while her angel is saying “mommy can you hurry so I can help you pick out shoes?” This kid is a perfect angel.
The woman ignores her kid and starts yelling at me. “You are so disrespectful you shouldn’t be using the handicap stall! What if somebody in a wheelchair comes in needing it? Or somebody else with a disability?!!”
I can tell this kid wants to leave (her belated butt must be freezing by this point) so I calmly reply “Ma’am not all disabilities are visible, and I am in fact disabled”
This woman glares at me and says “Oh yeah? And what the hell is wrong with you?”
I step aside and call Callie to my side. I then inform her “While I am not comfortable sharing that information with you, I am willing to tell you that I used this stall so my service dog would have room and would not be inched away from me as I use the bathroom.”
This woman is dumbfounded for a moment then turns around to resume changing this poor kids diaper. I was so thankful.
Then, to my horror this woman does the closest thing she can do to turn this child to a monster. In a high pitched voice she says “Look at the doggy! Look at the doggy!”
I’m terrified this child will go crazy until she pets my dog (keep in mind I’m still very dizzy and about to pass out. Preferably in a chair)
Instead, this angel says “Mommy can I please pet the doggy?”
This is the part that horrifies me. She then gets in this kids face and screams “NO. THAT DOG IS WORKING YOU CANT PET IT”
She had very politely asked, and I may have said yes. (It would be good practice for Callie) but I was dizzy and this mom just told her no.
Now, this child was an angel by my standards and I’m guessing those of most people reading this, but she was not a perfectly behaved robot. Her mom had obviously scared her so she started wailing and sobbing because the woman she trusts most had just screamed at her in a demonic tone.
This woman then turns to me and says “You know. This is all your fault. We were fine before you showed up. No I have to deal with her.”
This kid was an adorable child who was one of the best behaved toddlers I had ever seen. (I am a babysitter) I could not believe her mother would do that. She wouldn’t have noticed and she was so polite.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem with our wings,” announced the pilot.
True story. This happened to me last week.
The plane was making its final approach to Houston Intercontinental Airport. Suddenly there were three consecutive “ding-dong” sounds in the main cabin.
I saw both air hostesses run from the back of the plane to the front and grab the phone. They talked for a few seconds to the pilot, then the pilot came on with an announcement.
“We have broken off our approach. We have a problem with our wings. The leading edge slats won’t come down. We have declared an emergency and we will be landing shortly,” he said.
“Fire trucks will be waiting for us on the runway. It’s probably going to be a hard landing because we can’t slow the plane down as we normally would. We’ll see you on the ground.”
That was it.
Immediately the air hostesses started preparing everyone for the emergency. Uncertainty filled the cabin. Everyone of us felt vulnerable and scared.
I reflected on how fragile we are. There we were, trapped inside a metal tube flying at a high speed, … nothing to be done, simply pray and trust that everything would be okay.
The wind shook the plane from one side to the other. I could sense how the pilot was trying to find the optimal speed to land, not too fast, yet enough to fight the winds.
I could finally see the runway through my window. We all braced for the impact and as soon as we touched the ground, the pilot hit hard on the brakes.
The captain did an amazing job. We cheered and clapped for his fantastic landing.
Fire trucks followed us to the gate.
It was not fun. That leading edge slat on the front of the wing is responsible for the addition of a few more grey hairs to my head.
My first — and hopefully my last — emergency landing!
Fun outing in college, canoeing down the American River. Only… unbeknownst to us (and I suppose the trip organizers), unseasonably hard rainfall has made the river fast and dangerous in certain spots. Being completely inexperienced, my canoe-mate and I had no clue that going widely around the sharp bend would put us into the deepest, fastest-moving water, which coincidentally had just undercut a very large tree, which was now toppled into the water. So we get sucked into the fast-moving water under the tree and capsized. We surface. I come up with my torso against the tree, which is several feet in diameter. Some idiots immediately behind us apparently decide that they will “rescue” us (canoe-mate was a few feet down, straddling the tree by this time). They capsize. Their canoe catches the current side-on and lands against me. Both of my arms are over the top of the tree, keeping me above the surface.
I now have a sideways canoe with its flat hull pressing my torso into a giant tree, with the force of a raging river behind it. I feel it crushing me, and think I’m going to die.
And then, I didn’t. Apparently the angle was slightly off, and the canoe slid off and landed on my friend, a few feet downstream. Her leg was trapped and it took a whole lot of people a whole lot of time to move the canoe against the current enough so she could scrape her leg out. She ended up with severe bruising and was on crutches for awhile, due to the pressure. Yeah, I would have died, with puny ribs and lungs fighting the current instead of solid bone.
Chinese Black Pepper Steak
Ingredients
750g eye fillet (in one piece)
2 onions, sliced
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons dry sherry
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon dark soya sauce
2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns, crushed
Instructions
Partially freeze steak. Cut into thin slices.
Combine steak, onions, sesame oil, sherry, sugar, ginger and soya sauce in bowl. Cover, marinate several hours or refrigerate overnight.
Stir peppercorns through steak mixture. Stir-fry steak and onions in a wok over high heat until steak is cooked to your liking.
I’m astounded that Japan could be confused about the reason dead fish are washing ashore in the hundreds and more. They just released the most toxic water to date into the ocean. Gee, I’m sure that has nothing to do with it. Just a funny coincidence.
Would you drink water from Chernobyl? Would you drink water from Fukushima? So why would you eat fish that live in an an environment of toxic nuclear water? Why would you be surprised that the fish are dying in such water and washing ashore?
Literally everyone with common sense could’ve and did predict this. It’s basic cause and effect. No, I’m not surprised.
Years ago I had a blind date. We had talked on the phone and the guy asked if he could take me to lunch. Not MEET me for lunch, but take me. He was inviting me so I assumed he would pay.
We met at a casual inexpensive chain restaurant. I had something modestly priced – it was probably around $7 (like I said, years ago). When the bill came, he told me what my share was – he actually said, “You had the french dip plus an iced tea, so your total is…..” I was pretty surprised but I figured that the cost of my lunch was worth finding out what a cheapo he was so I wouldn’t waste any more time dating him. But here’s the kicker – he had a Buy One Get One Free coupon! So his meal was free and I paid for mine! That was enough for me. He walked me to my car and asked if he could see me again. I said, “No” and he looked surprised and asked why. I said that anyone as cheap as he was shouldn’t date. Thank goodness he never called again.
EDIT*** For those who comment why it should be presumed that a man always pays for the first date – I do not presume that! Whoever invites another on a date (not a casual “meet up”) should pay. This man invited me. He said he wanted to “take me to lunch.” That is an invitation for a date and it was logical of me to assume he would pay. I have invited men on dates and I have paid for both of us. This is not a feminist issue – this is an issue of manners. And this guy had none.
Music CDs – it was announced recently that a couple of big box stores are dropping them from their shelves.
The word “TWICE”. No, really! Just start listening out for it and you’ll notice that almost every TV advert that should be using the word will say “TWO TIMES” instead…and it’s spreading, I hear this ugly replacement for a perfectly good word in news stories too. Why? It’s a total mystery! (Of course “THRICE” already went the way of the Dodo…so…)
Stick-shift cars. Most new cars no longer come with the option to drive stick. (Boooo!!!!!)
The grammatical rule that disallows “split infinitives” (Like “To boldly go where no man has gone before!”…which should strictly be -> which should be strictly “To go boldly…”)
In the USA – extending tape measures with inches on one edge of the tape and centimeters on the other. I broke mine a few months ago and neither of the local DIY stores have anything other than “Easy Read” tape measures with only inches. I had to hunt around online to find one that I could still order.
Cash. Already, several countries are considering completely abolishing cash…and a while back, I needed cash for something (I forget what) – and realized that I’ve had no cash in my wallet for more than two years!
Philips screw heads. (The ones like a ‘+’ sign) The replacement is the six-sided “torx” head screws (like a ‘*’ sign) – and in some cases the Allen head – which is a regular hexagon. With the improvement in design of electric screwdrivers, the old philips screws (which are DESIGNED to strip under high torque to protect the tool from damage) are overdue for replacement.
We could go on forever…
Point is that with all of the new things in the world – some old things have to “go away” to make room…either intellectually or physically.
Sometimes it’s sad…sometimes, it’s good…mostly it’s just “Meh”.
When I was in college I went to bed hungry many, many nights. I used to steal cheese from Administration wine and cheese parties so I could eat that night. My food budget was 5 dollars a week. Then one day I learned about food stamps. In those days, food stamps really were stamps — they resembled currency but could only be used for food. I think I was eligible for 90 dollars a month in food stamps in 1981. That increased my food budget to about 22 dollars a week.
It absolutely changed my life. Suddenly, I could keep peanut butter in my house, and bread and cereal, things I could eat every day. And if I had the right coupons, I could buy tuna fish and mayonnaise as a luxury. I can still remember my hands shaking with joy as I made a tuna fish sandwich. I was a six foot tall 19 year old man with a 28 inch waist.
Pride made me unable to let people know how bad things were or how hungry I was. Money from my work-study job was used to pay rent and utilities. I balanced my check book to the penny because every penny counted. But when I did go to the DeMoulas in Fitchburg near the college (and I always walked), I always felt ashamed when it came time to pay. And don’t think I didn’t get many dirty looks and the occasional snarky comment from others in the line.
I vowed one day to make up for taking those food stamps and never criticize people who used them. Hunger is real and hunger changes your life, what you can do, how you view your work, your study, your play, your pride, your sense of worth – everything you are, because what you eat today walks and talks tomorrow. Yes, I felt real shame using food stamps. I never took charity before, I was a white man in America and taught that men don’t take charity — you work for what you get. But they saved my life and I am grateful today for the generosity of the taxpayer of yesterday who saved my life and ability to graduate with high honors from college and become a productive member of society.
Many moons ago, I found myself in perplexing life circumstances.
While I had a decent paying corporate IT job, my divorce of several years back had finally to ground my finances down to the point of near crisis.
Despite appearances of success, my disposable income after supporting two households was drifting into the negative.
In addition to faithfully paying child support for my two children, I also took them every weekend as they were the joyous bright light of my then stressful life.
While not extravagant per se, I made sure they had fun doing normal things kids do, as their mom tended to be frugal in this regard. No blaming, per se…
Backstory set, my current financial crisis was that the annual car insurance bill was due, and I basically didn’t have it. Ironically, a recent necessary car repair depleted my reserve at a bad time. Big sigh.
After spending days trying to sort this, no solution was apparent, and the strain of the bills due date was a preoccupation.
The next morning as I leave for work, the neighbor who lives across our sloping alley was standing behind my car looking at its bumper. His own over-the-top customized pickup is at an odd angle behind my car.
He apologetically explains that his big truck slipped out of gear, rolling over and hitting the back of my car. Hard enough that his trucks bumper was broken in the middle and partially dangled on one side. My heart sank, guessing at my poor cars condition.
Upon inspection, my early 80’s Volvo GL (very thick body metal) had a minor rumple in its rear corner. The trunk still worked, taillight undamaged, and bumper still fine as the lifted truck hit above it. Quite a comical mismatch of damage.
He gave me his insurance info and I went to work, grateful in part for light damage, but annoyed and worried. What was this going to cost?
I called his insurance agent who arranged to have an adjuster come my works parking lot, who I met about an hour later. He asked a few questions as he circled the car, tapping away on some hand-held machine that looked part printer (not a usual thing at the time).
Before I could finish explaining the alley incident, his machine starts spitting out some paper.., a check! He handed it to me with a smile saying There you go!
Sure I about to be low-balled for my repair, I quickly looked the amount. Easily quadruple what my car insurance bill that needed to be paid this week! Huzzah?
I look at the adjuster guy, clearly showing surprise in my expression. He says The damage is cosmetic and everything stiil works. If I were you, I’d just leave it and keep the money. Have a great day! We shake hands and off he goes.
And that’s just what I did, after paying my car insurance with the windfall from the other insurance company. A curious little shell game between these entities.
Indeed, Huzzah!
Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start The Fire (Historically Accurate Almanac) COMPLETE
Sailing into the wind is a sailing expression that refers to a sailboat’s ability to move forward despite being headed into (or very nearly into) the wind. A sailboat cannot make headway by sailing directly into the wind; the point of the sail into the wind is called “close hauled”.
Sailing into the wind is possible when the sail is angled in a slightly more forward direction than the sail force. In this aspect, the boat will move forward because the keel (centerline) of the boat acts to the water as the sail acts to the wind. The force of the sail is balanced by the force of the keel. This keeps the boat from moving in the direction of the sail force. Although total sail force is to the side when sailing into the wind, a proper angle of attack moves the boat forward
Old ships, such as sailing ships and square-rigged ships, had different sailing and fighting qualities than modern sailboats. They had to rely on their sails, rigging, hull shape, and crew skills to maneuver and perform in various wind and sea conditions. They also had to deal with challenges such as enemy fire, storms, pirates, and navigation. Old ships used various tactics and techniques to sail into the wind, such as:
Tacking: This is a basic sailing maneuver that involves changing the direction of the ship by turning its bow through the wind. This allows the ship to zigzag its way upwind by alternating between port and starboard tacks. Tacking requires coordination between the helmsman and the crew, who have to adjust the sails and rigging accordingly. Tacking also exposes the ship to enemy fire from both sides, so it was often avoided in combat situations.
Wearing: This is another sailing maneuver that involves changing the direction of the ship by turning its stern through the wind. This allows the ship to reverse its course without losing much speed or momentum. Wearing is easier and faster than tacking, but it also requires more space and exposes the ship’s vulnerable stern to enemy fire. Wearing was often used as an escape or evasion tactic when facing superior forces.
Beating: This is a sailing technique that involves sailing as close to the wind as possible without losing speed or stalling. Beating requires trimming the sails tightly and steering carefully to maintain an optimal angle of attack. Beating allows the ship to gain ground upwind by minimizing its leeway (sideways drift). The beating was often used as a pursuit or attack tactic when chasing or engaging enemy ships.
Pinching: This is a sailing technique that involves sailing closer to the wind than is optimal (i.e., with a too-small angle to the wind). Pinching reduces the speed and efficiency of the ship, but it also reduces its leeway and allows it to point higher upwind. Pinching was often used as a desperate or risky tactic when trying to gain an advantage or avoid a disadvantage in a tight situation.
The time when I was 16 years old and had a fake driver’s license to get into clubs. (This is a very long time ago when the licenses were paper).
A few weeks before, a clever bouncer realised my ID was fake. I won’t go into the details. He took it from me and advised that if I wanted it back I needed to go to the police.
I freaked out, went straight home (parents) and hoped I’d never have to think about it again.
There’s a knock at our front door. It’s the police (I can see them coming up from my bedroom window). I couldn’t understand what was happening.
My Dad answered the front door. I heard mumbling for a few minutes. I heard the front door close, and Dad coming up the stairs.
Dad called for my Mum. “Heidi, your Uncle’s stolen car has been found and it’s registered to here. I’ve informed the police that he’s living here at the moment (truth) and that he’ll sort it out tomorrow with them”.
Footnote: I heard all this from my bedroom as I was promising God that I will never, ever, ever have another fake driver’s license!
What you’re not being told about Apple Daily and Jimmy Lai
When Indonesia got loan from IMF in 1997, the Indonesian government was forced to terminate this project as one of requirements in order to get the loan from IMF.
The planes in the picture were N250s. The first ever plane produced by Indonesian airplane manufacturer, PT IPTN. It was in the 1997 N250 first prototype made its roll out. The plane successfully took off and conducted flight test. Unfortunately, Indonesia fell into a severe monetary crisis in 1997 and had to go to IMF to get the loan. The IMF told President Suharto to cancel the N250 project and it was mandatory before getting the loan. Suharto had no option at the time but approved it. Since then N250 project was cancelled. IMF also told Indonesia to stop funding IPTN totally but Indonesian government didn’t fully comply what IMF wanted. The funding to IPTN was only greatly reduced and its business cores were diversified in order to survive with minimum budget support from the government, now IPTN changes its name into PT Dirgantara Indonesia.
Many said and believed, IMF intentionally terminated the N250 project was to accommodate the requests from some foreign airplane manufacturers which didn’t want Indonesia to produce its own planes because they wanted Indonesia to keep buying from them.
I won’t say getting load from China will not be followed by terms and conditions but I just wanted to show you how IMF put pressures on countries that borrow money from them.
I parked in a hospital parking lot, and when I came back to my vehicle, there was this young couple, early twenties having a heated discussion. She wanted him to call a taxi, and drive to a mall and buy a battery. He wanted to call a locksmith. The battery in their key fob was dead, and they couldn’t get the door open. They were getting quite mad at each other, thinking that the others solution was going to cost more and take longer.
I asked them if I could be of assistance, and they both wanted me to explain to the other why their idea sucked.
The guy suggested that maybe I could take the battery out of my fob, and put it in theirs just long enough, for them to open the doors.
I asked to see their key fob, and he handed it to me, thinking I was going to do his suggestion.
I walked to their car, put the key in the lock, and opened the door.
They both were stunned. Saying OMG, how did you do that?
They had never seen a car door opened with a key. I felt really old, and just a little smug.
Def Leppard • Hysteria || Jennifer Connelly • Career Opportunities
This is great.
Curried Beef
Ingredients
14 ounces (400g) lean boneless beef
2 teaspoons rice wine
3 cups (750ml) vegetable oil for deep-frying; uses about 2 1/2 oz (75cml)
2 ounces (60ml) clear stock
2 tablespoons curry oil
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon ginger, chopped
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon cornstarch (corn flour) dissolved in 1 teaspoon water
1/4 teaspoon onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon hot red chile pepper, chopped
Instructions
Cut beef into 1-inch square chunks.
Heat the oil in a wok over low heat to very hot, 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Deep-fry the beef until it is cooked through. Remove beef, drain, and set aside.
Pour the oil out of the wok, leaving a thin film on the bottom. Reheat until a haze appears on the oil surface. Add the curry oil, ginger, garlic, onion, chili pepper, rice wine, stock, salt, MSG (optional) and sugar.
Stir the cornstarch to blend and add. Add the beef, stir-fry for 2 minutes, or until the sauce is thickened.
Here is Claudia Schiffer in her earlier days. If you are a heterosexual male (my perspective on this subject), this picture make your genes scream “I wanna mix with those genes!”
It’s not an intellectual response. It’s not a moral judgement. It is a primal response. You couldn’t stop it if you tried. In this picture, she is the epitome of beauty. This yells “fertile”, and “your (our) kids will be successful at reproducing, too”.
Remember, the future belongs to the people who show up. Reproducing successfully greatly increases your odds of having children that reproduce successfully.
Brigitte Macron (wife of French President Emmanuel Macron) is not exactly an ugly woman, but I guarantee this picture doesn’t spur the same response as the one above.
In this picture, she is at, or close to menopause. That’s enough to shut down, or at least greatly mute the involuntary male response.
But looks don’t matter
Looks open up the door. They don’t keep you in the room.
The visceral response to those looks may last 6 months, or two years. But humans become acculturated to their normal surroundings. And even if your wife/girlfriend looks like this (Linda Evangelista in her prime):
There comes a point where you are inured to it. You care more about whether she picks her nose and leaves the snot on the bedsheet (or whatever annoying behavior she has).
And then there’s that standard male desire for variety. Arnold Schwarzenegger was married to Maria Shriver
Beautiful, smart, connected. She had it all. That should be enough, right?
Nope. He had an affair – and a child – with his nanny
I can’t tell you what was going on in the Schwarzenegger-Shriver marriage, but it’s rather obvious that Maria’s looks didn’t mean a whole lot at that point in time.
So let me repeat the point:
Looks matter – they get you in the door. But they don’t keep you in the room.
Are you beautiful? Lucky you. You have a greater selection of mates to start with. But after you choose one, you need to figure out a relationship, and that’s hard. Really hard. Work on that. The looks will stop mattering, even before they fade.
The Average Chinese don’t understand GDP growth or PMI or Productivity or other Indicators
To them the only source of their worry is the REAL ESTATE MARKET
They have no inflation whatsoever
They have no unemployment problems
Their businesses have plenty of credit available these days
The Chinese who have invested a large chunk of their money into real estate now see the downturn in these markets and feel poor
The Chinese Economists know this and allow this to happen knowing the alternative is to keep fueling real estate speculation and spectacularly crash a decade later
Yet the Chinese people are stoic and practical people
In the end they will shrug, accept that their investments in real estate are going nowhere and offload them or stick with minimal growth
It’s a harsh pill to swallow but one necessary for the long term
China thus is doing pretty well relative to the rest of the world from the eyes of the average mainlander
In fact, except for the real estate slump, he would rank his life as very good
2023 was a good year for China
First the lockdowns ended and that was a huge relief
Second the country is chugging back to life. The demand is back to 2019 standards and slowly rising again.
I personally feel Chinas growth in 2023 could have been as much as 6% but the Chinese are keeping a lot of their success on the books so that they can boost their 2024 growth rate instead
Rather than a 6% growth in 2023 and 4.1% in 2024, better for a 5.1% growth in 2023 and a 4.8% growth in 2024
This way China exceeds it’s target for both years
So there is no need to distract anyone
The Average Mainlander doesn’t need distraction
He has relatives who inform him of their lives in other countries and he knows not one of them is better off than him.
Today I walked my son to his kindergarten class. It was cold and we were huddled together like sardines as we stood outside the door waiting for the bell to ring.
I saw you with your little boy just a few feet from us, and I looked down when I realized you were looking at us. I hoped you didn’t know who we were. I hoped you didn’t know my son was “that kid.” The one who’s not transitioning well in this school year.
I know what the kids say about my son. They go home and tell their parents my kid is bad. Sometimes he pushes and hits. Sometimes he is defiant and refuses to sit down, be quiet, or stay in line.
I know because the kids tell him what they think of him on the playground. “Mark said I’m bad today.” Or “Aiden’s dad said I can’t play with him anymore.” And my heart hurts, because I know he’s struggling in school. And we are working every angle… in school with a specialist, at home, and through classes, books and resources.
Today, you looked at me, then at my son. “You must be K,” you said to my son. And I looked up and smiled sheepishly. It was an apologetic smile. Almost a “I’m sorry you know his name” smile, because that means you’ve heard the stories.
I said to you, “Yes, this is him.”
I whispered when my son stepped away that we are aware he’s causing some trouble and we are working on it. That we take his behavior very seriously.
And then you did something I never expected. I don’t know if I was waiting for you to tell me what you heard K did to your son, or just tell me off. But instead you told me about your older son who struggled with similar problems at this age. You told me that now he’s in high school and he’s a straight A student.
Instead of tearing me down, you lifted me up. You gave me hope. And you handed me an olive branch so I know that I do have an ally during school drop off. An ally I never expected.
You didn’t have to make that connection. You could have ignored us or pretended not to know us. Or yes — you could have told me what you think of my son (you would not be the first). But you didn’t. You showed me grace and kindness and you uplifted me more than I could possibly describe in words.
I told you I would love to learn more about steps you took with your older son. I would love suggestions and guidance and that I would call you. And you know what? I will call you. Even if no suggestions or guidance is ever exchanged. I will call you because you are a friend I want to have. You are a good person.
I will do something I normally despise: answer on behalf of someone else. This is just too good to not mention.
The words were: We are going to lie down for a nap. We are feeling tired and cranky.
It was just that: My wife, our toddler and I were going to take a nap on a weekend afternoon, because we were just not quite feeling ourselves. Before lying down, my wife called a doctor’s office to make an overdue appointment. All she got was a lady from the answering service – or possibly an Angel. We were not able to ascertain which, as we never met her in person.
The lady told my wife that the office was not open, and when it would reopen. My wife replied that she was going to try again later, as we were going to lie down for a nap because we were feeling tired and cranky. This had nothing to do with what she had called about – just making conversation. Still, only going by that, the lady deduced that we were dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. She told us to leave the house NOW, and called 911 for us.
Turns out the chimney had collapsed, and flooded the house with carbon monoxide. The levels were deadly – had we gone to sleep, we would not have woken up. The nice lady saved our lives, just based on my wife mentioning conversationally that we were going to take a nap. If that is not impressive, I don’t know what is.
Thanks, nice answering service lady, wherever you are.
MAJOR CORRECTION: My wife has read this answer, and she remembers telling the answering service lady that she was feeling woozy. That would have been a major hint – but I still find it more than impressive that she was able to save our lives just based on a brief phone call which was on its face about something else entirely.
When i was 12 there were a few kids at school who bullied me for whatever reason. It wasn’t bad physical bullying just name calling mainly. On weekend i was in our town centre calling my mother from a payphone. These 3 boys walked past and started banging on the phonebox shouting some names and proceeded to walk off.
Now for some reason, i this time i reacted. The only thing i had to hand was a full can of coke. I shook it up and opened it up just a tiny bit and threw it towards the boys intending to cover them in Coke. I threw it when they must have been 20-30 metres away and as the can approached them i shouted one of the boys names. “Paul!” (I’ll not use his real name) he turned round and the can hit the side of his forehead and he just dropped to the floor.
I ran. Oh, i did, i ran! Finally stopping at another phone box to call my mother and tell her exactly what happened. She was surprisingly ok about it despite me saying ‘Paul’ must have been really hurt. She just told me to get my butt home ASAP.
I didn’t hear anything about it until after the weekend and ‘Paul’ came in to school with a massive lump on his head coming out in a huge bruise. He’d spent the rest of Saturday in hospital.
Fortunately, i didn’t get into any trouble at all. I had only intended to cover them in Coke and could never have imagined hitting him square on his forehead at such a distance.
As kids are we all became friends in later years with even ‘Paul’ painfully accepting it was a one in a million shot.
Someone I know was diagnosed with cancer and given only 3–6 months to live.
It was a devastating diagnosis to her and her family. She was an amazing person, who’d lived a good, healthy life, and was only in her late-50’s.
But, as we know, cancer is a merciless disease.
She ended up getting on a strong treatment plan that allowed her to live almost 2 years.
The first 12–16 months of those 2 years, she more or less had a great quality of life and was able to travel, spend time with loved ones, her husband, kids, grandkids, making the very most of that time.
In the remaining 8–12 months of her life, things began to descend.
The cancer began to change her body, breaking her down. Her mind began to change and, consequently, her behavior did too. The medicine she was taking was no longer thwarting the onslaught of the disease.
In the end, in the final weeks of her life, it wasn’t pretty.
She eventually fell into a coma that doctors advised she would not wake up from.
In her final days and hours, her body seemed in great pain.
I won’t burden you with the details, but know this – her family had to see her in a state that would traumatize most of us had it been our own mother.
I’m not presuming the following statement would have been her choice; it is my, perhaps controversial, opinion:
People who know their life will end in an excruciating way should have the option, with the assistance of medical professional, to end their own life in a more peaceful manner.
It is far more humane than letting them be ravaged until the bitter end.
1. Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right. 2. You can’t be healthy and obese. 3. Everyone wants to GET old, nobody wants to BE old. 4. Most anger comes from feeling powerless. 5. The people you look up to are just as nervous as you are. 6. As people age, they get fewer chances to mess up. 7. All systems are essentially a minority ruling over the majority. 8. If you look in the mirror and find a dirty face, it might also be that the mirror is dirty. 9. HR is not there to protect you, it is in place to protect the employer. 10. Relationships are a one way street, whether you are the one in love or the one loved. 11. Some people will not like you no matter what you do. 12. In fact, some people are not qualify to have kids or even pets. 13. Upvotes on Quora are free. 14. Small achievements may come from hard work, but big ones require luck. 15. We are all biased, especially those who think they are not.
I was working in the seafood department of a major grocery store chain. We had on ad pink salmon for .88 a pound. My first customer of the day wanted me to scale it, fillet it, and pack it into 4-ounce portions. I refused! She immediately went and told the store manager about my refusal. I was willing to walk out if he insisted that I do it because, I was working solo and the cost of the fish was so low and the cost of the packaging was a lot, let alone the time it would take if I had to do them. He came back, we went into the back to discuss my refusal. I told him my reasoning. He told me that he would help me with it.
We returned to the seafood department, and he told her that he would be happy to cut it the way she asked. She was over the moon and handed him two packages of the fish. He gave me a disgusted look. He told me you refused to do the two fish, unbelievable, I am disappointed in your lack of customer service. I smiled. Then the same customer pushed into the seafood department the two carts filled to the top with the fish. She had over 200 packages wanting them all scaled, fillet it, and pack it into 4-ounce portions. I silently told him so! He refused to do it for her and told me that under no circumstance would we do anything to the fish but sell them in the bags. I agreed but did tell him that I was disappointed in his lack of customer service! He sent me home for the day! Being a union department, I was paid for the day since he didn’t follow protocol about sending me home. The meat department had to cover my shift; boy they were pissed at me!
I once stopped a very hot looking “model” (I use the term loosely) for speeding at nearly twice the speed limit. Mind you, I am not a ticket writer and can count on one hand the number of citations I’d written in the last decade. Truth be told, at my rank, I don’t even carry a ticket book. When I informed her why I had stopped her, she proceeded to hand me her business card with her cell phone number on it and leaned forward making sure I could see her quite ample bosom. Up to that point, I had no intention of citing her, and was just going to warn her to keep her speed down. However, once she suggestively tried to flash some skin, I called for a radio car to bring me a citation book so I could write her up.
“You’re going to write me a ticket? Nothing we can do to work this out?”
“Ma’am, I had no intention of writing you a ticket when I stopped you, but at this point, if I don’t, you’re going to go around telling everyone that all you had to do was bat your eyes and flash your breasts to get out of a ticket… Press hard on the pen, there’s three copies.”
The Airforce UFO Cover Up That Drove a Man INSANE | They’re LYING to US
Butler, Pennsylvania is a small city that was a one half hour drive from where I spent my High School years. This is a typical Western Pennsylvania city; steel, and blue collar work.
Downtown, in the city, was a restaurant. It was established in the 1920’s or 30’s and pretty much stayed with the same decor throughout the century. It was Art Deco “diner” style with stainless steel fixings and decor. With a big picture of the family founder over the door.
It was called “The Hot Dog Shop“.
And it served typical diner food, and was a great place for my family to go to as a young boy in my pre-teens and my teenager years.
I would often get such things as grilled cheese sandwiches, with sides of gravy laden french fries, and bowls of soup. So very delicious. Not to mention the mandatory cup of coffee.
About ten years ago, give or take, it burned down. What a great loss!
But….
They had insurance, and the rebuilt the restaurant and as far as I can tell, it is still operating today. Oh sure, the great thing is that the have not changed the menu. They have not changed the decor. In fact they kept everything else the same EXCEPT for the removal of the cigarette vending machines, the ash trays and the free packs of matches.
If you ever get a chance to go… please go there and enjoy a “blue plate special”. Good times! Good times!
My 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Bishop, was one of my favorite teachers. He taught my sister four years before me, and the year he taught me, my sister was a new mother. He asked me about her and her new child frequently, like he really remembered her and cared about her. It was nice.
But I also remember a few times when he fell over in his chair during class. The kids all laughed at him, and he laughed right along with them as he got himself back up.
Sometimes, he’d seem to talk really slow or just “zone out” for a few seconds while teaching. We just got used to it.
One day, he didn’t come to school. We found out later that, while on his way to school that morning, he’d lost control of his motorcycle and crashed through a sign next to the road. He was fine… just shaken up a little, and his motorcycle was broken.
A few years later, when I was no longer his student, I heard through the grapevine that he had to quit teaching because he kept having “episodes” where he lost control of his body.
He had multiple sclerosis.
All of the incidents the year that he taught me were just manifestations of the disease. He either didn’t know it, or didn’t tell us. Probably he just didn’t tell us… it was none of our business.
That was 25 years ago now. He’d probably be in his 70s by this point. I’ve tried Googling him, but I can’t find anything. But that includes an obituary, so that’s a good sign, I guess.
Edit: I just Googled his name again, and found his obituary. He died in Jan. 2022.
If I have read this correctly, your dedicated employee is dying because of illness, and you want to get rid of her because she is sluggish aka tired.
Take a good long look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself that if you were in her position, would you want the same thing to happen to you?
This job is probably what is keeping her going through this tragic period of time in her life, and you want to take that away from her? Are you serious? What kind of a person are you? She has bills to pay, food to buy for herself and possibly her family, and a FUNERAL to plan for HERSELF! Show some compassion and understanding. Is this the reputation that you want to have? If you fire her, trust me, what you have done and why you have done it, will be spread to everyone, especially your contacts and/or clients (customers). Legally, she can sue you for firing her under the Equal Employment Opportunity Law.
Have a heart of flesh and not one of cold corporate stone. What you do, will come back on you, either for the good or for the bad. Choose wisely.
Another tale from the shire horse farm which I used to work at. A group of French students came to the farm, along with a couple of teachers. The students were teenagers and right from the start they were causing trouble. The first thing was being kicked out of the gift shop for being caught trying to steal.
Then they came to the animal section where I worked. At first, they seemed to be behaving themselves, but after they left the farm animal section, a member of the public came up to me and informed me that one of the French teenagers had stolen a duck. Yes, a live duck. I immediately went to one of the teachers who were supposed to be supervising the students and asked them to unlock the coach, which is where the person had told me they’d seen the duck.
The teacher did so. The duck had been shut on the seating area, and was flapping around, terrified, and pooing everywhere. I managed to catch the duck and put it in a sack to calm it so I could get it back to the pond. The teacher then had the audacity to ask if someone could clean up the coach, to which I replied that since it was her students who had stolen the duck, then they could clean the coach. Then I left with the traumatised duck, who amazingly survived.
The French students were consequently kicked out of the shire horse farm and I for one hope that they enjoyed the trip back in their feather and duck poo encrusted coach.
One time my Dad and I drove about an hour to fly my radio-controlled helicopter. But that’s not the big thing.
This was way back in the early 80s, at the latest. Way before stabilization systems, autopilots, etc. I was about 13 years old, had gotten a paper route (yes, kids actually delivered papers to your door) and saved every cent to buy an RC helicopter. After several unsuccessful flight attempts at home (hovering is freaking *hard*), he suggested we go to a flying club where there was a guy who could teach me. Off we go!
We arrive, helicopter, fuel, cooler full of sandwiches and soda, ready to start my training! But… nobody’s there? Apparently, the flying club was off that weekend- we got our dates mixed up. Bollocks.
No matter- the field is open, we figure we’d just try more “self-paced instruction”. Fire up the heli, a few really bad hover attempts when all of a sudden:
I’m barely maintaining a hover when all of a sudden the heli peels off into this incredibly cinematic sweep- dips forward, tail sweeps around, engine throttles up- it was beautiful! My Dad was shouting “Oh yeah, that’s it!!”- but I was shouting “It’s not me! The radio is jammed!”
The heli, on its own, takes off on a circuit about 1 ft off the deck, and circles around- coming right back down the flight line. By now my Dad knows this craft is out of my control, and if he doesn’t catch it it’s probably gone forever- and he knows how hard I worked to buy it.
He jumps in front of it.
This is not a little drone- this is an aluminum-frame gas-powered 3ft rotor diameter with ash blades behemoth screaming down the runway at us. If it hit something on the ground and jumped up- it could have killed him.
It smashes into his shins, rotor blades splintering. The engine, no longer under load, starts to whine like a banshee- we pinch off the fuel tube and kill the engine. We collect the debris, and start home. Dad actually packed a couple of cold soda cans into his socks to keep the swelling down.
When we got home, I asked him why he would do such a foolish thing as blocking the heli with his body. He said “You worked so hard to buy this, and build it, and fly it- I couldn’t bear to see it take off and fly away on a full tank of gas and be lost forever. Let’s just fix this up.” BTW- he had bruises and blood pooling in his legs and feet for months after this.
That was almost 50 years ago. I could never bring myself to rebuild that heli, though we continued with a bunch of other projects that were somewhat less lethal.
We were being taught loops in C++. As a test, the teacher gave us the following question :-
Print the following pattern.
Everyone of us started writing the code, trying everything (since at that time it was a high level problem for us). One of my friends had no clue whatsoever about the problem, but he wanted to score well in the test.
You know what he did?
He wrote the following code
#include<iostream.h>
void show();
int main();
{
char ch=’A’;
int i,n;
/* Here he wrote certain code just to
show that some thing was being done*/
show(); //called this function
//secretly
for(i=0;i<7;i++)
{
for(int j=0;j<12;j++)
{
/*wrote some more useless code
which had no
effect on output*/
}
}
return 0;
}
/*after leaving about 100 blank lines so
that you dont have to scroll the
function to show you*/
void show()
{
cout<< ” ABCDEFGFEDCBA\n”;
cout<< ” ABCDEF FEDCBA\n”;
cout<< ” ABCDE EDCBA\n”;
cout<< ” ABCD DCBA\n”;
cout<< ” ABC CBA\n”;
cout<< ” AB BA\n”;
cout<< ” A A\n”;
}
When the teacher came to check his code, he glanced at the code and asked him to run it.
HERE IS THE OUTPUT:
Teacher saw this correct output and awarded him full marks. Teacher no longer cared if the code was correct or not since it was producing the desired result.
I was like, “wow man at least you thought of such an idea!”
Edit 1:
Just showedthis answer to my friend who is being referred here. He was amazed I remembered it to such precision.
As an experienced professional actor, whose children have acted in screen productions they were too young to view, I will attempt an answer.
The short answer is that the film is compartmentalised and the child actor will only experience a small subset of the film. They will only be told about what is appropriate for them to know.
The “makers” of the film communicate with the child in the first instance through the child’s agent and thence to the legal guardian (parent or otherwise). If they feel the role and the production are suitable they will agree to be available and audition. Then, if cast, it is up to the director to communicate with the child actor.
Under no circumstances will they be allowed to see the full script or be on set at all times in an “R-rated film”. They will not be invited to the full cast read through nor to extensive rehearsals. Film making is compartmentalised. Every single shot need not be in the same place or shot on the same day as the next shot. Things are not shot in order.
The production company is responsible for the wellbeing of the child actor and will allow the legal guardian to be on set when the child actor is called. They will also supply a chaperone and brief all the crew and cast about what is appropriate. For example I once played a character who murdered his family. I was never allowed to be seen by the child actors – no wardrobe, makeup, rehearsal calls were scheduled on the same day. In the shoots there were no shots framed to include both the murderer and the victim.
In another production, involving an infant, no crew or cast were allowed to make loud noises or wear perfume on set.
There are laws to protect minors on set in most jurisdictions. If they are obeyed the experience can be safe and rewarding for the child and one day, if they are old enough and choose to see the whole film, hopefully they will be able to be proud of their work.
I tried to buy my family’s next home many years ago and my wife and I were blown away by the massive cubbyhouse in the back yard. Our kids were young and they would love it. We had other reasons to love the house too, one being that our good friends lived in the same street. Needless to say we were looking forward to buying this, our new home, and started the price negotiations.
A deal was struck and we signed a contract we were happy with. Part of the contract was to ensure that massive cubbyhouse was legal and had all the right government approvals. It did not and so our lawyer informed their lawyer of the problem. Instead of further negotiations and a price reduction or trying to gain the required approvals, the vendors thought it appropriate to cut it down and burn it!
Unbeknownst to me, this house was for sale due to the divorce of the previous owners and the husband thought it would annoy his ex wife to destroy the cubbyhouse. The problem was we had a signed contract for the purchase of the house including the cubbyhouse. They would have to make good and we were assured they would.
As is often the case the purchaser of the house we were selling needed another day or two to finalise their finances and asked for an extension to the settlement date which was agreed upon by us and the owners of the house we were buying. However on the new day settlement was to occur, the lawyer for our new house changed position and said that we had to give up on our demands for compensation over the cubbyhouse. We refused.
They then would not proceed with the sale and gave us the option to sue them later. To my lawyer’s amazement I cancelled the sale and walked away. I have no regrets either and I and my family found an even better house, we loved, shortly after. We loved our new neighbours too and enjoyed the next 13 years in that home.
China don’t give a shit. It is none of China’s business is the U.S. wants to choose a proverbial liar or a corrupt politician that is for the American’s to decide. China prefer to mind its own business. China’s government is answerable to its citizens. It wants to do everything to make China prosperous. And peaceful.
It is always ever ready for US miscalculations but it is the U.S. business if the U.S. wants to throw monies into bottomless money pit like Gaza or Ukraine or flex it’s muscles aimlessly bankrupting itself in the process. That is your choice. We the world knows better.
A man like Trump cannot even be a lowly official in most nation. We don’t vote a sexiest, racist, xenophobic, baboon into power. At best he stays running a small con till he is caught! Please vote him in for all we care!
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (4/8) Movie CLIP – Kirk Beats Khan (1982) HD
I’d been in my new corporate job two weeks. I’d been given an office on day one and by the end of week two had made it my own.
Family pictures, work calendar with my appointments and in particular my desk blotter. My desk blotter was a massive work tool and an important record of my days and weeks. After two weeks my office no longer looked like the office I was given two weeks earlier.
Monday morning I arrive at work and to my surprise a very confused man I had not met before was sitting in my office, behind my desk. I was just about to have a chat to him when my secretary grabbed me and told me the news.
The man sitting at my desk used to have my office. He had been fired during his leave but his boss apparently hadn’t told him yet. To make matters worse his boss wasn’t at work yet either. Awkward.
So I did the right thing. I waited in the boardroom until his boss showed up and did the deed. I had no time for his boss, he was a lazy, disorganised non performer who didn’t last much longer than the guy who just got fired.
I found the whole episode to be cruel. I don’t know how much earlier than me he got to work that day but he would have known instantly he no longer had a job when he entered his old office and saw it had been taken over. That just isn’t right and I felt extremely sorry for him.
We’re a mailhouse: we take people’s mail, co-mingle it, sort it, and get a better rate from the Post Office. As we’ve grown, we’ve added inserting/fulfillment, and eventually, printing as well. Like a print shop, but built in reverse.
I was hired to be the print department, which I did for seven years before I became the IT manager.
As print designer, programmer, and general operator, I often had to talk with clients—sending proofs, getting information, etc., and I developed a good rapport with many, if not all, of them, sometimes better than the salesperson they were assigned to.
If there was something wrong with an order, I was often the first person they’d contact.
So it was with a large client of the banking world. They were a high maintenance/high-return client, so I always gave them my best customer service. This day, they called to find out about envelopes, which is not my department, but I knew whom to talk with and I told them I’d look into it.
I ran around the shop and got the info, and reported back: they were out of envelopes.
Oops.
I had neglected to loop the salesperson in on the request (they don’t have any production knowledge, usually, so never was an issue in the past), but our salesperson, for some reason I’m still not clear on, had lied to the client and told them we had envelopes in stock.
No envelopes meant that their time-sensitive prints weren’t going on time. So when I said, “Yeah, there’s no envelopes in stock”, you’d better believe that our client went into panic mode.
And of course, they called the salesperson back, who, not knowing that I had told them the truth, proceeded to lie…again. The client was displeased, told them what I’d told them, and demanded an explanation. There was much back-pedaling and BSing from the salesperson along the lines of “Oh, they’ll be delivered today, Toby just didn’t know…” blah blah.
My manager, the general manager, the sales manager, all called me in. “Why are you talking with clients at all?” They asked, incensed. I could tell that they were this close to just firing me on the spot. “Because I have daily conversations with them about their jobs?” I offered. “Not anymore. ALL communication goes through the salesperson.” “Ooookay, but, just to make sure I understand this correctly, it was the salesperson that lied to the customer, right?” “That doesn’t matter! You could have cost us this account!” Veins were popping on at least two foreheads. “No, I’m pretty sure that does matter. If we’d been honest with them, there wouldn’t be a problem.” And that was the third forehead. They talked among themselves for a moment and said, “Just…just no more talking with clients.” “Your call.”
The next day, one of the client’s vice-presidents flew in from across the country for a surprise inspection. There were no envelopes. Because I was just a print jockey, I didn’t have to be in that room when those four people got chewed out. But I did hear (from the client) that they were glad at least one person in the company was honest, or they’d have had a huge legal fight (that they would lose) on their hands.
Yeah, we lost the account. And, yeah, relations with that salesperson and I were chilly from then on (months later, she left the company). But what hurt even more was that all those customers who were used to my excellent customer service were now getting the run around from their clueless salespeople. Several of them complained and accounts were shuffled around*, but eventually the people in charge figured out that the problem started when they took me out of the loop.
“Toby, it’s okay if you talk to clients again.” “Oh, good.” “Just…check with the salespeople before you report on production, will you?” “You mean, in case we need to lie to them?” *Uncomfortable fidgeting* “In case we need to apologize.” “Okay. Because I’m not going to lie to our clients.” “That will be all.”
I’m happy to report that in the dozen or so years since, our sales team has become far more adept at apologizing and rectifying situations, and our production team has learned how to order before we run out of stock. My work here is done.
*Yes, a few clients did even suggest that they’d rather have me as their salesperson, but that idea was rejected by everyone—I don’t do sales, for reasons obvious from this answer.
Ask a teenager who is into classic rock to name the biggest performers of the Nineteen-Seventies. They’ll tell you names like Queen, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. Ask them “What about the Bay City Rollers?,” and they’ll answer: “Who?”
In the Nineteen-Seventies, if you liked popular music, you couldn’t escape the Bay City Rollers. From 1974 to 1977, they dominated the music scene, selling an alleged 120 million records. Yet you hear little about them today. It’s as if they’ve been erased from the collective memory.
Rollermania replicated the Beatlemania of the Nineteen-Sixties. Many however, felt the Rollers’ success was undeserved. As with all bands popular with young teenage females though, their success waned as their fans got older.
If you were female and under 14 in 1977, the Bay City Rollers were your world. No-one else wanted anything to do with them.
Time has not been kind to the Bay City Rollers. Unlike their predecessors, the Monkees, and their successors ABBA, the Bay City Rollers have not been declared pop geniuses. Classic rock fans have by and large spurned them. They are largely remembered today as an embarrassment. If they are ever mentioned at all in a documentary, it’s usually for laughs.
The Bay City Rollers’ record contract with Arista expired in 1981. Although this was the official end of the band, after 1981 versions of the Rollers continued to record and tour.
Eventually, nostalgia rescued the Bay City Rollers from obscurity. They appeared at the Punk and Disorderly 2010 festival, on the same bill with legends Stiff Little Fingers, Cockney Rejects, and Anti-Nowhere League. The ‘dag’ movement in Australia, which brought back faded performers and trends from the Nineteen-Seventies and Nineteen-Eighties, encouraged some to go to thrift shops in search of Bay City Rollers vinyl and memorabilia.
The Bay City Rollers saw little of the estimated £5 billion generated by their record sales and merchandising. Reportedly the nostalgia circuit enabled the Bay City Rollers to live the comfortable lives that their negligent and criminal management denied them, before death eventually claimed the main members.
I remember thirty years ago the Bay City Rollers undertook a low-key tour of Australia. This caused some excitement among the late-twenties females at work. One woman, who only listened to alternative rock, was quite excited that the Bay City Rollers were coming back!
You either hated them or loved them … the Bay City Rollers at the height of Rollermania. At least the Ramones admitted they liked them.
Kung Pao Beef
Ingredients
1 pound beef boneless sirloin or flank steak
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 dash white pepper
2 hot green chiles
2 green onions (with tops)
1 red bell pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger root
2 tablespoons brown bean sauce
1/2 cup diced canned bamboo shoots
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup skinless raw peanuts, roasted
Instructions
Trim fat from beef steak; cut beef into 3/4-inch cubes. Toss beef, 1 tablespoon oil, the cornstarch, salt and white pepper in glass or plastic bowl. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.
Cut chiles into thin slices (remove seeds and membrane if desired).
Cut onions diagonally into 1-inch pieces.
Cut bell pepper into 3/4 inch squares.
Heat 12-inch skillet or wok until very hot. Add 2 tablespoons oil; rotate skillet to coat bottom. Add beef; stir-fry 2 minutes or until beef is brown. Remove beef from skillet.
Heat skillet until very hot. Add 2 tablespoons oil; rotate skillet to coat bottom. Add chiles, garlic, ginger root, bean sauce and bamboo shoots; stir-fry 1 minute.
Add beef, bell pepper and sugar; stir-fry 1 minute.
About twenty years ago, these Nations had little voice
They had to DO AS TOLD by the United States and it’s allies
If they showed the slightest independence, they would be faced with a four step method by the US
Make up accusations on Human Rights violations which would be the first step. Saddam got this in 1989 after the Iran Iraq war (Until which time he was useful to the West so they didn’t see any human right violations)
Impose Trade restrictions on such countries using shipping insurance and freight as a weapon and throttling their revenues which would be in Dollars. Saddam got this in 1994/95, ironically almost 4 1/2 years after he invaded Kuwait. Step Two
Impose Unilateral Sanctions and freeze their money and prevent them from being able to buy basic food and water at times not to mention medicines, hospital supplies etc. This is the FINAL WARNING. At this stage the Nation needs to depose it’s present leader and the new leader has to kowtow to the West.Step Three
Cause a color revolution or invade making some trumped up excuse.Step Four
Today these Nations have a very strong BACK UP SYSTEM
If the US goes too far, these Nations have CHINA & RUSSIA to fall back on
China takes care of the commerce and trade. The RMB ensures that these Nations can keep buying anything they want as long as they have Oil and Gas to sell China rendering most sanctions as impotent
Drilling machines, Machinery, Food, Paper Clips – You name it and China will deliver
Plus China’s enormous clout at the UN and it’s lobbying powers beat the US today. China carries 78 guaranteed votes at the UN Assembly against 54 Guaranteed Votes of the US
Russia takes care of the Grain and of the Military aspect
If the US try any tricks like they did in 2003, they could find themselves in a conflict with Russia being involved
Best example is Syria where Assad is very much in charge despite all the attempts by the US to depose him under Obama & Trump (?)
So the Arab Nations have a voice today
They can protest and they can demand things and the US can’t repeat it’s four step formula because that could send them fully to Russia and China like it happened with IRAN
That’s all the Arab Nations are looking for with China
They still want to be loyal to the US and it’s allies but if the US goes TOO FAR then they won’t buckle that easily and they have a back up with Russia and China
The US better not make the same mistake they did with Iran or Russia this time
My brother. He was working graveyard shift at the time and had to commute quite a distance on the freeway for work. Of course, night time is when they do a lot of roadwork in this region to minimize impacts during rush hour. My brother is a burly sized guy. At the time he drove a little Hyundai hatchback. (Important to know for later). Anyway, one night, while commuting to work, the freeway is shut down to 1 lane of traffic for roadwork. Every one is backed up, traffic is virtually at a stops as everyone merges from 4 lanes to 1. Some person is a big old jacked up pickup truck gets behind my brother and starts riding his tail. Obviously, since this is a traffic jam, my brother can’t go anywhere. After a little while of riding my brothers butt, this person decides to turn on their high beam and start getting aggressive. Backing off, then running up to my brothers bumper and slamming on the brakes at the last possible second. At this point, traffic is down to one lane, so my brother stops in the middle of the traffic and proceeds to unfold himself from the car. Walks back to the truck and starts slamming his hand on the hood and screaming at the person. “it’s one f**king lane! I can’t go anywhere, I can’t go any faster! I can’t pull over and you can’t f**king pass me! If you want a fight climb out right now! Otherwise, Back the F**K off!”
Big truck never opened his doors. My brother waited a moment, went back to his car and proceeded on his way. Big truck turned off their headlights and maintained a respectful distance for the rest of the way through the roadwork.
I operated coin-operated amusements from about 1989 to about 2010. Foosball tables, Air Hockey, Video Games, Countertop Games, Pinball Machines, Pool Tables, Dart Boards, etc. I also retailed various Home Model games and parts, mostly Foosball.
I quickly realized, or maybe not so quickly, that when Laptops connected to WiFi had more attractive games on them than my coin-ops, and eventually even Cell Phones had more interesting games, that my business was doomed. During that same time many of my locations, mostly taverns and bars, and a few Game Rooms as well, were going out of business.
I had the policy, unlike most of my competitors, to own my own business without having an awful silent partner of a huge bank-loan. If I could expand using the funds from my business, I did, otherwise I remained small.
When the contraction began, as I lost a location, or one became unprofitable, I would just sell off the equipment and cash out. That went on for several years. But I kept my business open for my customers. The last 2–3 years I worked but had negative income. In other words, I was paying for the privilege of being able to work.
One year, I think it was either my last or second to last, I worked all year and found that I lost $6,000 doing so. More frustrating than that, I had $8,000 in licensing and taxation expenses. In other words, $8000 of my $6000 loss went to licensing and taxing authorities. After being in business for about 2 decades, you learn to hate taxation and licensing. That is when I closed shop. I just couldn’t see giving them ALL the money I earned and paying them an additional $2,000 out of my savings. Technically, I still have a non-operating business, that I don’t work at anymore.
Anyway, the end result was I quit working because it was more profitable to not work.
My beautiful wife was a size five 10 years ago when she got pregnant with our first son. Here’s a picture of her right before she got pregnant.
Her pregnancy was difficult. She gained a lot of weight and her legs and feet got so swollen that the last couple of months were almost unbearable for her. She couldn’t walk very far without pain.
One time as we were walking out of a restaurant when my wife was 8 months pregnant, a woman stopped in her tracks and said “Oh my God”… looking at my wife’s stomach.
She was in labor for 36 hours and finally the doctor said “That baby is not coming out.” C-section it was. We found out why he wasn’t coming out. The doctor pulled him out and said “That is a BIG baby!” He was 12 pounds 2 ounces.
Two years later we had our second and final son. He was 11 pounds.
The two pregnancies and two C-sections left my wife with a hernia in her stomach and muscles that just never healed back normally. Despite her going to the gym 4–5 times a week and eating right, her belly has never been the same.
At least 10 times in the years since, people have asked my wife how far along she is. People, please stop doing this to women. Don’t ever, ever, ever ask someone if they are pregnant. My wife has been brought to tears over this stupid question many times.
Here’s my beautiful family now.
Update:
Wow, so many wonderful comments from all kinds of people. Thanks so much. It’s truly heartwarming to hear so many of you comment on how beautiful my wife is. She truly is a beautiful person inside and out.
Many have commented about how my wife could have corrective surgery. This is something we have researched and considered for several years. We are hoping that in the next few years we’ll be able to save enough money. It’s a very expensive surgery that we currently can’t afford, but it’s important for me that we get there and we get it done.
I’m one of 5 kids. My parents always wanted a big family — in fact, they’d planned on 6 kids, but my mom’s health wouldn’t stand for it. Money was always tight, of course. My dad made a good salary but it still didn’t stretch that far among seven people, and my mom stayed home to take care of us. Both my parents believed it was very important for her to do that, and tbh any money she brought home would have been totally eaten up by childcare, anyway.
There was a time or two that I wished there weren’t so many of us, so there would be more money and attention for me. But which of my siblings would I wish out of existence? I could never imagine my life without any one of them. They’ve been my lifelong built-in friends. And sometimes enemies, LOL — we used to fight like cats and dogs! But as adults we are all very close, even those of us who are far apart in age. In a lot of ways I feel sorry for people who didn’t grow up with a lot of siblings like I did.
It probably makes all the difference that we didn’t just happen, our parents specifically wanted a lot of children to love. They always knew and respected our different personalities and needs. They sacrificed to make sure we were taken care of. They enjoyed our company—our mom was sad when we went back to school after summer break because she missed us! They never played favorites or acted like we owed them for existing.
And yes, the older siblings did take care of the younger, to an extent. Our oldest sister was Second Mommy in a lot of ways. I remember changing my two youngest siblings’ diapers. That’s how it works in a big family, you help take care of each other. But we helped, we weren’t fully responsible for our siblings. We just did our part. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to learn early in life that you’re not the center of the universe! You’re part of a family, and that means you’re there for them and they’re there for you.
Personally, I wouldn’t trade my family or the way I grew up for anything!
When a GI failed to listen to my history. Failed to look at records, radiology and pathology reports from my past. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis while active duty over two decades prior, my diagnoses was switched by his nurse practitioner to Crohn’s when I was hospitalized.
He decided I simply had Irritable bowel syndrome and told me it was in my head. At an office visit when asked what my pain was, I reported it as a 5 (I had an obstruction) only for the nurse to LAUGH. I stood up and excused myself asking for someone else to check me in since she thought pain was funny. The office manager came in to apologize but looked at my husband the entire time. When he noticed he said: “You need to be apologizing to my wife, not me”.
I ended up receiving a certified letter that I needed to find a new GI (I already had), so I asked to speak with the medical director and was kicked out of the patient portal. This same GI dismissed me when complaining of my guts being on fire (I had pancreatitis). I ended up walking around with a dead gallbladder and ended up in the ICU for 5 days.
I just returned from the ER after messaging with my primary for a month trying to get a GI referral for my now second stone stuck in my common bile duct. She kept telling me to go. I kept saying what for? They won’t treat the pain I’m in nor will they listen. She assured me I’d be admitted for pain control.
I wasn’t.
The ER provider did not listen when I told him my history of translucent stones being missed and that they’ll see it on an ultrasound. What was ordered? A CT. Of course nothing was seen but my liver enzymes are high, potassium low and positive lactic acid…I stood pacing the 5 hours we were there hoping to be heard.
I wasn’t.
Getting taken seriously post Covid is extremely difficult. There are so many jaded medical professionals that assume anyone complaining of pain is just there for narcotics… a year of trying to get help and countless episodes of Pancreatitis with no pain control is barbaric and my blood pressure certainly shows it. I cannot eat without feeling like a bomb has gone off inside me. NSAIDS have already caused gastritis and duodenitis so those are off the table.
I already exceed the recommended dose of Tylenol due to no other option. Yay for my liver!!
My children have been told that if I go septic or get peritonitis and the worst happens to sue. I’ve left a paper trail for them to follow. It’s so amazing being a middle aged female. I can’t possibly know what’s wrong due to experiencing it in the past. Nope. I’m just some needy woman who doesn’t get attention at home. I just can’t with the assenine thought process
It was during the summer, my maternal uncle and his friend visited our home. As usual, my mother cooked lunch for everyone and everyone were engaged in a conversation.
I was bored and wanted to peek into my Facebook account. I made a quick move and sat in front of my desktop and was chatting with my virtual friends.
After few minutes, I noticed a firm hand resting on my shoulders. I turned back to see and to my shock it was my uncle’s friend. I got uncomfortable and I thought probably he is just patting me.
After a while, his hands traveled downwards towards my breasts and he tried to hold them . THAT was a sickening feeling! And, I was so petrified that I couldn’t move and froze in fear.
I gathered courage to just run away from the room and went out to the living room. I saw my mom and looked at her face but I fumbled. And, I couldn’t speak up anything regarding the event that occurred with me few minutes ago.
I locked myself up and cried that night. The next day, my mother could sense something wrong with my behavior. And, asked me “Beta, what happened?” ..
I broke down and with tears in my eyes , I went on with everything I had in my heart.
She was shocked and furious. And what she did made me relieved and happy!
The next day, my uncle and his friend were leaving for their hometown.
My mother went to the railway station, got Kurkure and Lays chips ( as that man got these things for me) and in front of …all the passengers she threw those packets on his face and slapped him and thrashed him with her chappals.
She returned home, and said me ” Promise me , you will speak up if anything will bother you and at least would share with me if anyone tries to touch you without your consent” .
I’m still stuck to the horror of that event and it’s very hard to move on. I try to keep a safe hand distance from men and in a crowded place where I am surrounded by men I still feel restless. I just want to run and run and hide myself some where.
I live a normal life but some where within me, these fear have created a little home for themselves.
Technically, *I* didn’t witness it – my cousin’s camera witnessed it. But it was the bullet itself as it came out of the barrel of my .357 magnum.
To impart just how rare of a thing this is, normally a photographer has to use a reeally, reeeally advanced (and extremely expensive) camera with an insanely high continuous shutter-speed, AND stage the timing of the shot (by that I mean both the camera-shot and the gun-shot), as well. And even THEN, sometimes they have trouble.
My cousin did not have that kind of camera. He had a Nikon. Something like a D500 or a D600. It’s a nice camera for a hobbyist, but it’s not evenremotely designed to capture something like a bullet moving at 1,500 feet per second. As is evidenced by the fact that the bullet in the picture appears as just one really long rod-like streak, rather than the size and shape of a normal bullet. THAT PROVES JUST HOW SLOWLY THE APERTURE CLOSED, in comparison to the speed of the bullet.
A person could easily spend their entire lives trying to get a picture of a bullet at that shutter speed, and never capture it even once.
And, mind you, my cousin wasn’t attempting to take a picture of the bullet itself, he was intending to take a picture of me just shooting the gun. So he was just manually clicking the camera button with his finger, not caring that much about the timing.
This was back in the early 1970s. I bought 1969 Chevy Beaumont from a friend, I gave him motorcycle, that I had paid $500 for two years before, and was worth maybe $350, plus I think $200 cash.
I was managing a service station at the time, so I had access to all the tools and parts.
I had inspected the car before and I knew what it needed.
The water pump was leaking like a sieve, so I took it off, and at the time, you just used a cheap $3 kit to repair it, and replace. The fuel filter was plugged, it was just a piece of cardboard probably cost me 50 cents. The oil was so thick I drained a couple of quarts out, put two more quarts in, ran it for ten minutes, so that the black sludge would actually drain. Then changed the oil and filter. $7
There is a doughnut gasket between the exhaust manifold and the exhaust pipe. It was completely gone, no sign that it ever existed. It had been spewing out hot exhaust gas, and had burnt three spark plug wires to a crisp, so they weren’t firing.
At the time you could just buy bulk spark plug wire, cut what you need and put new caps on each end.
The donut gasket was $2, the sparkplug wire and caps was another $3.
The car was all done. I had put a sign up out front of the service station, offering to sell the car for $1200.
While I was still replacing the donut gasket, I was offered cash, no questions for the car.
They waited impatiently while I changed the donut gasket, gave me $1200 and drove off.
It had taken me about $30 and an most of an afternoon of my day off, to fix it.
This was a long time ago, but to put it in perspective, I could buy more than 400 cases of beer for $1200.
So, in the good old days, when you could actually work on cars yourself, I had a lot of mechanics specials.
When I was subbing, I asked a question about atoms with the same number of protons and different numbers of neutrons.
Such atoms are called “Isotopes”.
Someone in class apparently knew that answer. But then people started playing a fun game of telephone, and the answer got … blurred.
In the end, several people wrote “Ice Tubes”.
Sad. But I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Runner up?
When I was in 7th grade, my science teacher approached me with a proposition:
“David, if you can get a 0% on the next science test, I’ll give you 100%.”
“Um, Mr. Morris, why would you do that?”
“Because I think people are cheating off of you. I know you know this stuff, and if you get every single question wrong, I’ll know that you knew all of the answers and were able to pick the wrong one. Plus, it’ll catch the cheaters.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Morris.”
I liked Mr. Morris. He was nerdy.
And so, on the test, I did my level worst. Answered every single question wrong on the Scantron (multiple choice) test.
Right out of high school I was working for a big box retailer. I had only been working there a couple of weeks when I saw this happen.
I was working as a cashier and this little old lady (around 80 y/o) came up with her items – and she had quite a few of them. She was walking with a walker and moved pretty slowly.
We had just opened the doors for the day, so it was around 7am and there were only two of us, so pretty barebones staff. The rest of the staff would be in about an hour later – and this lady had been waiting at the door when we got there.
Just as she finished putting her items on the counter, this guy in a business suit comes up to the counter and asks me if I could ring him up really quickly – he was in a real rush.
I told him that was up to the lady who had just finished unloading her cart.
She said no – she was late for an appointment herself and he would have to wait.
He cut her off and INSTRUCTED me to ring him up right then. I said no. He then told me to get another cashier up front, right this damn minute. I told him the only other person working the store at the moment was the receiving guy and he was unloading the truck – and couldn’t use the registers anyways as he didn’t have the codes to the registers. I was the only cashier and would be until 8am.
He got really irate – I’m going to call the manager, etc. etc. etc. He was kept raising his voice until he was almost screaming. Other customers started to gather to watch.
When he finally got to the question of Don’t you know who I am? The little old lady yelled back at him – Yeah, you’re an asshole so shut the F up before I ram this walker where the sun don’t shine. She also said some other very choice words to him, but it’s inappropriate to post here.
He was just shocked by this little lady. He was so embarrassed, that he left his stuff in the basket, dropped it on the floor and left.
Turns out, this little old lady was in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve during World War II. As the women’s division equivalent of a drill sergeant. She had been married to a USMC drill sergeant and her two kids became USMC drill sergeants.
I grew up in New Hampshire where we had well water (without fluoride) and my parents never took me to a dentist. Consequently, by the time I got to college, my teeth were a mess.
I took a part-time job just so I could try to afford the dental work I knew I needed.
When I opened my mouth, the dentist looked inside and made a “Tsk! Tsk!” sound.
“Someone needs to start brushing their teeth and lay off the sugar,” he said in front of his hygienist. They shared a look of disapproval.
The truth was that as a college athlete on a partial academic scholarship, I ate healthfully and did brush after meals.
I found myself shaking with anger and shame which the dentist interpreted as fear.
“There’s no beating around the bush. You’re going to need a lot of work to save these teeth and it’s going to be expensive,” he advised.
I got out of the chair, didn’t commit to a second appointment, and the next day, went to another dentist who immediately sensed that the situation was more complicated than a snap judgment. He asked questions and when I mentioned growing up in New England, he said, “I thought so. I used to practice in Vermont and half of my patients were people who didn’t have access to fluoridated water. But don’t worry. I can see that you’ve developed good habits and together we can get you caught up.”
He quoted me prices that were half what the first dentist charged. He put me on a no interest payment plan where, for the next three years, I visited the office sometimes twice a week.
The process was all-consuming and expensive despite the plan and reasonable prices. There were times when I chose between meals and paying for dental work. I don’t recommend root canals on an empty stomach. But while I was never able to afford orthodontics, to this day, I never lost a tooth.
Just to give you an ideal on how strong the US industries was in world war two.
The Free French air force (1940–1943) was a sad display of brave but poorly equipped pilots, most of the experienced officers and pilots where parts of the royal air force (some 262 men in 1940 -which is far from nothing!) the free fernch air force was a mickmack of stolen plane from vichy air base, obsolete planes, some hurricane (at beset!) etc.
After the success of operation torch (november 1942) the American agreed to modernize the entire french army, navy, land forces and air forces included. The rearmement for the French air force was nickname Plan 7.
From scratch… the Americans totally rebuilded the entire french air force with some 33 fighter groups (bombers, fighters, reconnaissance)…while also rebuilding the French army with 3 armored division, several tank regiments (destroyed, medium and light), several paratrooper unit…. and modernizing the 140 vessels of the French navy!
the Fench air force went from this:
to this… in a matter of one single year:
-The French air force would be an important component for the Allies, fighting in the Mediteranean, eastern front, England, Normandy, France, Italy, Sicily just to name a few.
Basically the US industries were literally spewing thousands enough materials to rearm a nation air force for 3 decades!
We got back to the hotel we are living in pretty late after the hour-long round trip drive to boy scouts and basketball practice.
We put the kids to bed as quickly as possible and some teenagers were loud in the hallway for awhile.
I was frustrated, but wanted to wait to talk to them at the right time so I could tell them about our situation to see if they could show compassion rather than become angry at the lady next door.
I didn’t see them the next morning at breakfast.
(But that night ) I noticed that they were Future Farmers of America kids from Kansas.
They had their doors cracked, so I decided to talk to them.
I let them know about our house being destroyed by water.
I told them that we wanted them to have their fun and we would appreciate their respect to let our kids get good rest.
The young man who answered the door told me that he was very sorry about what we are going through.
Before I went to bed, I noticed a note that someone had slipped under our door.
I opened the note to find money.
(The note said:
We are more than sorry for,waking you and your family up the past few nights.
We hope everything goes well with you house.)
In a world where some people sit behind screens and become angry on social media, this young man restored my faith that the next generation can make eye contact and show compassion to the person right in front of him.
There were two other guys that I could see in their hotel room.
If anyone sees this post and knows who I’m talking about, please tag these guys so I can say thank you and God bless.
They set an excellent example for my children and their parents should be more than proud.
When I was a teenager I went with my cousin and friend to an ice cream shop located in a strip mall. The parking lot was very full. There was a pristine looking truck parked in the intersecting point of four parking spaces. Literally one vehicle taking up a portion of four spots. The parking stalls weren’t too small for a truck like his either. Frustrated with this person’s sense of entitlement, I grabbed a sheet of paper from my school binder and wrote “I am so sorry about the damages. I will be in touch to discuss payment.” I left no contact information. I put it on his windshield.
20 minutes later we watched from the inside of the ice cream shop as the man looked at the note. He looked angry. Then, in the pouring rain, he spent several minutes walking around his vehicle, closely inspecting it for signs of damage. He got more than a little wet. We could see the moment when it clicked for him. He cracked a smile and looked like he laughed before climbing in his truck and driving away.
Let me kind of start from the inside out. I live in Seattle (well, about 5 miles from the city of Seattle anyways, so whatever.)
Assuming 60k means $4,000/month take home, give or take, let’s look at some houses you could save up to consider.
In Seattle, with a 20% down payment, here’s a $2,500 mortgage payment.
If that looks like a small 1br house, that’s because it is. That’s what a $600,000 budget gets you in Seattle, relatively close to downtown.
Go 30 miles south to a city called Puyallup, and you get this:
Well, this is actually about $60,000 cheaper than the one above. Pretty profound difference right?
Go about 2 hours east and you’ll find homes about $100,000 cheaper than the Seattle house that look like this:
Okay, so now we’re closer to a $2,000 monthly mortgage, and I gotta say, that’s a whole lot of house. It has what, 3–4 car garages, wrap around 2nd level deck with a view, plenty of land… Not bad for the half million range.
Still though, Washington is pretty expensive even in the “cheaper” areas.
Let’s head back to my dad’s home state of Ohio.
Wait, is that a castle!? Yeah, that’s a f*ing castle. Not bad for that half million range, right? Except it’s not. It’s $280,000. With a way smaller down payment, you get your own castle for $1,200/month.
It comes with f*ing gargoyles!
The US is a pretty big country…
That’s really the trouble here. I mean, if you’re a full-time work from home employee, there are places in the country that are actually great to live in, good medical, good schools, etc., where 60k is a great income. In others, it’s low income.
I showed houses, of course, but even food, electric, water, fuel, home/car repair rates, taxes, etc. can fluctuate wildly from place to place. If you’re restricted to a location, look at it, and if not, go look at what’s out there and what you like. It’s a big and beautiful place with something for everyone.
I once argued with a graduate student over the weight of a Taco Bell burrito. She was hungry and so I suggested some half-pound burrito (I don’t remember what it was called). At which point the conversation went something like this:
“I can’t eat a half-pound burrito, that’s way too much food!”
“Actually, it’s only 8 ounces.”
“No, but it’s a burrito, so it’s heavier than that!”
“Um, no, it doesn’t actually matter what it is. A pound is 16 ounces, so a half pound is 8 ounces. A half pound of one thing weighs the same as a half pound of something else.”
“No, it’s more than that because beans are heavier.”
“Um, so you would argue that a half pound of bricks is heavier than a half pound of feathers?”
“Yeah, obviously bricks are heavier than feathers!”
“Even if they are both the same 8 ounces??”
“Well, yeah, because bricks weigh more than feathers!”
This went on for maybe a couple minutes while we were sitting in the drive-thru waiting to order. Honestly we had to finally agree to disagree before I went crazy. At which point I learned that a formal education doesn’t always mean a whole lot…
Allowing GHQ (General Headquarters) France to disregard hard intelligence.
British Military Intelligence was grouped per Command (GHQ Home, GHQ Ireland, GHQ France, etc.). This means nobody had the overall picture.
On top of that, most intelligence went through the Foreign Office and that intelligence, often on economic and and social matters in Germany was disregarded by GHQ France.
Brigadier John Charteris, in charge of Intelligence GHQ France was of the opinion that the hard intelligence was too pessimistic.
He believed, and convinced General Haig and his staff, that Germany was near to defeat as early as 1915 and pushed, together with General Haig for continuous offensives starting in 1916.
The estimates regarding available ammunition, air power, German troops movements, German troop morale, German civilian morale, etc. were all wrong.
The British kept on pushing for major offensives that resulted in massive casualties without ever having a real chance of breaking the stalemate until the Hundred Day Offensive in 1918.
In London, it was well known Intelligence GHQ France was a sick joke, yet nobody dared to upset the existing structure in which each Army Command could make its own decisions based on the intelligence they decided to trust.
Charteris wrote that “trusting the pessimistic intelligence provided by the Foreign Office would result in the staff at GHQ France losing hope and would lower staff morale.”
Charteris believed keeping the staff happy was essential to achieve victory.
Joseph E. Johnston — the one who acted like he knew it was over.
The Confederacy didn’t have a general staff. Jefferson Davis thought he was a military genius and dealt directly with the commanders of the CSA field armies.
The top men, Robert E. Lee in particular, all held on to the bitter end. They might not have been confident of success, but they didn’t communicate any such doubts and fought until hope was gone.
On the final flight west from Petersburg, Lee received a note from U.S. Grant asking Lee to consider an end to hostilities. Lee showed the note to James Longstreet and asked his opinion. Longstreet read the note and handed it back. “Not yet,” he said. They kept fighting until the road south was blocked at Appomattox Court House.
Joseph E. Johnston might have been the one who acted the most like a man who knew more bloodshed was pointless. A brave man who had survived several wounds, he was always judicious about giving battle. He made one serious attempt to stop Sherman, and when that failed, fell back and told Lee he could do no more than “annoy” the Yankees. When word came that Lee had surrendered, he asked Sherman for terms even though the two armies were not even in contact. He had to go quite a ways to meet Sherman and surrender.
Approximately four months after I got married to my wife, my business partner defrauded me and put me into over 35,000 dollars worth of debt. My businesses began to crumble despite my frantic efforts to salvage the situation. Soon thereafter, my finances nosedived into a freefall.
By this time I had already already come to certain terms about my wife. One of them was that she was in it (our marriage) for the money. Since I couldn’t stand the thought of a divorce or a broken home I did my best to conceal my financial troubles from her in the hope that I was going to find a way to get back on my feet again.
Well she did eventually find out when I started having problems with releasing funds to pay the bills and run our home. Soon thereafter she started her series of packing out of our home on the slightest imagined irritation or offence.
Each time she would pack out I would go right after her, pleading with every single one of her relatives. I did get her to come back a good number of times but I guess this really annoyed her and her mom in particular who was really the brain urging her to abandon ship and go look for greener pastures.
One day she calls me up on the phone and tells me “hey look, each time I try to leave you, you’re always going around my relatives and getting them to put pressure on me to come back right? Well, one of these days I’m going to come back and unalive you and then you won’t get me to come back anymore, will you?”
I never went after her again.
I had to keep alive to take care of the two toddlers she left behind.
‘I Remember the Secret Service Being Tougher’ Scene | Red
I was one year into practice. A 14 year old girl was transferred to my hospital. She had been in a motor vehicle accident and been to two hospitals before mine. Her parents had been told she was permanently paralyzed waist down, twice. I was the orthopedic surgeon on call and had spinal privileges and the ability and privileges to implant hardware. So I was the surgeon they called.
I arrived and did a thorough spinal trauma exam. Yes she was paralyzed. The confounding factor was that one test (her anal wink) where I poke the anus with a needle and see if it contracts was still working. That told me she was not completely paralyzed or in spinal shock as the nerve that controls this is the last one out of the spinal cord.
I told her parents that I needed to operate immediately. I discussed with her parents she might be the same, slightly better or significantly better. I made no promises.
I decompressed her spinal cord, implanted hardware and fused several levels. As I wrote my post operative orders in the recovery room after 4 hours of surgery I saw her thrashing her legs about. I tested her motor strength and it seemed normal. I went out to talk to her parents to tell them that she was better but I couldn’t predict how much better. She might have sensation deficits or coordination deficits and we would see but that it was a very good sign that she was moving her legs.
Amber made a full recovery after being declared fully paralyzed by 2 hospitals and at least one neurosurgeon. She walked out of the hospital in a brace and 6 months later was released from my care to full activities. I am sorry, Amber, if your back hurts later in life. I did my best.
I received Christmas cards and gifts for 15 years from her family.
Her case was actually part of my oral board exam. It was quite funny to hear questions from these examiners who didn’t even do spine surgery as to why I chose to do surgery and how I chose the operation and what levels to fuse.
The moral of the story here is that a physician who learns a thorough spinal examination found a patient that did not have a complete spinal injury and fixed it. Being a physician is being a master of your profession, not just reading reports and listening to others.
I had a best friend in high school. We remained close friends until we went off to the same college. Her financial aid hadn’t come in so I loaned her some money that I had been saving for a trip which she knew was very important to me. I found out through another friend that she had received her financial aid, and she had not offered to return my money, putting my trip in jeopardy. She had also made new friends at college and I felt ejected by her. I got angry, got the money back off her and stopped speaking to her. The following semester I went to London for a semester, which extended into years, which became permanent. About five years after I left she sent me a letter saying she would be in London and wanted to meet up. The letter included her phone number where she was staying (way before mobile phones). I thought about ringing her. But never did. Thirty + years later, I had grown up and regretted my behaviour. I searched for her on social media but no luck. Eventually she contacted me through my father (no idea how she got his address). I responded this time and despite being on different continents, we are now long-distance friends. It was hard but I apologised for how I had behaved back then. I had taken the word of someone else instead of speaking to her directly and I did the very childish thing of not speaking to her. She might have had good reason for hanging onto my money, which I didn’t give her the chance to explain. And, she had every right to make new friends at college. I could have been part of her new social circle, I chose to tantrum instead.
So, I am admitting all this as a message to anyone younger than me who indulges in this sort of behaviour. It is childish. Don’t do it. You owe it to yourself and your friend to sit down together and have an adult conversation about whatever is troubling you. It cost me one of the most important friendships of my life. Don’t make the same mistake.
My mom (egg donor) left my siblings and I to be with friends from her church 2 years after we got home from being in Foster Care for 12 years. She took our foodstamps with her and spent them on other families, while we starved trying to find her. The family she ran off to be with told her she wasn’t allowed to talk to her children- she obeyed.
I went to her church one Sunday at 14 to speak to her. The pastor and whole congregation was telling me ‘a 14 year old anorexic girl’ that I need to get a job and take care of myself while my mom took care of them. This was 2010, so you know I legally couldn’t work yet.
I couldn’t call, text, meet, or have any contact with my mom. She allowed it, so obviously she was happy she didn’t have to.
So, 3 years ago my egg donor calls me and asks me for some money. She “needs a car”, but doesn’t have any money. I still don’t have my first car and it’s 2023, now.
After explaining I don’t have money to give, I boldly asked her “Why would I help you if you abandoned me as a child? I needed you and you weren’t there”.
She offended me by saying with a chuckle “I had you kids so that when you got older and I need help, you kids will help me with money or a place to live”. I simply responded “That’s not how that works, if you wanted me to take care of you now, you should have taken care of me years ago. 1 timothy 5:8”. For a woman who claims she lives for the bible, she had to ask me what that meant.. it simply means anyone who abandons their kids or family is worse than a nonbeliever.
A better question is how could the United States expand sanctions on China’s chip industry without repercussions that hurt the U.S. more than China? And the Answer is it can’t. It simply can’t!
Chips are nothing unless it is used as a component of a product for example a smartphone or a computer. And China as a market dwarfs the U.S. by several folds. Today there are a billion Chinese consumer of high technologies compared to say 250 million in the U.S.! That is 4 folds higher! China’s consumer market alone is 30–35% if the entire world! Can the U.S. not be hurt if these consumers are forced into buying a different chips?
But worst is that from the 2/3 of the rest of the world market, most of their products are either assembled or made in China! That constitute another 30–40% of the world’s market! So the U.S. by sanctioning China U.S. sanctioning the U.S. chip makers of some 60–70% of the market. Or it has direct influence or possibly sell to only 30–40% of the world’s market.
But that is just the first nightmare for the U.S. Next, China will make equivalent products within 3 year’s maximum and then. Even this 30–40% rest of the world market will choose a Chinese make that is cheaper, faster and better than the U.S. products. Your entire chip industry will thoroughly collapse and U.S. government will be faced with high unemployment and bankruptcy!
So if I were you, I will vote in a smarter U.S. government!
Just around halfway, you will run into the infamous Darien Gap:
And there, the jungle is Master. There are no roads and those who try, fail miserably:
If a 4×4 cannot make it, a van even less…
You’d have to take a boat from Panama City to Colombia and that will be very expensive.
It’s better to sell your van in Panama, fly to Bogotá and buy another van there.
However, I would not do that trip on a van. It has to be a good 4×4. You need to do some research because not all car manufacturers sell in all countries; if you need a spare part and it is not sold where/when you need it, it may mean you’re stuck for a long time and there’s no guarantee that you will ever receive the part.
By the way, do you speak at least Spanish? In the countryside, people will not speak English at all.
I first met my wife when I was about 24 and very soon after had ideas that this was the woman I wanted to grow old with. I knew fairly quickly that she was divorced, but she always kept her private life private (I found out why later and agree with her totally) so it was some time later that I found she had 3 young daughters.
Being young, stupid and typically male, I didn’t want a ready made family, I wanted one all of my own, so I put the idea to one side. We stayed friends, but as we lived over 30 miles apart, we only saw each other occasionally. Years passed and the friendship continued to grow. In the meantime, she remarried and had 2 more daughters, then got divorced again.
Move on 24 years, I’m still single (came close a couple of times) but couldn’t find the perfect lady for me, but by now the older 3 are in their 20’s and the younger 2 are in their mid to late teens. Finally my stupidity left me and we finally got together.
15 years later, we’re married, still together and happy, even though she’s now bedridden. In case you’re wondering, the daughters have all “adopted” me, as have the grandchildren!
The long and the short is; don’t let hubris stop you from doing the right thing. We could have been looking at 40 years of happy marriage if I hadn’t been an idiot.
When I was in High School, there was a tall, thin Chinese boy in my swim class. He was very quiet and always had his nose in a book. I knew him because I was the one tasked with “helping“ the non swimmers.
One day, after class, we were outside waiting for the bell to ring so we could leave the Gym Area and head to our next class. He was off to the side leaning up against the wall while reading his book. A trio of boys (troublemakers/bullies) started grabbing for his book. So he asked them politely to leave him alone, so they just turned it up and managed to take his book. In a flash, he snatched the book back (that was the first clue).
Again, they tried to grab it, but he pulled it up out of their reach and asked them one more time to just leave him alone. But this time, the biggest jerk smacked/punched him in the face instead. Two of my friends and I immediately stepped forward to step in, but before we could take another step, this tall, gangly quiet kid had kicked the jerk on the side of the head and dropped him. EVERYONE who was there stood there in shock, not sure we had just seen what we’d seen, and the other two jerks immediately stopped and stepped back. The jerk who’d been kicked just sat there on the floor rubbing the side of his head while the kid just opened his book and started reading again.
To my knowledge, NO ONE ever messed with him again. That was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen and been in a lot of fights/scuffles.
20 plus years ago I was ordered to lie to my buyer or lose my job. I was ordered by my boss despite my protests.
The company I worked for had just won a major contract to sell light globes through one of the largest hardware chains in Australia – Mitre 10.
However we were very much behind schedule having had a number of delays already. Many times I had been in to my buyer to let him know of our latest delay and his patience was wearing thin and my boss knew it.
She asked me to lie and blame the latest delay on an earthquake in Japan (our globes were coming from India) or any other lie I could come up with as long as it wasn’t the company’s fault, as in it had to be a force majeure.
I made an appointment with my buyer and sat across from him and literally told him this:
“Peter, as you know, our globes are coming from India. The ship left on time and the order was 100% filled and packed in a shipping container. Unfortunately inside the same container was a cage containing a couple of Bengal Tigers. They escaped their cage and have unfortunately ripped or damaged all of the light globe packaging.
But we could fix that by having new packaging made and printed here in Australia except that, also in the same container was an Indian elephant. This elephant also escaped its cage and has trampled all the globes. Not one globe was left intact. The entire shipment was destroyed.”
“She’s told you to lie to me didn’t she?” he said after listening to me spin this ridiculous lie. He knew full well what was going on.
We got on very well, he knew me and what I stood for. We stayed in contact for many years after we both left our respective positions. He knew the position my boss had forced me into. After asking me for a new eta he told me to leave.
He wasn’t happy.
But I did what I was ordered to do and did it in a way that kept my reputation intact.
This was part of an old trick that the magician/illusionist Kreskin used to do back in the 1970s. You’re leaving out two very important parts of the trick:
He would say that the two digits couldn’t be the same
He would also say “So 17 is OK, but 11 isn’t.”
It sounds like there’s 50 numbers, but if you look at the options, they’re quite limited: 13, 15, 17, 19, 31, 35, 37, and 39. It’s really only eight. When he says “17 is OK but 11 isn’t”, most people won’t choose 17 since it was used in the example so you’re down to seven choices.
When he tested his trick, he found that overwhelmingly most people choose 35 or 37. When used this trick in public, he would write down both “35” and “37” but would cross out 35 and say something like “I sensed you were thinking of another number but changed your mind”. He would then proclaim that you were thinking of 37. This way, even if you said “35”, it would be there on the paper and as an onlooker you’d still be amazed.
He speculated that by using “17” and “11” in his spoken example, it tended to cause people to go the other direction and choose numbers in the 30s.
Our home, but my brother’s son. We had our aunt over, an old, strict, stuck-up childless lady. She was always proud of how polite and good-mannered she is, and despite not knowing a damn thing about kids, she was always ready to educate them, expecting all kids to behave like miniature grown-ups respecting the rules of etiquette at all times.
Well, it was a big family lunch on the terrace, kids running around, so she was a fish out of the water – there were too many kids to educate, she lost count. When I arrived, I was immediately greeted by my 4-year-old nephew, whom I kissed, cuddled and then I ceremoniously placed my bag in front of him.
We had a game: each time we met I had something in my bag for him. He could dive in and find it. This was our thing. Sometimes it was a dessert that he could eat while we talked. Sometimes a toy, or some other small surprise. This time it was a small dog figurine that resembled their own dog whom he loved so much.
While he was snorkelling in my bag, I turned to greet some relatives. Then I heard my Aunt Etiquette, shouting in a sharp head voice at my nephew. “What are you doing? Who do you think you are, young man?”
We all froze, including my poor baby nephew. I had to explain my fuming aunt that I had allowed him to search my bag, and that was our little thing, but she was not the person who could understand things like this. There were rules that we clearly disrespected.
My brother had to tell her that in his house, it’s also a rule to keep it quiet and not to shout with any of the kids. That shut her up, but just because she was hurt over her educational methods being disregarded.
My nephew still goes in my bag, and there is still something in there for him every time. He has never done the same with anyone’s bags or stuff. He knows the drill. He knows it’s just with me. My poor auntie will never get that kids are not stupid – they are kids.
A rich friend of mine one day had an emergency and needed to borrow money from me.
I was on campus so I went to the ATM and withdrew what he wanted to borrow, but in true ADHD style, forgot to take my card back.
After I left, a few minutes later, I noticed a Northern European girl (college student, probably Nordic from the accent) running in my direction and panting.
She was looking at me so I stopped to see what was going on. Then I saw my bank card in her hands!
Amazing because there was a lot of money in that card and a nefarious person would have withdrawn all the money and absconded with it.
I was so amazed by her integrity and kindness that I did not even know how to react. I had gone a long distance and at the time, there was nobody around the ATM kiosk; so I didn’t know how she realized the card was mine.
I think she may have seen me from a distance as I emerged and when she arrived at the ATM, I had spent the same time going away from it. Then, in order to not lose me, she ran all the way back to bring it to me, in consideration of no return whatsoever—just because it was the right thing to do.
How probable a similar event could be?
I insisted on asking for her details so I could at least thank her properly—perhaps by buying her a gift or inviting her to lunch—but she wouldn’t hear of it.
When I asked for her phone number she smiled and replied that it was not necessary to repay her in any way and left despite my persuasion to stay for a while so I could get to know her (you see, such a kind person would have made an excellent wife—additionally she was beautiful and I was single [and young, maybe four or five years older than her]; alas, she left too quickly and I didn’t find it polite to insist further).
Aliens (1986) – They Can Bill Me Scene – Enhanced 4K UHD HDR Custom”
This is two days ago at a very busy shopping centre with just over a week to go before Christmas day and this “person” decided it is OK to park across two spots.
It was so busy and so difficult to get a park I had to do a lap of the carpark before I got lucky and found someone who was about to leave and so I was able to grab their spot.
I was furious when I saw this car and so were a bunch of other people standing around complaining. What I and the others didn’t know was that this person, who parked across two spots, was a psychic. I never met them, never saw them either but they had to be able to see into the future.
Their future told them they would have 4 flat tyres when they came out from shopping and so to make it easier for them to change all 4 wheels they gave themselves extra room around their vehicle. That surely was their reason!
It would have been impossible to do if they parked in only one spot like normal humans do.
In Elementary School near Dallas, TX in the 70’s there was a bully named Paul. He stole from the cafeteria cash register, disrupted class, ruled over the entire school due to his size and generally pushed his way throughout class. Then a new kid came to our class. His name was Todd and by appearance was a total nerd. Tall, skinny, braces and into comics and science fiction.
Then in band Todd revealed that he played saxophone. None of us were bold or cool enough to even try that instrument, we were scared and just went along being content with the common brass instruments provided by the school. He brought his own horn and was much more advanced as well.
Then he met Paul. Paul tried to impress onto him that he was the big man in the school and literally pushed him around. Todd did not even hesitate to talk things over, he just punched Paul hard right in the face. We were amazed, we never thought it possible that a bully could be bested.
Later during outdoor recess Paul tried to re-establish his dominance to the rest of the kids. Without talking, planning or organizing dozens of the kids picked up rocks, sticks and other weapons and chased him off the lot. One that has stuck with me was a kid who took off his belt attached a stick at the buckle and swung it very effectively.
Paul never came back to school. Todd fell into his role as a nerd, never tried to become king.
Quick Orange Beef
Ingredients
1 pound flank, sirloin or rib-eye steak
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest, plus a little juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 pound sugar snap peas or snow peas
Instructions
If time allows, freeze the steak for up to 60 minutes to make it easier to slice. Slice the beef as thinly as you can across the grain. If you’re cutting it so thinly that some of the meat shreds, that’s good.
Combine beef with orange zest, soy sauce, garlic, salt, pepper and red pepper.
Heat a wide, heavy skillet or wok over high heat for a minute. Add vegetable oil and heat another minute. Add garlic and when it turns light brown (a few seconds) add the beef. Stir the beef 2 minutes. Add peas and stir 2 minutes more, or until the beef has lost its red color.
Squeeze half an orange over skillet ingredients and stir to combine. Serve over rice.
Serves 4 to 6.
If you have leftovers: Chill rice and beef separately. When ready to cook, heat 1 or 2 tablespoons vegetable oil over high heat in a wok or skillet. Add leftover rice and stir, breaking it up with a spoon or fork. When it’s broken up, add leftover beef and stir to heat through. Add soy sauce or toasted sesame oil, as desired.
so let me preface my answer; I no longer speak to my cousin but I didn’t speak to him much before the incident either.
My grandmother passed away the day my oldest son left for his spring break trip as a sophomore in High school, he was playing varsity baseball and invited on their tournament trip to another state to play.
I made arrangements to go on the trip to see my son play. This was an honor for him and one that he had worked so hard for. I got the call that my grandmother had passed away and I contemplated if I was still going to go on the trip or stay behind and attend the funeral. My grandmother had not been well for several years and honestly did not even recognize me or my children for the past two years due to her illness. I choose to continue on the trip with my youngest to see my oldest play ball. My parents were okay with my decision and actually helped me make the decision.
The evening after the funeral I received a nasty text message from my cousin stating how dare I miss the funeral. He understood that I was attending a baseball tournament but he came home from vacation for the funeral and he expected me to miss the baseball trip as well. It didn’t matter to him that I had visited her several times in the year leading up to her death even though she didn’t know me and he didn’t even know what nursing home she was in.
The fact that he inserted his beliefs in my life; and didn’t take into consideration the hard decision I had made was appauling to me. I wasn’t at peace with my decision but made the best one for my family at the time the decision needed to be made. I had said my good-byes to my grandmother heartfelt the last time she remembered me.
It has been 10-years since her passing and I still refuse to talk to that cousin when we are together at holiday functions. I will walk away if he comes over to sit at the same table I am at. He has never met my grandchildren on purpose as I don’t want to subject my grandchildren to his negativity.
Oh, I have one. I was with my son at a Boy Scout jamboree back in the early 90’s in our state. The arranged for the state fish and game to come and train search and rescue. I had trained in search and rescue in the military and for Appalachion Mountain Club. I walked over to the game warden and volunteered to help, that I had a lot of experience in this sort of thing. He told me he had it, he was trained too and this was his job. The warden lined up like 300 kids and sent them into the woods to search for a injured hiker (two of the scout masters acting as injured hikers). The kids started walking across the field. Then went down an incline records the woods. As they started down the incline they started to run and then a battle cry like something out of bravehart came out of the crowd. By the time they hit the tree line into the woods they were on a dead high speed run. It was at this point I walked over to the warden, looked at the woods and asked him if he ever done this before? He said no, first time. I then asked, oh, by the way, how many kids went into the woods? First rule, know how many volunteers you send in so you know if you have accounted for everyone. He looked at me puzzled and said, I thought you guys knew that! I then asked, how far did you tell them to go into the woods before turning back? He said he didn’t. He then called for backup! The local volunteer fire department arrived and he sent them into the woods. I walked over and asked, oh, how many fireman did you send into the woods? He facepalmed and walked away. Three hours later, we accounted for every scout. Five were retrieved two miles away when they walked out the back side of the woods. It took another hour to find all the fireman. I walked over to the warden and said, I think that went well, don’t you? He walked away without answering.
Yep , me . Two days after removing me from a job and my crew of 30 Americans to be replaced by a Latino crew I got a phone call .
Boss .” Hi”
Me”What’s up “
Boss “The engineer just told us they will withhold the final 10% if we can’t supply the electrical testing results that I know you did but that no one else ever does and he is persisting that he needs them . They are pissed .”
Me”Oh that sucks “
Now this was a 10 million dollar project . 10% of 10% would have been a good start . But :
Boss “Are they on the site somewhere , I know you were really organized so I’m hoping you can tell me where they are .”
Me”I have them in that log book I bought , ya know the log book you laughed at me for for using , ya know , the one where I kept records of what everyone did , deliveries , the weather and those test results “
Boss “Oh that is excellent can I swing by and pick it up “
Me “Well you could , but I’m looking out my window and the garbage truck is going up my road right now .”
Boss “You don’t have it”
Me”Nope”
Boss “ Oh you are supposed to keep them “
Me”I know , but as of the other day I don’t work for you any more and it was my book and I was done with it .Now ain’t that a bitch “
See, about a lifetime ago, I worked in addictions. And I had this client. Beth. She was a young gay woman. Somewhere between 19 and 21. Totally butch and cute as a fucking button.
Sort of like this.
Long story short, she asked me to pick her up at a different place, one I happened to know was a trap house. When I pulled up at 8:30 in the morning, there were cops at the house next door, looking for a kid with a warrant.
Beth sees my car pull up, but hadn’t seen the police. She walked out of the front door and head down, beelined for me.
It took the cops less than five seconds to intervene.
Me: Fuck.
I roll down my passenger side window to eavesdrop. I can’t hear exactly what they’re saying, but I can tell by everyone’s body language they’re giving her a hard time.
Me: Double fuck.
I grab the badge that says I’m a county employee and I walk over to the encounter. The cops look at me. I smile, show them my ID, and stick out my hand.
Me: Good morning officers. I assume everything’s alright here.
Officer 1 (nodding to my client): You know this young man? Is his name John?
Me (chuckling): Well, I definitely know this young WOMAN. Her name is Beth. And we have an appointment at her PO’s office in 45 minutes.
Officer 2 (doing a double take): Young woman!?
Beth: Yes. I was trying to tell you.
Officer 1 (pulling out papers and quickly changing the subject): Do either of you know this man? John Doe?
Me: Haven’t seen him.
Beth shook her head no.
Officer 2: We’ve got a bench warrant on him, so if you see him around, we’d appreciate if you call the station.
Me: Will do. Well, we better get going. They’ve got the highway backed up again with construction and we don’t want to be late to see the PO. You gentlemen have a nice day. And thank you for your service!
When we got to my car, Beth freaked the hell out: Holy shit, Molly. I thought I was going down! They wouldn’t let me get a word in to tell them I wasn’t who they were looking for! And they totally thought I was that dude!
Me: Breathe, girl. It’s alright.
We drove around the block, headed to the probation office.
Me: Now you want to tell me why you’re living at the dope dealer’s house?
Beth was always amazed that I knew what was going on. Like it being a trap house. Like knowing who her dealer was. Like when I told her she needed to get tested for Hep C and she said she didn’t. Then I had to tell her that I knew someone who fucked her girl who was sharing needles. And rumor had it, the girlfriend was positive and was hiding it.
Sigh.
I was pretty damn good at that job.
Except Beth ended up going back to the needle. Then back to jail. I hope she’s somewhere today, clean and sober.
Or at least off the dope.
Dogmen, Hybrids, The Beast of Bray Road | True Stories of Werewolves
I loved the good ol’ army surplus stores, and as a boy, I would go over to them with a fist full of changes and some bills and pick up a odd surplus item or two to dink around with.
I had a Vietnam war era canteen… aluminum, not plastic, and it leaked. But I would wear it with my web cargo belt as I rode in my hikes thought the nearby forests. I also had a mess tin, with massive silverware, fit for a giant, but I really never did anything with it.
When I was 13 years old, I had a surplus German world war II pith helmet from the Africa Corps that I wore all the time, and I would wear it as I spent my summers golfing and then swimming. My friends all got ones as well, but theirs hardly lasted past a week. It would get wet… one excuse or the other …and be ruined. But unlike them… I treasured mine.
My brother had a cameo dentist smock that was really cool, and for a spell I lusted over it. It looked really cool. Don’t quite know how he ran into it, but the Army and navy store was constantly getting new and one-off items throughout the Summer months.
One week before I left for China, I went into the “old” store and I hardly recognized it. Mostly empty with a warehouse “feeling” to it. Many cheap goods, and not much to interest me. I bought a black backpack and it was the only thing that survived my trip to China. The rest of my belongings were lost in transit.
I suggest that if you have an opportunity, take your early teenagers to a local Army and Navy store and let them explore. Who knows what they will find.
I bought a house and was moving out of the previous home, in which I had a 6-car garage full of toys, along with many items stored outside. That month, I sold six Harleys, brought home three more, and sold them. Now that I would have half the storage space, I sold several other items, such as boats, offroad vehicles, and toy haulers.
When each of these items was sold, I would rubber-band the cash in $10k bundles, and anything less would be placed on the top shelf until it could be bundled with other funds. I’d frequently toss the bundles into the safe for the time being. At some point, when I did the math in my head, I felt I was missing a $10,000 USD bundle.
I had too much on my plate with the move to be concerned about whether or not I had lost money. But I’d catch myself doing the math in my head while driving or having a meal, and it wasn’t adding up, so I’d somehow lost a bundle.
The safe was left at the house due to its size and weight. I had to come back for it after enlisting some assistance in moving it. I had already emptied out its contents while rearranging a few of the internal shelves.
Once I realized I was going to be transporting the safe on its back instead of upright like before, I decided to remove all the interior shelving this time, as it would have come apart while being transported on its back. That’s when I found the missing $10,000. bundle.
It’s a good thing I hadn’t sold the safe with the cash inside.
I used to work for a large rehab company. I was a licensed occupational therapist. One year, we had a new girl start there, who was from Europe. She was also also a licensed therapist, but had two years of additional training. She was also on a work visa. At first she was friendly and agreeable, but soon began to show her true colors. She started making snide comments about people behind their backs, and then proceeded to say them to their faces. She told me that where she came from, I wouldn’t be considered a real therapist, because I had only studied for two years.
We had a few Rehab assistants that she proceeded to lord over, because she had a college degree and they did not. But they worked hard and did their jobs. One day she sat with us at lunch; myself, and two rehab assistants. She proceeded to make rude comments about certain ethnic groups in the company, claiming that they had chips on their shoulders. I told her that her remarks could be construed as racism, and that she had better knock it off. She scoffed, and went on making rude comments. When she left the room with a big smirk on her face, one of the aides told me that she had been making unflattering comments behind my back, too. I decided that she needed to be taught a lesson. I contacted our clinical director and reported her behavior, especially the racist comments.
An hour later, she came walking down the hall, smirk replaced by copious tears. She had been warned that if she continued with her behavior, she would be shipped right back to Europe.
I was an assistant manager for a large auto parts company. Our district manager (DM) was a real POS. I avoided him as much as possible. One day he came to our store, very pissy, and the manager was trying hard to appease him. After the DM left, I looked at the manager and told him he just brown nosed to his ankles. He didn’t say anything, just gave me a funny look. Two days later, after his “weekend”, he handed in his notice. He looked so relieved and happy those last two weeks! He was dating another manager, so we all heard when his dad, a real sweetheart who used to come in frequently, passed away. Other than his girlfriend, I was the only person from the company that attended the funeral. He told me then that my comment was a major wake-up call and that he realized he was no longer willing to work in that environment. His new job made him much happier.
I grew up in a semi-rural area, the child of homesteaders. We had food. Food was never good or bad, it was on the table, and you ate until you were full.
We ate very well, but worked for that food.
My mother had a huge chicken coop, so lots of eggs and chicken.
We planted and harvested about 2 acres of fruits and vegetables of all kinds that could grow in our area. My father had a greenhouse about the size of a single car garage, so we were able to extend a growing season.
Summer weekends were spent in the bush, picking all sorts of wild berries.
We made our own jams, jellies, cordials, chutneys, different kinds of pickles, canned fruits and berries. We processed veggies for use during the winter. This involved sterilizing jars, picking and cleaning foods, slicing, dicing, blanching food, boiling sealing jars, bagging and freezing.
My father bought the rest of the food we couldn’t grow or source naturally.
Sundays, we always had a huge roast, all kinds of roasted root veggies, and devil’s food cake with 7 minute frosting. Most often, dessicated coconut was also put in the frosting. This is exactly what it looked like
During the week, a normal meal was soup, meat and 2 veg, salad, some kind of pickle, and dessert. Dessert was usually fruit, either fresh or home canned in heavy syrup, and ice cream.
When I was young, our home had a wood stove – so fire wood had to be chopped. We didn’t have running water, so water had to be carried by bucket. We had a coal furnace, so coal had to be shoveled in, several times a day, outside of the summer months.
Because we didn’t have running water, we used an outhouse, which was in the far corner of the property. Even going to the toilet, you walked half a block each way.
When I started kindergarten, the school was almost 2 km away from my home (just over a mile). The only time you were allowed to stay at school for lunch is if the temperature was colder than a high of 0F (-18c). So most days, I walked about 8km, just to go to school and back (x2).
The girls all played jump rope at recess. Do children still do that?
We very rarely ate outside our home, except as guests at other people’s homes. When we would go on camping vacations, our first meal out, and last meal coming home would be KFC – the real stuff they used to make with the cream gravy. So if that is the fast food we had, we had it twice a year.
We used to get a bottle of soda when we went to Grandma’s house. That was about every second week. But we used sugar like crazy. Tea and coffee always had at least 2 tsp of sugar in it. Canned fruit was all in heavy syrup. When the large bottles of cola began to be sold, they were terrifically expensive. The 2 quart bottle was over $4. Considering the first apartment I ever rented a couple of years later was $125/month – you can see what a luxury item Coca Cola was.
Basically, I would say we ate very well. There were plenty of treats, but we were always walking/running and working in the yard. Even the simple things took a lot of work. There was no turning on the tap, that water had to be hauled into the house.
So what I would say is this. Previously, there was little junk food. My mother even made home made marshmallow. Food was processed at home or in restaurants (eg. no pre-formed patties) There was no plastic sort of food, such as Cool Whip (introduced in 1966) People didn’t eat away from home very much. People had to work much harder for food. People worked and walked much more in their lives. The food of the past is very different than the food of today.
I am a 100% disabled USAF Veteran, and I carry a concealed handgun legally. I have had all the background checks that the FBI and Federal Government require and although not of sound body, am of sound mind (my ex-wife may disagree!). I was legally carrying when I stopped in San Antonio to get some fuel. I was in my pickup truck which is wheelchair equipped and it was on the back of the truck and I have Texas Disabled Veteran plates on my truck.
I used my credit card to get the fuel and this was about Christmas time. I am a Christian and love that part of the year. As I was finishing up I was approached by a young man in his late teens and early 20’s who had been watching me since I arrived. I am Italian, and he isn’t (you will figure out his heritage in a moment). He asked how my “Christmas was going?” I replied, “It’s a great time of the year!”. He stated “I’m having a horrible Christmas; I don’t have any money and my kids and wife will get nothing from me this year – can you help? I replied that I carried no cash and he had seen me “use my credit card at the pump!”
He then became directly confrontational and pointed his finger in my face and stated “Then you can take your honky ass into the ATM, use that card and get me some cash!” I backed off 2 steps and stated “I don’t know you and I am not in the habit of giving anything to people I don’t know”. His response was to pull back his jacket and show me a large hunting knife handle that was stuck in his pant and state “What if I show you this knife?!”?
My response was to draw my weapon and point it at his chest and state “What if I show you this gun?” He backed off quickly realizing the crippled Veteran was not as easy a target as he thought!
I was unaware but that store clerk was listening in on the speakers that are at the pump and had summoned the police. They arrived as I was pointing the weapon at the suspect. As soon as they arrived I reholstered and the store clerk told them what she had observed, and I verified the situation.
The Officer asked “Why didn’t you shoot him? He has been a problem for months around here!” My response was “he backed off and I think he would have bolted had you not arrived”. He was taken into custody for attempted armed robbery and I testified at his trial about 11 months later. He was given 7 years in the Texas Department of Corrections. Turns out he never had a wife or children.
What was I given? My life. It could have gone very wrong was I not armed. It could have ended in the worst way.
Guns aren’t meant to fight fair. They are meant to win. They are meant to give people control over what happens to them and to protect themselves, the public, and even you from serious bodily harm or death.
It’s not cowardice – it’s prudence.
I am here today because of that weapon which I still carry faithfully – always knowing it’s there but also always hoping I never have to use it.
“Can I trust you?” she asked me quietly as we walked in the school grounds.
She didn’t even wait for me to reply.
“My father was diagnosed with cancer. Two years ago. Of the prostate. He was under treatment since then, but these days, he’s been getting worse. And we don’t even have that much money, we’re a simple family.”
Sarah was the ‘weird girl’ in the class. Or that’s how the others saw her.
She was always energetic. So much that you’d think she was high on caffeine every day. She had a prominent personality, something so sun-bright that you couldn’t help but notice. And being talkative and making loud, obnoxiously lame jokes were a fundamental part of her.
Sarah was just so fullof life. The fullest you can be. The fullest I’ve ever seen someone.
I think that’s what began, slowly but surely, irritating others in a way.
She would laugh at her own awkward jokes and people would roll their eyes. She’s so random and so extra, they’d say.
She became the class clown.
One day, during the sports class, the conversation written above took place.
And I couldn’t help but silently wonder: how/why was she so buoyant and full of life all the time?
A second later, the tone of her voice shifted.
“You wanna know why I’m so cheerful all the time?”
It’s like she read my mind, I swear. I looked her in the eye, then quickly looked away.
But what she said left me open-mouthed because it was completely different than what I expected.
“You know, I believe that you have to create what you want for yourself. As I see it, everyone has to create their own happiness. There is no other way out. I have so many things to be sad about. But that is exactly what I won’t be. I just work like that,” she shrugged.
And suddenly, just like that, I saw her in a whole new light. And I’m not even exaggerating. It was literally like depicted in the movies.
In fact, I felt guilty, on behalf of my class, that we’d been so utterly stupid.
Not to be dramatic or anything, but Sarah taught me things that I have not learned from anyone else.
I’m not gonna lie and say that since that moment, I’ve been the happiest person alive. I haven’t. It’s a slow process. But I see myself getting there very soon.
Sarah reminded me that one has to create their own happiness. You can’t rely on life or its circumstances to do that for you. She was a living example of the quote: “When life knocks you down, smile and stand up taller than ever before.”
First EU told China they were not buying enough EU Products and importing enough EU products and the Trade deficit was widening quite a bit between the two nations
China replied that most of the EU Imports they formerly imported, they now had excellent quality import substitution within China like Industrial Chemicals or Industrial Technology Machines or ICE Cars
China also said the EU had restricted things they were most keen to import like EUV equipment or Deep UV Lamps or High Grade Etching Equipment
So China said “We have an open market. Bring your products and COMPETE. We have no tariffs here on your products”
The EU want China to keep buying ICE Cars and Industrial Technology at 3 times the price just to ensure a better balance of Trade
China said “How is that Capitalism? Free market?”
EU couldn’t respond
China did point out that Chinese imports of Advanced Lenses and Pharmaceuticals from the EU had risen by 41% across 4 years
The EU claimed China was violating and helping Russia bypass their sanctions. In fact I believe this was their main purpose in visiting China. They accused China of selling to Russia all the Industrial Spares and Manufacturing Parts plus enough goods to keep their purchasing intact
The Chinese replied they were not at war with Russia and EU sanctions were not sacrosanct to other nations. China brought out Lithuania and Australia and asked the EU if the EU recognized Chinese Sanctions on either nation and honored them
China asked if tomorrow China sanctions Taiwan, would EU agree to follow the same and not help Taiwan bypass sanctions
Ursula mumbled something about democracy and China told her to “Get Laid”
The EU finally accused China of protectionism and subsidy of NEVs that allowed NEVs to be sold cheaper in Europe
China categorically rejected this as wholly untrue and explained how EV subsidy was aimed to help CHINESE CITIZENS buy EVs and spearhead EV transition fully by 2030. They explained how the subsidy was at the tax level and the manufacturing subsidy provided to BYD was used only for their sale price to Chinese Citizens
The EU of course knew this very well
They have advisors who told them the same story
China then pointed out the EU subsidies to their mobile providers of almost € 63 Billion to help them buy the more expensive Nokia equipment for their 5G instead of Huawei
Again Ursula mumbled something about Democracy and China told her again to “Please get Laid” emphasizing on the “Please”
Simply speaking China is bewildered at all these leaders repeatedly coming to China and demanding things that are entirely against free market and capitalism
They offer investments but into the most mundane things like mass manufacturing and medium grade manufacturing that China isn’t interested in anymore. China has much more money than all of EU combined and can easily bankroll their manufacturing
They want TECH INVESTMENTS, the ability to identify good tech and invest in the same
EU doesn’t want this at all because of US orders
EU wants the World to remain in 2010 but the world is in 2023
**Wanted to add, I only just realized I misread the title as WERE banned, not are. My apologies!**
I was banned from my local Walmart because I miss scanned an item. I went to self checkout one day because I had 4 items and wanted to teach my sons how to scan items. To make the story easier to understand, I had a tshirt, set of bras, shorts and some socks. While scanning, we had accidently double scanned the bras rather than scan the shorts, honest mistake. We finish up and as we are heading out, loss protection stops me and says “My name is XXX I’m with loss prevention please come with us” I was genuinely confused, my son got scared because of how aggressive they were but we complied. While in the security room they proceeded to rummage thru my bags and asked to search my purse. Again, I complied, but they never explained why I was pulled in. They searched cameras for probabaly 20 minutes. At one point, I hear one of the workers call across the radio “We need security detail for an escort.” I started getting REALLY scared and demanded an answer. Finally, they explain I miss scanned an item, because of this I am being escorted out of the building and will not be allowed back on property, should I step foot on property I will be arrested. I was baffled! They didn’t even give me a chance to fix my honest mistake! Needless to say, again I complied, but I put in a call the corporate after leaving, they reached out to me and lifted the banned immediately, apologized, and fired the entire loss prevention team. It wasn’t the first time they had abused power!
This guy was new and he was hired by someone else and put on my team. He messed up because he said he got his degree the same time I did. At the same school. In the same program.
I always research my team beforehand. But, this time it was pretty short.
He failed out his third year and didn’t come back to school. At least not mine.
I figured maybe he fibbed and graduated later. I checked with my school. No record of graduation.
He walked up to my team after he got to work. Asked him to follow me and we went to HR.
We sat down and I asked him about his degree. He repeated his resume exactly.
I stood up, said thank you and good luck. We’ll be going in another direction. And HR did their thing.
We don’t ask about degrees, but we do check your resume for lies. And, we don’t care if you have a degree. Just don’t lie about it.
That means that you are probably going to lie about your work. And, that is pretty toxic.
Committing a felony. I didn’t set out to break the law, I was a law abiding citizen for 59 years.
I was suffering from a deep depression and began self-medicating with Methamphetamine. The depression and drugs led me to some questionable online activities which, to me, seemed harmless. Without my realizing it though, I had crossed into the dark web.
My first inkling that I was in trouble was when 7 sheriffs came to my house with a search warrant. 6 months after that I was arrested on 23 felony charges.
Over the next 6 months my lawyer negotiated that down to 5 charges in exchange for me pleading guilty which I eventually did – I did not have the money to pay for a trial defense, and even if I did, a loss would have meant that I would die in prison – I was 60 years old.
I was extremely fortunate, mostly, I think because I was a first time offender, with a lifetime of abiding the law. I was sentenced to 5 years probation and 3 years prison suspended – no jail time unless I screwed up.
I lost a very successful career and income as a software engineer – no one would hire me with a record. My wife died of a stroke, partly due to the stress of the legal proceedings. Her family completely disowned me (my own family was gone) so I was completely alone in my grief.
I was forced to retire at 62 and live on social security (my first wife got my retirement in the divorce) and I have almost no friends.
Because of one mistake fueled by depression and drugs, my life was destroyed. I have to submit to monthly drug tests and meetings with my probation officer (a significant expense on social security as I have no car and he is 30 miles away), and in constant fear of having my probation revoked for breaking a probation rule (anyone who’s ever been on probation will understand what I mean).
If I could go back to mid 2018 and seek professional help for the depression, I would do it in a heartbeat. If I had sought treatment then I wouldn’t be where I am now.
EDIT:
I have received a lot of comments with people complaining that I’m not taking responsibility for my actions – this is completely wrong.
I take full responsibility for what happened to me. I made the decision to self medicate with meth rather than seek mainstream treatment. It was my decision to engage in the actions which led to my crime. Nobody made me do it but me.
I was arrested on evidence I cannot deny and sentenced fairly according to the law. I was a law abiding citizen for 59 years and believe strongly in the rule of law and the need to uphold it. I have absolutely no complaint about how I was treated as the result of my actions. The legal system and all of its agents acted exactly as I expected in doing their part to enforce the law and maintain societal controls.
That said, I have no doubt, with God as my witness, that I would have NEVER broken the law had my faculties not been impaired by drugs – in a sober state I would not have engaged in the actions that led to my crime. My values and critical thinking were subverted by the drugs – there is plenty of medical and psychiatric evidence of this. That is not an excuse, it is a simple fact.
I wished the interviewer luck in finding a candidate with the credentials they were looking for, when it became known that I didn’t have the right credential to teach what they wanted me to teach.
They waited until the interview to tell me that they were specifically looking for a teacher with a Reading Specialist endorsement, which I didn’t have. They could have checked my resume before they called me in for the interview to see I didn’t have that, but whatever. My lack of the proper endorsement brought the interview to a quick close, and I wished them well in their search for someone with that particular endorsement. I knew they’d have a hard time finding someone with that who was willing to work at a private school. Public schools, which pay better than private schools around here, are quick to grab the Reading Specialists.
About three weeks later, I’d completely forgotten about that interview, and they called me in for a second interview. I checked their school calendar. They were two weeks away from opening day. I knew they were desperate. I was desperate to find a position too, so it all worked out. I went in for the second interview, and they offered me the position, even though I didn’t have the specific endorsement they wanted. Private schools are flexible when it comes to those things anyway.
They remembered me from the first interview because I was nice to them. I ended up working there for two years. It was my first real teaching position, and I loved it. I got the experience and connections I needed to make finding new teaching positions in later years so much easier. The first position is always the hardest to get.
Were you here? I am here and I was here on Sunday election day.
Yeah and? You hear 10,000 police deployed across the city! OMG.
What I saw? I went cycling early in the morning. I passed the election polling station, a small queue and a load of villagers.
The two police officers? They were stood about 10 metres away outside to one side.
That’s not an unusual sight. You see police standing around busy bus depots and MTR stations. The only ‘heavy’ presence was a couple months ago where desk job police were walking around. I scooted in between them and NOTHING happened.
We Have a Problem – The Actual WAR INVASION of the USA **IS** Planned and now, We have a date range . . .
America, we have a problem. While it has long been rumored that foreign countries are planning to invade the continental USA, we’ve never seen evidence of any such actual planning; until now. . .
For years we’ve all heard rumors of Chinese troops being massed in south-central Mexico, but never any proof to bolster such claims.
Two years or so ago, we all found out that Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada signed a Treaty with China allowing the deployment of People’s Liberation Army troops in Canada, and the Treaty prohibits local Canada governments from having __any__ say where those troops are, or what they do while in Canada. That Treaty has been verified and __is__ real.
So if one believes the rumor about China troops in south-central Mexico, and we already have confirmation they’re entering Canada, that would mean invasion of the continental USA would be possible from both the north and the south.
Then, too, for years, we’ve all heard rumors that Venezuela would send troops to Cuba, to join with Cuban troops to invade Florida from Cuba — but ZERO evidence of any such planning has ever been offered or produced by anyone.
NOW, THOUGH, we have something very real, from deep inside Russian Intelligence.
Below from inside the Russian FSB, we now have concrete proof an actual INVASION of the United States of America is, in fact, being planned, and the date range for that invasion has already been decided. It appears we have less than one year.
The evidence, obtained from inside Department “C” of the Central Security Service of the FSB of Russia, appears below, and is for SUBSCRIBERS TO THIS WEBSITE, ONLY.
Back around 1990, I was about 23, two babys and wife at home, and got laid off at the light bulb factory in Plymouth Florida. So I went to work selling veggies at the flea market and working on VW’s while looking for a job. I had been rebulding Bug motors for some time and it had become quite a routine. Well I had this old bus, it was a 1962, 23 window Kombi wagon. Pulled the motor, did the thing right, line bored, new cylinders, pistons, all the bearings, oil pump, Bosch 009 distibutor, new carb, everything top-knotch. The owner wanted it right, so he spared no expense and I was happy to oblige. The afternoon arrived and i finally had the motor back together and up in the bus. It was bolted in and I was hooking up the wires and needed a new connector to hookup the new distributor and when i went into my shop to find one, i noticed this little silver thing laying on the bench. Picked it up and eyed it carefully. It was half of a cam bearing. Yup, I had left out half of a cam bearing shell. Had to pull the motor back out, break it all the way back down, and sure enough, there was one shell missing. Put it in and back together it went. Ran like a top for years! Thankfully, I didn’t try to fire it up!
Campfire Dutch Oven Chili with Cornbread
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
Chili
3 pounds ground beef (90% lean)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, ribs and seeds removed, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes & green chilies, undrained
Heat briquettes up in a chimney, then make a layer of hot briquettes on the ground, a fire ring, or other metal structure.
Place the Dutch oven on the briquettes and allow Dutch oven to get hot.
Add oil to the Dutch oven and sauté onion, bell pepper, and jalapeño pepper stirring occasionally until tender, approximately 4 to 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook for an additional 1 minute.
Add ground beef to Dutch oven and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, breaking beef into small crumbles and stirring occasionally until browned. If Dutch oven starts to cool off, add more hot briquettes on the bottom.
Add chili powder, paprika, cumin, oregano, black pepper and salt; cook for 1 minute.
Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes & green chiles and beer; bring to a boil. Cook for 30 minutes.
Prepare cornbread mix based on box instructions and pour over chili, spreading into an even layer.
Heat approximately 20 additional briquettes. Cover Dutch oven with lid and place hot briquettes evenly on the top of the closed lid.
Cook for about 10 minutes, checking halfway through. Check to see if cornbread is done by sticking a wooden pick into cornbread. If the wooden pick comes out clean, it is done.
I worked as PC tech early in my career for a man that was a total control freak. Very military. One of his expectations was that everyone was sitting at their desk exactly at 8am. No excuses. Well, I was transferred under his department after my previous manager retired. I had been working without complaint for over a year.
If I knew I had a busy day I would come in early to get things done without interruption. I had been late a few times during the previous month as I was a new Father. But, as I said, I came in early, and stayed late so my work was never affected.
I also was a contractor, not an employee. And my contract wasn’t a 8 to 5 time clock, but a work level, number of tickets thing.
Anyway, this particular morning I came in about 30mins early to finish up a repair from the day before. No sooner than I had walked into my office the Plant Manager walked in. He was having a problem. So, off I go.
Well, it was about 45 minutes later when I walk back in to get a replacement hard drive. There stands my Boss. He starts in on me about me not being at my desk. Yelling at me like I’m a dog. I just stand there. Finally, he says I’m fired. I’m to pack my “stuff” and leave. Which I do. As I’m about to leave I tell him, Oh by the way, the Plant Manager (his Boss) was waiting on me. His face dropped.
I walked out.
About an hour after I got home I get a call from my company. The Plant Manager called them. He told them he wanted me to come back. I declined. He then called me. He paid me directly to come fix his computer. And my Boss got fired.
This kid was the other way around. He was considered as a brilliant geek, and I believe he suffered a lot from the constant bullying by the other kids. He scored very well in Olympiads, and also scored high marks on subjects such as Math, Physics and Chemistry.
In his spare time, he read Math books, studied Bridge and entered in semi-professional competitive Bridge games — I guess that was one of the reasons why he was seen as a geek.
Several teachers were convinced that Terry would ace university and become a brilliant scientific researcher, but reality turned out to be very different. He first tried engineering studies but failed miserably, and then spent some time in the professional Bridge circuit, but he never reached the level he thought he would.
Some years later, I was a surveillant at a Linear Algebra exam for freshman Informatics students (I was a postdoctoral researcher at the time), and there he was, trying once again to obtain a degree. And he flunked again. Not much later he left academics, and I kind of lost track of his life.
At reunions, those that do not show up are the people that died young, those that hate their past more than anything else, and those that failed in life. The future definitely turned out differently than Terry had hoped.
But luckily, we did not know this when we were seventeen.
My MIL was absolutely the best. Once we had settled on the number of guests we could afford to invite, she offered to contribute toward the wedding so that more guests from their circle of family and friends could be invited. Because I wasn’t sure if we could afford an open bar, she offered to cover it and did so. She organized the rehearsal dinner and did an absolutely splendid job. The day after the wedding, she put together a breakfast for some of our out-of-town guests at her home. On the wedding day, she stayed low profile so that my mother could join me in getting ready with my bridesmaids (and this I regret, not asking her to join us, but I was young and naiive at the time and it didn’t occur to me). On the day of the wedding, she took care of little things that others didn’t, like collecting the bridal gown after I’d changed into my travel clothes. When we traveled to another city, she asked a family member who was visiting her for the wedding to let us use their apartment so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel. She’s the best MIL one could hope for!
I was down the pub one summers day pre-Covid with a good mate of mine called Dan. Dan’s originally from Texas, ex-US Army 1st Sgt, and now living in the UK with his lovely wife. He’s been here long enough to have a good grasp of the British sense of humour.
We’re having a drink and chatting when my phone goes off, a number I don’t recognise and I answer, putting it on speakerphone. A thickly-accented Indian voice (who claims to be called ‘Hank’) on the other end tells me that he is the FBI, that i’ve got multiple warrants out for my arrest etc, but that if I pay them I won’t have to be arrested-bear in mind i’m in the UK and the FBI has no jurisdiction over here. Having sunk a few pints by then, i’m in the mood for a wind-up. I ask for details of these warrants, tell him that they’ll never catch me, then I ask him if he knows Special Agent Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson’s character in ‘Criminal Minds’). He replies that Agent Hotchner is on holiday at the moment. I tell him that I know this as he’s sitting right beside me, and he’d like a word with him. I hand the phone to Dan and sit back to enjoy the show. Dan goes all in, quoting legal codes, threatening traces, freezing of their assets, criminal charges, the works! Needless to say the call ended not long after
China has a really sweet deal with Russia right now. I can not think of a single reason to change it (from China’s perspective.)
China is desperately short of fossil fuels and Russia is a huge exporter of fossil fuels. They are even willing to build multiple pipelines to get natural gas to China.
Everything Russia sells to China goes at a 40–50% discount because of China’s manipulation of its two-currency system.
Everything Russia buys from China comes with a 40–50% markup. Same reasons. Some things that are sanctioned go for as much as 4,000 times their original cost.
China is selling Russia billions a year in heavily marked up “dual use” goods such as military grade tires, military vehicles, body armor, night vision devices, helicopter engines, field medical kits, and even entire field hospitals. They also sell them considerable sanctioned goods, especially electronics, that Russia cannot make for itself.
They are compatible authoritarian governments.
China and Russia make an impenetrable voting bloc at the UN. Together, they can block any international initiative against either of them.
Supertramp – Take The Long Way Home (BEST QUALITY SOUND)
I once had a client who was, literally, the strongest man I’d ever seen. Harry was well-built and about 6′ 4″. Even though he was large to begin with, his sheer strength to size ratio was off the charts.
One day we were driving in the car together and a guy in a Mercedes cut Harry off in traffic. Harry expressed his displeasure at this move by honking his horn. “Mercedes guy” proceeded to flip Harry off and then he pulled over – I guess he was looking for a fight.
Harry pulled in behind him. He got out, then Harry got out. The other guy was about 6′ tall and slightly pudgy, but not small by any means. However, once Mercedes guy saw Harry, he hurriedly returned to his car. BUT, he forgot one very important thing. His sunroof was open.
Harry, usually a fairly reasonable guy, was beyond pissed off. He went up to the guy’s car, PULLED him out THROUGH THE SUNROOF, put him on the street, turned him upside-down and STUFFED him back in his car, once again THROUGH THE SUNROOF.
Then Harry calmly strolled back to the car, got in, and we drove off. I glanced in the side view mirror and could see Mercedes guy’s feet sticking up through the roof kicking around a bit. Too funny!
I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. Harry passed away a few years later, but I’ll never forget him or what he did that day. It was an awesome sight!
Running late
The other morning as I was running late for an appointment I drove past a park and from a distance, I saw this young girl sitting on the bench and it looked like she was crying… I continued to drive and I thought to myself “what if that was me or even worse.. my daughter”.
So, I turned around and pulled into a parking spot, opened my car door and walked over to her and set down beside her.
She was crying so hard that she didn’t know I was there until I tapped her on the shoulder and asked: “Are you okay?” She looked up at me and said “No” “He cheated on me” “I don’t want to even live anymore” I knew at this point, I needed to take as much time as I could to talk to this young girl.
We sat there on that bench and talked the entire afternoon about relationships, life, and future goals and when the time came we finally said our goodbyes so I walked back to my car and as I started to back out, I looked back at her and she was walking towards me with her head down.
When she came up to the window, she confessed to me that she thought about taking her own life and because of me stopping and talking to her she decided that wasn’t in her best interest anymore.
Needless to say, I might have missed an appointment but I also might have saved a life.
Sweet, sweet summer child. Let me share with you a day in the life of a young Japanese Salaryman, if you’ll indulge me.
Clearly, you have never heard of the dreaded company 飲み会。
Ah, that magical moment when your boss tells the faculty, “Today was a good day, let’s go out drinking!”
“What’s that you say? You have plans? No, no, clearly you are mistaken. Because WE, the employees of the company have decided to go drinking. We have all made this decision, subconsciously, the very instant, I, the boss, mentioned it. 空気を読んで! Are we not the pinnacle of unity and harmony?”
And now, you’re off to a wonderful night of drinking with your coworkers. Who must drink with the boss, as long as he wants to drink.
“What’s that you say? You don’t like drinking? NONSENSE. You merely have not found the appropriate drink, which, I, the boss, know is just right for you. Have another cup with me!”
“Another!”
“Another!”
“Eh? Eh? You don’t feel so good. Fie, I say! You just need another drink. Perhaps a different sake.”
That’s going to go on for a bit, until you, the newbie, and your coworker, who has learned how to hold his liquor better, are on a street corner outside a hotel in Tokyo, the coworker kindly holding your head as you throw up everything you have ever eaten. They are kind and will give you water afterwards, as you swear you will never drink again.
I worked at a company where they were getting rid of a bunch of flat panel displays. They were old and had a funky plug on them, but worked perfectly fine. I asked the powers that be if we could take them home, since they were just going to trash them anyway. I was told that if you can bag them up, you can walk right past security in the lobby and you’ll be fine. You can’t just carry them out the door, though.
It turned out that one of my coworkers had a girlfriend who worked in a place that sewed custom bags for various industries. I gave him dimensions and 3 days later, we had bags we could use. Between the 6 techs I worked with, We walked out with about a dozen displays. We benefitted, the displays didn’t end up in a landfill, and a new line of bags was developed at my buddy’s gf’s company. It was a win-win-win.
At some point early in my marriage, we had a relatively large 6 bedroom house on a golf course subdivision with a pool and clubhouse. I had bought the nicest Lexus sedan I could afford, and a large SUV for my wife. We had two young kids. And we were miserable.
It wasn’t just about the money. These things were expensive for sure, and definitely weighed down our budget, but we could afford it.
The problem was time. I was busy with my business, working almost 7 days a week. My wife was taking care of the babies AND helping with the business. We almost never took vacations. A rare weekend off was like a vacation.
I’d be reading or playing with the kids and the phone would ring. The laughter turned off like a switch while I go to another room to talk. It’s like the world paused while the family waited to hear if I had to leave or not. Sorry, gotta run! I’d leave before even hearing if the kids said “bye daddy.”
I’m sure you’ve seen the Disney movie, Aladdin. I was the Genie. Giver of gifts. Solver of problems. All powerful being. But no more than a slave. The business owns you. Clients own you. The mortgage owns you. Just like the Genie, I longed for freedom.
One day, my wife and I looked at each other and asked “what are we doing?”
I started interviewing for jobs and got hired relatively quickly. Within a few months, we closed the business, sold our house, and moved. It was like Aladdin setting the Genie free.
It turned out that I work half the time, making pretty much the same as before.. I still drive the same car, which is now 15 yrs old. We live in a house half the size of what we had. I see my kids more than most dads I know. I am an equal participant in their homeschooling. We go on vacations multiple times a year.
Life isn’t perfect, but definitely there is more happiness now.
Addendum: Thanks for reading and the upvotes!
I’d like to add that it’s definitely possible to have a business or earn a lot and have a big house, nice cars, etc. AND afford family time. It’s not mutually exclusive at all. I know a lot of people who have it all. If you can find that lifestyle, go for it. I just didn’t have it in me, but that’s OK.
I applaud those who answer these types of questions honestly. After all, I believe that the younger ones who ask these questions want honest answers as to what they have in store. What they don’t want is old people trying to prove they’re doing great and that they’ve still got it, without offering any balancing disclosures.
I get irritated with people who answer these questions with only a list of all the great things they’re still able to do. They sky-dive, hike, kayak blah blah blah. They so desperately seem to want to come across like they’re still twenty. THEY ARE NOT. And the men nearly always have to show off about how they’re still sexually active (failing to mention they need boatloads of viagra to do it.) And no offence, but NOBODY wants to picture old people still at it.
Now some of these people are flat-out lying, and some are being honest. But, my irritation isn’t because some are truthfully still active and fit; it’s because, whilst crowing about their experience of older age, they’re leaving out the shitty parts of ageing.
It’s perfectly okay to admit that despite still being fit enough to kayak, and despite being generally content and more enlightened, you’re also struggling with physical issues, fears, societal prejudices, or sadness.
You’re struggling with friends who have cancer or have already passed.
You’re struggling with your own mortality.
You’re struggling with the knowledge that you’ll soon enough be of no real use to your children anymore.
You’re struggling with the saggy stranger you see in the mirror.
You’re becoming more invisible to the public at large.
You’re struggling with lessons learned too late in life.
You’re struggling with questions like ‘What the fuck was all that about?’
You’re struggling with dodgy knees, age spots and overall deterioration.
You’re struggling with energy levels and motivation (not all the time, but certainly some of the time.)
At times, you’re struggling with boredom; not every old person is sky-diving 24/7.
Your memory is not what it used to be.
Weight (for many) cannot be managed, no matter what.
The absolute worst part is losing friends and relatives along the way. Your social circle becomes smaller and smaller.
Then you have widows and widowers who have to grapple with a whole new way of life at their age after having relied on another person for decades.
It unnerves me that so many people are so hell-bent on proving something rather than sharing the reality, inevitability, vulnerability and, even the beauty, of life’s cycle. That you know your time is gradually coming to a form of decline and close, despite the fact that you might still be able to kayak.
There’s just something very self-congratulatory about those proclamations. Something which I imagine makes certain other older people feel like they’re failing or not doing enough, and that also sets young people up for thinking that ageing is one big picnic.
It’s okay to still be enjoying your life at whatever age without portraying ageing as a hunky dory affair. It isn’t. On some fronts, it’s way, way better, but on other fronts, it positively stinks. (Just as I imagine most teens would describe their teenage years.)
It was in the military boot camp. Finnish military is based on conscription; it is colloquially called as “penis tax”. It means if you are a boy, you have to serve in the military on pain of imprisonment. Girls may volunteer, and I volunteered.
Draft dodging is made almost impossible in Finland, which means the military gets almost the whole cohort to service (except those who are exempted for health reasons or who chose civilian service instead). It is a genuine cross-section of the whole society – which mean that the military does not get only the best of the boys to rank and file, but also the worst.
It means you have to serve with people you would attempt to avoid at any price in civilian life; bullies, thieves, blue falcons, pranksters, antisocial cases, substance abusers, weakly talented etc. And then there are always those, who have an intention to make other people’s time miserable.
We girls slept in a separate dorm, but practised with boys. And unfortunately there was such Arschloch in our company. He especially picked on us girls (as we all were volunteer), and especially me.
In the end his picking, teasing, harassing and pushing my button went far enough. My service motivation was already on the rock bottom, and to say, he had harassed me to corner.
I didn’t care anymore if I lived or died. I just wanted it to end.
Puukko, the Finnish knife, is the only civilian item along the eyeglasses which can be carried while in uniform. It doubles as a sidearm and Every Finn has one, and getting one’s first puukko is a kind of coming to age ceremony for boys and girls. So I drew mine. He drew his.
We were now staring each other, with drawn knives, ready to strike and fight to death. I was ready to kill. I did not care anymore. He stared me with expressionless gaze. It was as if his eyes had been bottomless wells. I could sense no emotion.
Then the drill corporals came. They separated us, and I got yelled upon and roasted for good.
Yet military is a strange place. It works on its own rules. In civilian life, this would have been either an illegal threatening or an attempted manslaughter, and prison would have ensued. But nothing ensued; we were told to get shut up and not to say a word on what had happened. The noncoms did not want any troubles and fuss. It was as if they wanted to sweep everything under the carpet. This is understandable as the materiél is heterogeneous: internal squabbles and quarreling happens almost daily. Everyone was aware I had been pushed and picked on, and they realized it was a primitive reaction.
Strangely, I was left alone after that. Nobody picked on me anymore. But it was the absolute nadir of my military time.
Not only they are offered food, but also Polish families accept them in our homes (in fact I did too), and get everything free until they find a job or decide to leave. In fact, just today NGO’s helping Ukrainians stopped taking gifts. Their warehouses are full, there is more help than people that need it for now. (PS – Poles reading this – seriously, look at the FB groups what is needed, because there is more stuff that they need, and there are some things we lack. For example pampers’s and other baby and toddler stuff, as well as school utensils. But not everywhere, not in every city, watch your own, don’t just throw in gifts, volunteers are already overwhelmed with that kindness, nobody expected it will be so much)
Four main reasons: 1. For several hundred years we were one country:
(that red part) We accept our families and relatives, that is normal. We see them as our kin.
2. Belarus president Lukashenko admitted that he deliberately flew Middle Eastern and African immigrants to our border in order to wage hybrid war against us, and use them as weapons. And Belarus is now a combatant country against Ukraine side by side with Russia. We don’t negotiate with terrorists like this man, neither we bow to such threats. So against as he called it “war” declared, we stood an army on the border. Pretty normal thing to do with somebody threatening you with war, isn’t it?
3. We strongly believe that a war refugee should stay in the first safe country. For Ukraine we are the first safe country.
4. In our culture, it is expected for men to fight the war, or rebuild their country. Not to flee. And from Ukraine, we receive women and children. Not 80% males in military age. Those, in Ukraine, stay and fight. They are not let our by Ukrainian forces anyway.
No matter if someone finds those reasons valid or not, those are them.
As someone who hails from a culture where people typically their outdoor shoes before entering a home/temple/office/etc., I can only share my experience from that end of the spectrum.
The answer is simple and practical – we don’t want to track in dirt, mud, and the one billion other stuff that you can’t really see with the naked eye into our homes/temples/offices/etc.
For myself, I’m closer to the extreme end of the spectrum.
When I come home, not only do I remove my outdoor shoes and slip into my “indoor slippers” before stepping into my home, but I then go and change into my “indoor clothes” as well, before doing anything else.
Seeing people immediately plop onto their beds, still in their “outdoor clothes”, after arriving home makes me uncomfortable.
I also have an area in my apartment for setting aside “stuff I take outdoors but bring home”. Like the bag I bring to work, and all the coats, clothes, I wear to work – they all get neatly placed in this area before I go change into my “indoor clothes”.
And this is not just at home.
Although not all work places have an “outdoor shoes off” policy, the game studio I work at does.
And it is strictly enforced – if you have a “brain fart moment” and forget to take off your outdoor shoes before stepping into the studio proper, you’ll have quite a few people springing out of nowhere, breathing heavily down your neck, who will smile and politely point out that you’ve violated the rules of the inner sanctum and would you please go and take your outside shoes off and use the mop to wipe that part of the floor that you’ve stepped on with your outside shoes.
There’s even been talk of implementing a demerit point system to cut down on colleagues who have these “brain fart moments” – although I think it’s unlikely, as I’ve seen it happen only twice so far this year, and usually both times the guilty party was deep in thought about something work related (which makes the transgression somewhat forgivable…) .
It applies to everyone.
Doesn’t matter whether you’re the Director himself, a Lead, a Junior, an Intern, an External Freelancer, a Client, or the Cleaning Lady – everyone takes off their shoes before stepping into the studio proper.
That’s why we have a “take your outdoor shoes off here” entrance area right after you enter the main door.
You immediately take off your outdoor shoes and put it into one of the four tall shoe cupboards located to the side of the main door.
We also have a couple of these “shoe benches” in this entrance area. These are for people who need something to sit on while taking off / putting on their socks and shoes.
These “shoe benches” are also where we place our “inside slippers”.
It’s convenient – once we take off our “outside shoes” on one of these “shoe benches”, we can immediately reach for and slip into our “inside slippers” before then placing our “outside shoes” into the shoe cupboard.
We also have a few areas around the studio where there’s a low floor table with floor cushions to sit on.
These areas are used for group discussions, brainstorming sessions, tea-drinking sessions, I-just-need-to-take-a-short-break sessions, I-just-need-a-20-minute-nap sessions, etc
My favorite one is the one where it’s practically an indoor garden and we’ve outfitted the place to make it look like you’re inside a gazebo, with tea cups and tea pots on a side table.
Knowing that no one has tracked in dirt, mud, and the one billion other stuff that you can’t really see with the naked eye into the studio allows me to sit in these areas and enjoy my morning/afternoon tea with peace of mind.
Might not qualify as the weirdest flex but certainly one of the most bad ass.
Kerry Packer was Australia’s richest man worth around 8 billion some 20 years ago. His gambling feats were legendary. He would often go to casinos and win or lose 10 million plus in one sitting. One time he won $26 million playing 6 hands of blackjack at $200,000 each. That’s $1.2 million per hand.
On top of that, whilst some of these may not be 100% accurate (Urban legends can get twisted over time) they all have some element of truth.
He’s been known to tip croupiers and waitresses 100s of 1000s of dollars and paying off their mortgages. Once he accidentally tipped a waitresses tray and apologised and arranged to pay her $100,000+ mortgage. Another time a dealer was offered an $80,000 tip by Packer but respectfully declined, informing him dealers are not allowed to accept gratuities. Packer called over the Pit Boss and demanded the dealer be sacked on the spot. The Pit Boss fired her. Packer then pushed forward the $80,000 worth of chips before demanding the Pit Boss re-hire her.
But then came the Texan oil tycoon coin flip…
Packer was playing every box at a blackjack table and not allowing anyone else to play or back bet at the table. This was a common practice by Packer and indeed a lot of big gamblers. But one time there was a braggart Texan oil baron throwing his weight around, complaining and telling all and sundry he was a big deal. He’s rich, he doesn’t have to wait for a table and who was this buffoon hogging it…Packer doesn’t walk around telling everyone how good he is and he doesn’t like people who do…
So Packer swivels around in his seat only for the Texan to double down, pointing his finger at the face of Packer and yelling some choice words finishing with, “I’m worth $100 million!” Packer slowly leans back in his chair, pulls a coin out of his pocket, stares at the Texan and calmly says, “So you want to gamble hey? I’ll flip you for it.” He was serious.
As the Texan quietly slunk away into the shadows, Kerry turned back to the table and continued like nothing had happened.
Bad ass…
Cabbage Patch Stew
Ingredients
1 pound ground meat – beef, turkey, venison
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped cabbage
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 (16 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 to 2 teaspoons chili powder
Bisquick dumplings
Instructions
Cook and stir ground meat in Dutch oven until browned. Drain.
Add onions, cabbage and celery. Cook, stirring, until vegetables are light brown.
Stir in tomatoes, and kidney beans (with liquid), water, salt, pepper and chili powder. Heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer until cabbage is tender.
Meanwhile, prepare Bisquick dumplings. Drop by spoonsful into boiling stew. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes.
I picked up the phone (old school landline back in the day) and heard an angry voice say, “Where’s my money?” Since hanging up would only have convinced the caller that I was indeed the object of his rage, I stayed on the line and had what was for me an amusing conversation.
“You have the wrong number,” I said.
“What are you trying to pull?” he said. “You owe me $600.”
Further questioning revealed my interrogator was a drug dealer, had fronted an acquaintance a considerable amount of money, and was trying to collect with the (incorrect) phone number he’d been given. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I know where you live,” he threatened. “I’ll come over there and kill you “
“Do it,” I said. “Since I’m not who you think I am, it’s no skin off my teeth.”
The conversation went on, I was unfailingly polite the whole time, I eventually excused myself and hung up, and he called back and tried again. Finally I said, “Look, man, your friend cheated you. I hope you find him, but I’m not your man.”
“Yeah, thanks anyway,” he said in a dejected voice and hung up.
I’m gonna have to say Charlie Sheen takes this award.
He was making tens of millions of dollars each year with his Sitcom, Two & Half men.
In the acting world, sitcoms are the best gigs.
The acting demands are super easy. The scripts are cookie cutter. After a few laps around the track, you learn to crank these episodes out one after another.
You come in, you shoot, boom you are done. They shoot entire seasons over a few weeks sometimes.
But he started in with the cocaine and we all know what happened next:
And what stinks (for Charlie) is that, around this time, he had gone through a divorce and judges issued alimony/child-support payments based on his current income.
He was paying his ex-wife Brooke Mueller $55,000 a month in child support AND his ex-wife Denise Richards $50,000 a month.
His income instantly ceased when he was on TV, going on these crazy tirades that were funny in the moment but catastrophic to his career.
What producers wants to work with a liability like that? Who wants to be publicly targeted by one of your own actors?
Combine his alimony/child-support payments, his drug habit, and preference for high end prostitutes.
And you have a dead career, HIV and a quickly depleting bank account.
I remember when I had one ten year old in my class, and we were oil and water to each other. One day I chastised her for swearing in class and she told me that she was going to get me back and I’d be sorry (presumably for scolding somebody as important as she was). The next day, my colleague, a teacher who was senior to me, came to me to tell me the student had complained I’d hit her. When I told him that it was a complete fabrication on her part, he told me, and I quote, “Well, she wouldn’t lie.”
I told him that I was offended, since the clear inference was that he believed I was lying. And I resented the implication that I was a liar who would abuse a child.
I was very relieved when she moved to his class the next year and decided she didn’t like him anymore than she had liked me and began to spread stories about him. When he complained about her in the staff room, I looked him in the eye and said, “Well, she wouldn’t lie.”
In Boston in the early 1700s Cotton Mather introduced variolation for the treatment and prevention of Smallpox. In those days, Boston was a town (it didn’t become a city until 1822) of about 4000 people. Every year AT LEAST 30 percent of the population came down with Smallpox, a virulent disease which disfigured the survivors, turned their teeth black, and caused them enormous pain. In a town with only 4000 people where everyone literally depended on everyone else, having 1200 people laid up meant that at least another 1000 had to be caring for them – or digging graves.
And then came the miracle of variolation. For the first time the possibility of ending this horrible scourge was REAL. It was no longer necessary to organize long and tedious and useless prayer vigils. There was science and medicine that had a REAL IMPACT and saved many people from the hideousness or scars and rotten teeth or worse, death.
Do you think the citizens were excited about this? NO THEY WERE NOT. They tried to kill Mather; they tried to burn down his house. They tried to kidnap his children because they were innoculated and therefore “impure”. You see, catching a horrible disease and becoming scarred and even dying at the age of six month was GOD’S WILL. If GOD wants you to get sick, who are YOU to interfere with his plan? Those people were the worst kinds of hypocrites. They wanted to do whatever they wanted if they weren’t caught or “seen by God” (such as the city Father offering to commute Mary Dyer’s death sentence if she slept with him. She didn’t and she swung.) but other than that they have to “virtue signal” that God was in charge and therefore YOUR CHILD had to suffer and die from Smallpox (especially if mine did last year).
The people in Texas are largely brainwashed by religious morons who fly big jets paid for by the suckers who are willing to fight to let any number of women and children die in childbirth or otherwise because a Rolex-wearing priest told them it was GOD’S WILL and we are not to interfere with it (while those same pastors get plastic surgery and drive Bentleys)
Eventually, the people of Boston woke up to the benefits of variolation and inoculation and many of the people throwing bricks through the windows of Mather’s house during the day suddenly showed up at midnight with their children and begged for the scratch that would change their lives for the better, the same way that Republicans fly to Massachusetts from Texas when they need an abortion or real medical treatment but put their boot on the neck of the poor and force them to die or give birth to a rapist’s child. Ken Paxton is absolutely no different from the Magistrate who tried to extort sex from Mary Dyer – then hanged her when she refused.
China has set up special financial facilities for Iranian accounts that are immune to us Treasury sanctions, because the entire payment mechanism is independent of the US dollar.
In other words, the US cannot threaten hegemonic destruction, unless they are willing to attack key nodes in the Chinese financial system.
Besides, the US is ALREADY sanctioning both Iran and China. Iran’s sanctions approach that of an embargo while China has been busy fending off America’s “maximum pressure” strategy that includes illegal tariffs, the closure of a consulate, a genocide determination, the removal of Hong Kong’s special status, the economic slaughter of Huawei and other Chinese companies, and many, many more direct and indirect acts of malice.
China must have thought since we’re already under maximum pressure, what China does or doesn’t do no longer matters because America can always pin something on us.
With or without Iran, America will bring it on and up the pressure game.
What we don’t know is when the Chinese will start baring teeth and attack instead of parry.
My younger self is a guy who never took anything seriously in life, who never studied in the least, who was happy with a pass mark in most exams and was happy go lucky
I would pick the books, visit a friend named Sairam who was what you would call a Nerd on the LAST DAY and study from the beginning and get a 45–50 mark score without understanding too much
My 21–22 year old self went to a Grindlays bank interview, couldn’t answer a SINGLE QUESTION put to me on world affairs or anything else
I was literally like Santhanam in Vaalu
Total Humiliation
My rebirth was after this interview
My second innings began after this
Reading books in English, Dickens, Forsyth, Le Carre
Membership of British Council and reading books on History and Geography
Learning Economics in evening classes while working in the morning
It was a wake up call
Without that interview, I would have ended up definitely in a place where I simply wouldn’t even know what Quora is
The British government may want to attract Hong Kongers for financial reasons. The British public may be less welcoming.
I think a large percentage of immigrants are experiencing dissonance between what they expected and what they are experiencing. Many are unemployed or underemployed because of language and education/skill incompatibilities. There will be culture shock, feelings of alienation, depression, family problems, financial issues, etc.
Whether they want to (or can) come back to Hong Kong is debatable. Some sources say many do not plan to, despite the problems they are having. If they left because of anti-China/anti-government sentiments, then they cannot reconcile themselves to return. If they were involved in the 2019 riots, they may fear arrest (or “persecution” from their point of view). But more likely, if they sold their property in Hong Kong, they cannot afford to start over.
The immigrants are only in UK on a five-year visa, after which they can apply for settlement and citizenship. I suspect that a lot of them will find that citizenship is not forthcoming. What happens then? Do their visas get renewed or do they have to leave? If they have to leave, where can they go?
My husband saw a woman at the dry cleaners who was acting very badly. Rude, entitled, aggressive – nearly spitting her words – the customers behind her were visibly uncomfortable, eyes lowered, feet shifting. It was one of those cases where you cringe inwardly for the employee being berated unfairly. Even if she was having a very bad day, this was – in my husband’s words – “…way over the top.”
She then made the great mistake of believing that she had supporters among fellow customers. In a plea for crowd support, randomly turning toward my husband, she said: “You agree with what I’m saying, don’t you?” Sadly for her, my husband had witnessed the conversation from start to finish.
“No, ma’am. I heard it all, and, I don’t agree with what you’ve said or how badly you’ve acted. First, you treated this store employee with blatant disrespect while he is trying to assist you. Second, you’ve inconvenienced other customers waiting for your tantrum to subside. Third, I am a small business owner, and if you acted like this in my business you would be asked to leave. You need to get ahold of yourself, and you owe this man (the store employee) an apology.” The woman then spun on her heel and walked out – and my husband was met with applause from other customers and a look of sheer relief from the store employee.
I honestly cannot stand it when I see a store employee being verbally abused. Cheers to my spouse for being a stand-up guy!
I have a relative who has never been outside her comfort zone. She’s in her 70’s and lived with her parents until they died, and then continued living in the same house she inherited. She never leaves her home village, and doesn’t have a passport or a Driving License. She’s never left the UK. I doubt if she’s ever left England. She’s never had a romantic relationship and obviously never been married.
She’s remarkably unambitious and satisfied. She is very sweet and quite eccentric, and lives surrounded by toy owls and cats. She complains about her health issues, but she’s quite positive generally. She used to do the hairdressing at a local old peoples home, but lives off the state pension now. She’s poor but perfectly happy.
I’d say that living a happy life is for her a good thing that has come out of staying in her comfort zone. We aren’t all the same.
I had a Chinese-English dictionary when I was in the ADC. And I studied it constantly. I would practice drawing the characters and memorizing the tones. I don’t really think that it ever helped me, but it did keep me focused on my goals and dreams on what I would do once I got out, and free from the USA.
For a short while, my father would xerox off pages from a learn-Chinese book, and later on, after he died, my sister bought me two introduction books of Chinese that I studied.
Every day, I had a routine.
I would sit on my rack from around 9am up to lunch and study Chinese. Then I would do my job, and come back and study again from 4pm to chow. Overall, I studied on average about 8 hours a day.
Of course, everyone made fun of me. But it was my way of coping and dealing. All of us did it. It’s just that my way was studying in Chinese. For others it was drugs, boxing or gambling for cigarettes.
Let the rest of the world howl. Perhaps it did or didn’t help me, but one thing for certain, it keep me focused on my dream. Perhaps you too have a dream.
Stay focused.
Today… some confirmation of my previous vision of Gonzalo…
Gonzalo Lira was tortured, extorted, and reportedly has died in a Ukraine prison for just reporting the news. The US State Department refused to help Lira, a US citizen, because Lira’s journalism didn’t serve Kiev or the Biden administration. Here’s a quote from WSAU:
WASHINGTON DC (WSAU) – 55-year-old American journalist Gonzalo Lira has reportedly died in a Ukrainian prison after nearly eight months of imprisonment.
According to the Post Millennial, Lira was arrested by Ukrainian security in May 2023 after he was reportedly critical of President Vladimir Zelensky’s handling of the war being fought against Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine.
Lira’s comments included claims that Ukraine’s efforts to win the captured territory back have gone nowhere and their people are dying for a war that is already lost.
Chinese politicians have a grand dream: a global community with a shared future for mankind.
People all over the world are prosperous and living a happy life together. What a wonderful world it is. With the development of modern technology and the completion of automation and intelligence, humans can produce material conditions that provide everyone with a happy life. There is currently a lack of a system that unites humanity around the world.
China needs to first become a beautiful country and then influence the surrounding countries. Ancient China used this strategy. Ancient China first built its own country into a prosperous and strong country, and then neighboring countries envied China and learned about its culture and system. For example, Japan has sent more than ten batches of international students to study in China.
The foundation of a country is its people. If the people live a happy life, then the country is strong; if the people are poor and destitute, then the country is weak. Many rulers of countries do not understand this truth.
Food is paramount to the people. This is an ancient Chinese saying and the foundation of governing a country. When there are signs of chaos in the world, China will purchase a large amount of food. In terms of food safety, economically developed provinces in the east have begun to implement full monitoring of food production processes.
In terms of housing, the central government is implementing housing reform, which is a slow process.
In terms of transportation, China has built a national transportation network and has been continuously improving it.
In terms of cultural and entertainment, China actively promotes the promotion of justice, promotes healthy cultural information, and actively reports positive information. The network firewall successfully blocked junk culture.
I believe that China should first become a future country, and then drive countries around the world to become future countries. The the Belt and Road policy is the link between China and global human development, and also an opportunity for the development of countries around the world.
The PLAAF’s PL-17 AAM was caught on camera again, this time in a full loadout:
The PL-17 is special for two reasons:
It’s the longest range AAM in the world at 400 km (estimated by British intelligence)
It’s actually a ballistic missile. It doesn’t fly straight towards the target. Instead, it flies into the stratosphere where there’s much less air friction and cruises there to the target. Then it trades its potential energy (altitude) into kinetic energy in its terminal attack phase.
Like most high-end BVR AAMs, the PL-17 has both active radar and optical guidance. The optical guidance makes it much harder to jam when it has entered its terminal phase and can actually see the target.
—
This latest photo showing four J-16s is special because it demonstrates just how much the J-16 can carry: at least two PL-17s in addition to a bunch of other PL-10, 12s and 15s. If it only carries the PL-17 and no other missile type, the J-16 may be able to carry 3 or even 4 missiles. This proves the J-16’s value as a “missile truck”, similar to the USAF’s F-15EX.
The difference is that the USAF has no equivalent to the PL-17. The longest range American AAM is the AIM-120D, with an estimated range of 160 km. The only other American missile to challenge the PL-17’s range is the AIM-260 JATM, which is still in development.
In a head to head engagement, the PL-17 gives the PLAAF a significant first strike advantage against the enemy’s key aerial assets, like AWACS, EW, etc. Loss of these aerial force multipliers would be crippling, and force the USAF to retreat or be destroyed before their radars can even spot their Chinese counterparts. The Americans would effectively be blind.
—
The only other nation to field a AAM of comparable capability is the Russians with their Vympel R-37, a hypersonic (Mach 5) missile with a range of close to 400 km. Unlike the PL-17, it is not a ballistic weapon, and flies straight for the target instead. It’s also much thicc-er than the PL-17. Combat usage of the R-37 in Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to keep Ukrainian fighters from closing the distance against their Russian counterparts for fear of getting hit by this monster.
MiG-31 armed with four R-37s. Keep in mind that the MiG-31 is more a bomber than it is a fighter.
What it is really about
The War In Ukraine Is Done
The Washington Post has produced a long, two part piece, about the failed ‘counter-offensive’ in Ukraine. It dispenses equal blame on the U.S. and British planning of the whole mess and the Ukrainian execution of it.
Key elements that shaped the counteroffensive and the initial outcome include:
Ukrainian, U.S. and British military officers held eight major tabletop war games to build a campaign plan. But Washington miscalculated the extent to which Ukraine’s forces could be transformed into a Western-style fighting force in a short period — especially without giving Kyiv air power integral to modern militaries.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials sharply disagreed at times over strategy, tactics and timing. The Pentagon wanted the assault to begin in mid-April to prevent Russia from continuing to strengthen its lines. The Ukrainians hesitated, insisting they weren’t ready without additional weapons and training.
U.S. military officials were confident that a mechanized frontal attack on Russian lines was feasible with the troops and weapons that Ukraine had. The simulations concluded that Kyiv’s forces, in the best case, could reach the Sea of Azov and cut off Russian troops in the south in 60 to 90 days.
The United States advocated a focused assault along that southern axis, but Ukraine’s leadership believed its forces had to attack at three distinct points along the 600-mile front, southward toward both Melitopol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov and east toward the embattled city of Bakhmut.
The U.S. intelligence community had a more downbeat view than the U.S. military, assessing that the offensive had only a 50-50 chance of success given the stout, multilayered defenses Russia had built up over the winter and spring.
Many in Ukraine and the West underestimated Russia’s ability to rebound from battlefield disasters and exploit its perennial strengths: manpower, mines and a willingness to sacrifice lives on a scale that few other countries can countenance.
As the expected launch of the offensive approached, Ukrainian military officials feared they would suffer catastrophic losses — while American officials believed the toll would ultimately be higher without a decisive assault.
Key findings from reporting on the campaign include:
Seventy percent of troops in one of the brigades leading the counteroffensive, and equipped with the newest Western weapons, entered battle with no combat experience.
Ukraine’s setbacks on the battlefield led to rifts with the United States over how best to cut through deep Russian defenses.
The commander of U.S. forces in Europe couldn’t get in touch with Ukraine’s top commander for weeks in the early part of the campaign amid tension over the American’s second-guessing of battlefield decisions.
Each side blamed the other for mistakes or miscalculations. U.S. military officials concluded that Ukraine had fallen short in basic military tactics, including the use of ground reconnaissance to understand the density of minefields. Ukrainian officials said the Americans didn’t seem to comprehend how attack drones and other technology had transformed the battlefield.
In all, Ukraine has retaken only about 200 square miles of territory, at a cost of thousands of dead and wounded and billions in Western military aid in 2023 alone.
All those points played a role.
My personal ones:
Both, the Ukraine and its supporters, systematically underestimated Russian capabilities. (And still do.)
Satellite reconnaissance showed Russian defense preparations on the level of the Battle of Kursk. There the German Wehrmacht, after way too long preparations, failed to break the Russian lines. The unlearned lesson from 1943: When you see defense lines like these, try something else.
Battle simulations and table top war games have a ‘moral factor’ input for each side. Setting your sides’ factor to 10 and the enemy’s factor to 0, as the U.S. and UK obviously did, will let you win every time – but has no relation to reality.
Air support would not have helped. Russian air defenses are too strong to counter it.
The decision to use barely trained, ‘green’ brigades without any fighting experience was a serious error.
Not to use smoke grenades and, in general, means of deception, was not reasonable at all.
To have half of the new troops, the more experienced part, fight Zelenski’s already lost battle for Bakhmut, was a major political mistake.
All together made sure that the so called ‘counter-offensive’ never had a chance to take off. The bickering now is just an attempt to put the blame for the failure onto the other side of the table.
The Ukrainian General Zaluzny has learned from the battle. He now puts up somewhat realistic numbers to let the U.S. understand how small its chances to win really are:
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was informed during a visit to Kyiv that Ukraine needed 17 million rounds of ammunition and that US$ 350-400 billion worth of assets and personnel would be required to liberate the country. … Quote from a senior Defence Forces official: “Austin was told 17 million rounds of ammunition were needed. He was stunned, to put it mildly, because you wouldn’t be able to collect that many rounds in the whole world.”
The Ukrainian army does not have the ten thousands of barrels required to fire 17 million rounds. Nor has it the men to feed those imaginary guns.
Zaluzny obviously thinks that the war is lost and done with. And that it is time for politics that pursue peace:
In addition, according to a source, Austin also said Zaluzhnyi had complained privately to American generals about interference from the President’s Office [..]: “Austin told us privately that Zaluzhnyi was always complaining to his generals about the President’s Office and how it obstructed him. Well, obviously the president learned about those conversations too. And that isn’t conducive to trust.”
However, the President’s Office is inclined to believe that Zaluzhnyi’s dismissal would facilitate his political career.
It is high time for the Biden administration to wrap this whole thing up. Do the usual thing: declare victory, leave and forget-about-it.
Whatever happens thereafter will be left for the footnotes.
Posted by b on December 5, 2023 at 7:09 UTC | Permalink
Jingling, tingling
Group: nmixx
When World War 3 Breaks-Out and Arrives HERE in the USA, Liberals, Progressives, Socialists, Marxists, Should be BULL-WHIPPED TO DEATH By Their conquerors
On my radio show tonight, I was asked by a caller what is likely to happen to New England when WW3 Breaks out and all the military-age illegals who are embraced by liberals, take-up arms and attack us? I told him the Liberals should be BULL-WHIPPED TO DEATH because their efforts at Gun-Control have left them unable to defend themselves, and the illegals they embrace, will be their conquerors.
I went on to point out that Liberals, Progressives, Socialists, Marxists and their ilk are too stupid to be considered Americans anyway, so losing them won’t amount to much. The trouble with these dimwits is that they spread their idiocy to others, which will endanger the rest of the country.
Your thoughts about my remarks? Subscribers can offer their thoughts below in the Subscriber comment area.
Be wary of people who try to sell their pity as kindness. They may pretend they feel compassion toward you by supporting you during difficult times, but in reality, all they can offer you is some pity you never asked for.
Hard work will always beat talent. If you are talented at something, you already have a head start in life, but if you never combine it with hard work, you might as well never had it in the first place.
The power of little gestures. Even a little gesture of kindness can make someone’s day more than you can imagine.
The destructive nature of negative words. Whether you want it or not, you end up taking some words to heart automatically, so it’s important not to use words as weapons that can inflict damage on someone.
Sometimes it may seem like life only gets harder. But even then, it’s important not to lose hope for a better future because if you lose hope, you lose everything.
You can’t expect a person to change for you because in most cases, they rather cling to their old ways than find new ones. And maybe you’d not want to change them anyway unless they are a toxic person doing all the wrong things.
It’s better to have no one to depend on rather than being surrounded by fake people who pretend they care for you when in reality they secretly celebrate all your downs in life.
Don’t stay friends with someone who doesn’t know how to be happy for you. They are not your real friend.
You have to leave your comfort zone in the present to secure a comfortable future.
Betraying your intuition means betraying your best interests. When your intuition gives you an awful feeling about something, retreat. It’s like a danger alert that is ingrained in human biology from birth, so it’s important to make use of it by not missing any of those danger alerts.
An ifn’ I don’t…
Magnolia Bar and Grill Crawfish Etouffee
Ingredients
1 pound cleaned crawfish tails
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
2 thin slices lemon
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon green onion
1 tablespoon parsley
Instructions
Use a saucepan with a tight fitting lid to “Etouffee”.
Season crawfish tails with salt and pepper; set aside.
Melt butter, add chopped onion, and cook over medium heat until onions are tender.
Stir in flour, blend well, and add 3/4 cup water, lemon and tomato paste, and cook slowly for about 20 minutes, and add a little more water occasionally.
When sauce is done, add crawfish tails; cover with lid. Cook for 8 minutes.
Season again, to taste.
Add green onion and parsley; cook 2 minutes longer.
This is the story of a deaf and blind man who decides to fly – alone – across the country to visit his sister.
When he arrives on board, the stewardesses have difficulty communicating with him because although he manages to say a few words here and there, he cannot hear them. To help himself, he touches their face and hand in hopes of understanding their intention, but the task seems difficult.
His neighbor gave up his seat (on the aisle), prepared drinks for him, sugar in coffee, spoon, etc. and led him to the toilet, but it was impossible to communicate with this man.
Then the flight crew had an idea: why not call to see if any of the passengers on board knew sign language?
Here comes this 15 year old girl, she is dyslexic and it was her learning difficulty that made her decide to learn sign language rather than any other:
Very patiently, the girl began to “sign” each letter against the passenger’s hand, which allowed them to start a conversation.
This teenager did not skimp on making this man’s journey much more pleasant and comfortable than if he had been locked in his solitude.
The passenger who took the photo and witnessed the scene described the moment as very moving and it’s easy to understand why.
TLDR: I was seen totally nude, mid-coitis, by 4 male police officers with guns drawn, shouting “Krystal are you safe? This is the POLICE! Krystal are you ok?” And I am not Krystal. Lol.
I dated (for the brief period of 5 weeks) a very unstable male. I knew at 4 weeks there was no way we would last, he had already become physically violent and had about ten older women believing he was their knight in shining armor, via the internet. He explained that they sent him money, that was why he even talked to them. Gag me with a keyboard, right? He decided to stalk me after I ended things. Fast forward a few months. I was getting to know a different male, and we decided to get physical, but in a non-violent manner, if you catch my drift. Right in the heat of the moment I hear the back door of the house being violently kicked open. Followed by shouts of “Krystal are you safe? POLICE!! Krystal, are you ok?” Then the bedroom door opened and 4 male police officers with guns drawn burst through the doorway. My name is not Krystal, my roommate (who was out of town) is Krystal.. I hastily climbed off of my guest and threw on a large hoodie then ushered the officers out of the house. Turns out my stalker ex had called the police pretending to be the next door neighbor, claiming it sounded as if a violent altercation was taking place and they were worried their dear neighbor Krystal was being murdered. He actually (convincingly) made his voice sound like a little old lady. Just in case it wasn’t known, the cops are able to see what number a call is made from even when the person tries to hide it with an app like TextNow. They told me the # that had made the call and I was able to show them it was in fact my ex’s phone number. One of the officers saw the blip of a text message while I was showing them that it was his number and asked to see the conversation. All of this while wearing a hooded sweatshirt that came down to my mid-thigh. Needless to say they went and arrested him for calling in a fake emergency, stalking, threatening to cause bodily harm (the messages said that he was going to dismember me after strangling me) and a few other charges like harassment.
When i took 8 Valium on top of the 6 i took earlier in the day, then realized a half a bottle of whiskey might not be enough. When i woke up the next morning(??) on the kitchen floor soaking wet and covered with mud, i asked my wife what had happened. She told me that i passed out outside, then it started to rain. She couldn’t lift me, so she “coached me” for half an hour getting me inside and up 5 stairs. That night- i did it again until eventually i made it to a detox/rehab where i was placed on a 17 day Valium taper. I was later informed it was their longest ever. I called my wife after a week(??) or so and told her to throw out the weed i was saving that knew i was gonna need after getting out of rehab. I had terrible tinnitus and shook horribly for months afterwards. It’s probably not the worst. Other people’s stories may be far worse but, well, you asked. P.S. I’ve beeb clean and sober ever since-almost 7 years now. Thanks God, for being there for me, whether i wanted you or not.
Be willing to let some parts of you die. Not all of you is perfect and you know it better than anyone else. So don’t be afraid to let some of it go. After all, that’s what personal growth is all about.
Don’t run away from yourself. This means facing your trauma(s), mistakes, and bad life decisions, no matter how unbearable it feels.
Don’t suppress your negative thoughts and emotions. You don’t have to act on them but you need to acknowledge them lest they turn into an unruly beast ready to devour you any second.
Come to terms with the fact that life is meant to be difficult. It’s a default setting you can’t change. The only thing you can do is to cope with it to the best of your abilities.
Keep in mind that suffering is cruel, yet a necessary teacher of life that can make you stronger and wiser.
Try not to stress about the things you can’t change. It will disrupt both your physical health and peace of mind.
Know when to share your burdens with others. It’s admirable to take care of things on your own, but it’s just as important to open up to those you trust when life gets too much.
Treat yourself with the same compassion you treat others. If you are nice and understanding toward your loved ones, you have no reason to treat yourself any differently.
Avoid whining. It’s alright to complain every once in a while but doing so constantly will fill your mind with negativity you can’t shake and make you feel miserable.
Remember that there’s more to life than being constantly happy. And you’d not want to be constantly happy anyway because you’d start taking happiness for granted. Your life would also become dull and uneventful, living like a character in one of those imaginary, utopian lands where everything is perfect all the time.
I worked as a courier for about 9 years. During that time, I never made more than $20,000 a year. More like I averaged around $18K.
A lot of my courier brothers were supporting families on that sort of income and they qualified for SNAP and some other food stamp like benefits.
Occasionally, they would save their nickels and then buy steaks and all the fixings for their family. Not often, but maybe every other Blue Moon they would do something nice for dinner.
These guys busted their asses 10–12 hours a day with no benefits, no Healthcare, no retirement and no paid holidays. They worked in the rain, in the cold and snow, they worked in ice storms and 115degF heat.
So what do I think about them using their hoarded nickels to buy a Lobster or some good Crab for the family once in a while? I think it’s none of your fucking business.
A guy I worked with back in the mid 80’s, had a reputation as a bit of a fantasist. He was a large, very over weight, half Chinese guy, figure like a sumo wrestler. Said he was a karate instructor, played drums in a band amongst a lot of other ourlandish claims. Said his dad was a friend of the Kays, and was the last man sentenced to hang in England. He was late to work a lot and always had the oddest excuses. One week he was late every day because, he said, the papers kept sending reporters around to interview him, because they were making a documentry about his dad. Every one chuckled about that one. Then a few weeks later, I was watching TV, and it was about this guy who had murdered someone. I had missed the beginning. This bit showed the mans wife visiting him in prison. She was Chinese, and had her little chubby boy with her. I looked the program up the the TV guide and yes, it was about his dad. A few weeks later I was at a school fete and he was there, with his karate pupils doing a demonstration, and later on his band played
Oct 7 ‘Disinfo’ Org Founded By Top Jewish Lobbyists – Full Scale Propaganda Effort
The largest Jewish Groups are forming what they call the Oct 7 ‘Disinfo’ Organization, to spin the events of that day, and shape the narrative. Even casual observers are calling this a full scale propaganda effort.
The most powerful Jewish interest groups in the US have gotten together to form the 10/7 Project – an effort to combat “Jewish hate in America and the world” and to dispel “myths” about the day’s events.
The organization will fund a centralized communications operation to feed mainstream newsrooms with ‘fact-based information’ about the war, and will also release a daily newsletter to inform news outlets what is being ‘underreported.’
It will be the biggest unified effort from the Jewish lobby in recent memory, with the American Jewish Committee (AJC), The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations working together.
Of course there are. But these people are weeded out by merciless competition.
The ones that rise are tested every step of the way, and only the best survive the climb.
That’s what competition looks like in a 1.4b society.
Chinese politicians who attend the Two Sessions are not chosen because they’re tall, good-looking or give nice speeches. They are chosen for exceptional performance over the sum total of their careers. Each person wields considerable influence or power in their professional or personal capacity. That’s why they are selected as the people’s representatives. Selection is largely immune from the influence of money.
Who Is Really Behind The Mass Slaughter In Gaza?
Who is really behind the Israeli mass slaughter of the people of Gaza?
Israel’s dependence on the United States was stated bluntly by retired IDF Maj. General Yitzhak Brick in an interview earlier this week.
“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”
The list of jobs is endless, I am not sure that all of them were professions. 40 years ago, I read an article about buying stocks, and it said buy quality, but understand the changes in the market. They talked about something that had happened 40 before I was born. Evidently a well known banker and investor said, that it wouldn’t hurt to buy a little stock in these new fangled automobiles, but keep the majority of your money, in something solid, like a good buggy whip manufacturing company. Fads will come and go, but you will always need a good buggy whip. He said that because buggy whips had been made for two thousand years, and it wasn’t going to change.
In my life time I saw the job of tinker disappear, he was someone, who could fix anything, if your glasses broke, if your electric frying pan broke, he could fix it. If you wore a hole in a pot, he would braze it, often they came door to door. We had door to door Fuller brush salesmen, sold brushes door to door. Milkmen delivered dairy products door to door. The bread man delivered baked goods door to door. Their used to be commercials for the Maytag repairman, and now its thrown out when broken.
Our little town still had a livery service when I was a kid, they looked after your horses when you came to town, but by my time, they mostly stored cars.
Movie theater usher, who would bring you in and show you your seat. Elevator operators, I always thought it was such a cool job. You closed an accordion door, then closed the outer door, then shifted the lever to up or down, and stopped it when it reached the floor you wanted. Sometimes requiring some fine tuning.
I had a girlfriend who was telephone operator. There used to be girls that would wander around night clubs, selling cigarettes and matches. Hat check girls.
Brake men in the caboose of a train.
Dragline operator.
Signal men, telegram and telegraph operators at train stations.
Telex operators.
Gestetner repair men.
I can see just as many jobs disappearing in the next 20 years as disappeared in the last 60 years, as self driving cars and trucks become main stream, as digital finishes wiping out paper, as online services and stores replace brick and mortar. Etc.
This happened about 15 years ago. My then partner came home from work very upset. Somewhere that day he had lost one of a pair of distinctive silver cuff links that I had gifted him for his birthday.
Probably a month later I was out in my car, driving an unfamiliar route in the countryside, when I noticed my fuel gauge flashing. I resolved to stop at the next fuel station which turned out to be in a small village. I pulled up at one of the three pumps and got out of my car to fill it. As I walked around to the side of my car with the fuel cap something caught my eye on the ground. Embedded in the top tarmac surface was something silver and shiny. I bent down to inspect it further and couldn’t believe it when I identified the item as a cuff link. Not just any old cuff link but THE lost silver cuff link. I used my car key to gently ease it out of the tarmac. Amazingly, it was undamaged.
That evening I asked my partner if he knew of the little village. He did recall he’d driven that route to a business meeting some weeks before. ‘And you filled your car at the petrol station?’ I asked. ‘’How did you know?’ he asked. I laughed as I handed him his missing cuff link.
I still can’t believe this incredible coincidence. I must’ve ‘guided’ to its location by an unknown force. It still weirds me out.
Until I retired I was a Plumber for fifty years. On this particular occasion I was working with a builder repairing the lead flashing around a chimney at the local church hall. To do the job safely we had set up a scaffolding that blocked the entry to the car park, but this should not have been a problem because the Church Commissioners had told us the church was waiting for the new vicar and no functions had been booked at the church hall.
We were working about 20 feet above the ground when a voice from below shouted “ Hey you!” I looked down to see a man in a grey suit and white dog collar. “Yes you!” he continued, “I have a Bible study class in twenty minutes and no one can get into the car park!”
I was surprised by his rather rude and aggressive tone but politely replied “I’m sorry, but we were told the church has no vicar and that there was nothing in the diary.”
“Well, there obviously is and you are blocking access to it. If you do not remove this scaffolding immediately I shall report you to your employers!” he shouted back.
It was then that I had a stoke of genius and replied. “ Very Christian of you sir.”
That immediately took the wind out of his sails and after a moment or two he replied, “Ahem, perhaps I was a trifle too hasty, carry on gentlemen.”
A guest came to stay for Thanksgiving, I had warned we had cats and dogs. They came anyway. They went to unpack in our guest bedroom. Half a hour later the husband came to me and said there was an issue. They had stripped the sheets off the beds and scrapped the mattress. Horror of horror there was cat fur. I immediately said” oh my, you can’t stay here, perhaps you should go to a hotel.” They did. As they are relatives we are civil but they are not invited to stay anymore.
The thing is, I knew the wife wanted to make trouble, I refused to fight and stayed calm. She didn’t win, I did.
Let me take this out of your hypothetical nonsense, and make it real. During the 1990’s I was a professional clown. I did birthday parties, wedding receptions, school shows, store promotions, holiday parties, company picnics – you name it, Violet P. Lavender was there. I even had several client families, where I would come celebrate the same child’s birthday three or four years in a row.
In one of those client families, there was an adorable little girl (I’ll call her Emily for this story). I met her at a cousin’s birthday party, and then was at her 4th birthday. I was happy to be at her 5th birthday as well. Because she lived in an area where Violet was very popular, Emily saw Violet four or five times during the year, in addition to her own birthday. That particular cluster of families really kept me on my toes, because I had to constantly rework my show, since all the kids saw me so often!
One day, I got a call asking me to come visit Emily, it was months too early for her 6th birthday – and to please come to the Children’s Hospital. I had a habit of visiting the hospital whenever I had free time between shows. This was the first time I was asked to come for a specific child.
When Violet arrived, Emily had been put into a private room. I was met in the hall, and warned that she was very weak and was quite fragile. They told me she did not know she was dying.
So, into that antiseptic, mostly white room filled with machines sailed Violet P Lavender. A totally Purple Person, with balloons and magic and fun! Emily smiled and clapped and used her precious energy to laugh. Only two visitors were allowed in the room at a time, so it was just me, Emily and one of her parents, with everyone else watching through the glass wall.
I stayed for only about 20 minutes. While I was saying goodbye, she took my hand and asked the hardest question… “Violet, will I ever see you again?”
I did what anyone in that position would do – I lied. I smiled at her and said “Of course you will! I’m going to be at your 6th Birthday Party!” That beautiful child shook her head sadly and gently told me, “Violet, I’m sorry. I’m not going to have any more birthday parties. I meant, will I see you again, in heaven?”
So much for her not knowing! Her mother bolted from the room, leaving me ‘alone’ to face that horrible truth with her.
So what does the atheist in a clown suit say to a child who wants to talk about heaven, as she lay dying?
I asked her “What do you think heaven is like?” She didn’t know, but she was scared that she would be all alone “up there” in a big house, with no one to talk to ever again.
Now, why would she think that? It seems some well meaning idiot had told her that God had prepared a Mansion just for her, in Heaven, and that she would be going there soon. And a Mansion was described to her as “a big house” … just for her! She was scared by the idea, and she did not want to go, but she couldn’t ask her mommy or daddy about it because (and she whispered this) “they don’t know I’m dying.”
So I laughed and told Emily that of COURSE she was not going to be alone! Her house was going to be on a street with lots of other kids, and right next to her street is the street where all the CLOWNS LIVE! And right past that is a big park where all the puppies and kittens play! (That made her smile.)
“Will you be there too, Violet?” Stubborn child! She wasn’t going to let it go! I told her I wouldn’t be there for a long time, but I had friends there, and she could tell them she knows me. Also, in her house there is a magic TV that she can use to watch over her friends and family who are still alive, while she is waiting for us to all join her. So she could watch me and her Mom and Dad and anybody else she wanted, any time she felt like!
She was relieved. She said she wasn’t scared anymore. Then reminded me not to say anything to her parents, because they are already so worried about her being sick, she didn’t want them to get sad about her dying.
I made it out of the room and into a nurse’s station before I started crying.
Violet did attend her next ‘party’ … I made sure her parents were ok with it, and Violet came to the funeral with a huge bunch of bright balloons, to say goodbye.
So the answer to your silly hypothetical question is – in REAL LIFE, you tell that child whatever you can so that they are not afraid and give them comfort.
ANY OTHER ANSWER regardless of your personal belief in an invisible guy building fancy houses in the sky is wrong.
The emotional well being of a dying child is more important than any religious or philosophical argument you could make.
1. Instead of responding immediately after someone says something to you. Wait a couple of second. This makes them feel like you’re really thinking about what you’re going to reply. And it makes you seem like a better listener. ( Don’t over do it ).
2. In a conversation, when someone is talking, nod your head in affirmation.
This will do so many things to their brain. First of all, it will give them that feeling of validation. It will make them feel like you’re truly listening to them and it is that feeling of validation that we search for unconsciously, that we got from our mom, and we’re searching in our partner, we’re searching in other people. So it becomes really addictive when you do this, and you make people feel validated.
3. When you’re talking to someone, always show the palms of your hands. This communicates to their subconscious mind that you have nothing to hide, that you are open, that they can trust you and you are their friend.
4. When you talk to someone try to match your body language and talk at the same volume and speed as they are.
This will tell subconscious mind that you are like them and they will trust you more
5. Ask people for their advice. Making them feel like their opinion matters. According to reasearch done by Katie Liljenquist makes them form a commitment to you and makes them like you more.
Example:
“What do you think I should order?”
“I think you should get the vegan burger, it’s really good”
A younger friend of my grandmother once said something that made her as angry as I have ever seen her. The 35-year-old was trying to stress the fact that her challenges and worries were different from those of a 75-year-old. She had in mind that some of life’s problems are over by the time you are 75, which may be true. But she said it in a terrible way.
You’ve lived your life.
Don’t make this mistake. Life can be just as sweet no matter how many birthdays you’ve had. And there is no age at which life’s failure to be sweet on any given day is not painful.
The 80- or 90-year-old has not “lived their life.” They are in the process of living it, just as you are.
OMG!
Ukraine Presidential Advisor: “The West Came to this war with no pants on”
The Emperor is naked . . . or so we now hear from the former Aide to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenski. Alexy Arestovich tells media outlets now that “The West came to war with its pants down” when it dealt with the Russian Army entry into Ukraine.
Commenting to media outlets, Arestovich pointed out “The Americans cannot produce a million shells a year, and North Korea can. What kind of war and victory are we talking about, what boundaries of 1991?”
Of course, when he speaks of the “Boundaries of 1991” he is referring to the then-break-up of the former Soviet Union and the “Boundaries” for NATO that were agreed-to by then US President George HW Bush. It was then Secretary of States James Baker who agreed, at a meeting, in the Kremlin in Moscow, with then Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev and then Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevrednadze, that NATO “will not move one inch eastward of the Elbe (River) in Germany.”
Of course, history shows that when Bush Sr. left office, and Bill Clinton came in as US President, that NATO boundary promise went right out the window. The map below shows NATO Expansion from 1949, and points out who was in and who was not in 1990 when Bush promised Gorbachev “not one inch eastward:
Yet, as shown by the countries imaged in purple, that promise to the Soviets went right out the window in the late 1990’s under then-President Bill Clinton.
Here’s how it went:
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.
The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”
President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (“I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests; but neither Bush nor Gorbachev at that point (or for that matter, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl) expected so soon the collapse of East Germany or the speed of German unification.[2]
The first concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher opened the bidding with a major public speech at Tutzing, in Bavaria, on German unification. The U.S. Embassy in Bonn (see Document 1) informed Washington that Genscher made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.’” The Bonn cable also noted Genscher’s proposal to leave the East German territory out of NATO military structures even in a unified Germany in NATO.[3]
This latter idea of special status for the GDR territory was codified in the final German unification treaty signed on September 12, 1990, by the Two-Plus-Four foreign ministers (see Document 25). The former idea about “closer to the Soviet borders” is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) offering assurances throughout 1990 and into 1991 about protecting Soviet security interests and including the USSR in new European security structures. The two issues were related but not the same. Subsequent analysis sometimes conflated the two and argued that the discussion did not involve all of Europe. The documents published below show clearly that it did.
The “Tutzing formula” immediately became the center of a flurry of important diplomatic discussions over the next 10 days in 1990, leading to the crucial February 10, 1990, meeting in Moscow between Kohl and Gorbachev when the West German leader achieved Soviet assent in principle to German unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east. The Soviets would need much more time to work with their domestic opinion (and financial aid from the West Germans) before formally signing the deal in September 1990.
The conversations before Kohl’s assurance involved explicit discussion of NATO expansion, the Central and East European countries, and how to convince the Soviets to accept unification. For example, on February 6, 1990, when Genscher met with British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, the British record showed Genscher saying, “The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” (See Document 2)
Having met with Genscher on his way into discussions with the Soviets, Baker repeated exactly the Genscher formulation in his meeting with Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze on February 9, 1990, (see Document 4); and even more importantly, face to face with Gorbachev.
Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6)
Afterwards, Baker wrote to Helmut Kohl who would meet with the Soviet leader on the next day, with much of the very same language. Baker reported: “And then I put the following question to him [Gorbachev]. Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position? He answered that the Soviet leadership was giving real thought to all such options [….] He then added, ‘Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.’” Baker added in parentheses, for Kohl’s benefit, “By implication, NATO in its current zone might be acceptable.” (See Document 8)
Well-briefed by the American secretary of state, the West German chancellor understood a key Soviet bottom line, and assured Gorbachev on February 10, 1990: “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity.” (See Document 9) After this meeting, Kohl could hardly contain his excitement at Gorbachev’s agreement in principle for German unification and, as part of the Helsinki formula that states choose their own alliances, so Germany could choose NATO. Kohl described in his memoirs walking all night around Moscow – but still understanding there was a price still to pay.
All the Western foreign ministers were on board with Genscher, Kohl, and Baker. Next came the British foreign minister, Douglas Hurd, on April 11, 1990. At this point, the East Germans had voted overwhelmingly for the deutschmark and for rapid unification, in the March 18 elections in which Kohl had surprised almost all observers with a real victory. Kohl’s analyses (first explained to Bush on December 3, 1989) that the GDR’s collapse would open all possibilities, that he had to run to get to the head of the train, that he needed U.S. backing, that unification could happen faster than anyone thought possible – all turned out to be correct. Monetary union would proceed as early as July and the assurances about security kept coming. Hurd reinforced the Baker-Genscher-Kohl message in his meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow, April 11, 1990, saying that Britain clearly “recognized the importance of doing nothing to prejudice Soviet interests and dignity.” (See Document 15)
The Baker conversation with Shevardnadze on May 4, 1990, as Baker described it in his own report to President Bush, most eloquently described what Western leaders were telling Gorbachev exactly at the moment: “I used your speech and our recognition of the need to adapt NATO, politically and militarily, and to develop CSCE to reassure Shevardnadze that the process would not yield winners and losers. Instead, it would produce a new legitimate European structure – one that would be inclusive, not exclusive.” (See Document 17)
Baker said it again, directly to Gorbachev on May 18, 1990 in Moscow, giving Gorbachev his “nine points,” which included the transformation of NATO, strengthening European structures, keeping Germany non-nuclear, and taking Soviet security interests into account. Baker started off his remarks, “Before saying a few words about the German issue, I wanted to emphasize that our policies are not aimed at separating Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union. We had that policy before. But today we are interested in building a stable Europe, and doing it together with you.” (See Document 18)
The French leader Francois Mitterrand was not in a mind-meld with the Americans, quite the contrary, as evidenced by his telling Gorbachev in Moscow on May 25, 1990, that he was “personally in favor of gradually dismantling the military blocs”; but Mitterrand continued the cascade of assurances by saying the West must “create security conditions for you, as well as European security as a whole.” (See Document 19) Mitterrand immediately wrote Bush in a “cher George” letter about his conversation with the Soviet leader, that “we would certainly not refuse to detail the guarantees that he would have a right to expect for his country’s security.” (See Document 20)
At the Washington summit on May 31, 1990, Bush went out of his way to assure Gorbachev that Germany in NATO would never be directed at the USSR: “Believe me, we are not pushing Germany towards unification, and it is not us who determines the pace of this process. And of course, we have no intention, even in our thoughts, to harm the Soviet Union in any fashion. That is why we are speaking in favor of German unification in NATO without ignoring the wider context of the CSCE, taking the traditional economic ties between the two German states into consideration. Such a model, in our view, corresponds to the Soviet interests as well.” (See Document 21)
The “Iron Lady” also pitched in, after the Washington summit, in her meeting with Gorbachev in London on June 8, 1990. Thatcher anticipated the moves the Americans (with her support) would take in the early July NATO conference to support Gorbachev with descriptions of the transformation of NATO towards a more political, less militarily threatening, alliance. She said to Gorbachev: “We must find ways to give the Soviet Union confidence that its security would be assured…. CSCE could be an umbrella for all this, as well as being the forum which brought the Soviet Union fully into discussion about the future of Europe.” (See Document 22)
The NATO London Declaration on July 5, 1990 had quite a positive effect on deliberations in Moscow, according to most accounts, giving Gorbachev significant ammunition to counter his hardliners at the Party Congress which was taking place at that moment. Some versions of this history assert that an advance copy was provided to Shevardnadze’s aides, while others describe just an alert that allowed those aides to take the wire service copy and produce a Soviet positive assessment before the military or hardliners could call it propaganda.
As Kohl said to Gorbachev in Moscow on July 15, 1990, as they worked out the final deal on German unification: “We know what awaits NATO in the future, and I think you are now in the know as well,” referring to the NATO London Declaration. (See Document 23)
In his phone call to Gorbachev on July 17, Bush meant to reinforce the success of the Kohl-Gorbachev talks and the message of the London Declaration. Bush explained: “So what we tried to do was to take account of your concerns expressed to me and others, and we did it in the following ways: by our joint declaration on non-aggression; in our invitation to you to come to NATO; in our agreement to open NATO to regular diplomatic contact with your government and those of the Eastern European countries; and our offer on assurances on the future size of the armed forces of a united Germany – an issue I know you discussed with Helmut Kohl. We also fundamentally changed our military approach on conventional and nuclear forces. We conveyed the idea of an expanded, stronger CSCE with new institutions in which the USSR can share and be part of the new Europe.” (See Document 24)
The documents show that Gorbachev agreed to German unification in NATO as the result of this cascade of assurances, and on the basis of his own analysis that the future of the Soviet Union depended on its integration into Europe, for which Germany would be the decisive actor. He and most of his allies believed that some version of the common European home was still possible and would develop alongside the transformation of NATO to lead to a more inclusive and integrated European space, that the post-Cold War settlement would take account of the Soviet security interests. The alliance with Germany would not only overcome the Cold War but also turn on its head the legacy of the Great Patriotic War.
But inside the U.S. government, a different discussion continued, a debate about relations between NATO and Eastern Europe. Opinions differed, but the suggestion from the Defense Department as of October 25, 1990 was to leave “the door ajar” for East European membership in NATO. (See Document 27) The view of the State Department was that NATO expansion was not on the agenda, because it was not in the interest of the U.S. to organize “an anti-Soviet coalition” that extended to the Soviet borders, not least because it might reverse the positive trends in the Soviet Union. (See Document 26) The Bush administration took the latter view. And that’s what the Soviets heard.
As late as March 1991, according to the diary of the British ambassador to Moscow, British Prime Minister John Major personally assured Gorbachev, “We are not talking about the strengthening of NATO.” Subsequently, when Soviet defense minister Marshal Dmitri Yazov asked Major about East European leaders’ interest in NATO membership, the British leader responded, “Nothing of the sort will happen.” (See Document 28)
When Russian Supreme Soviet deputies came to Brussels to see NATO and meet with NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner in July 1991, Woerner told the Russians that “We should not allow […] the isolation of the USSR from the European community.” According to the Russian memorandum of conversation, “Woerner stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO (13 of 16 NATO members support this point of view).” (See Document 30)
Thus, Gorbachev went to the end of the Soviet Union assured that the West was not threatening his security and was not expanding NATO. Instead, the dissolution of the USSR was brought about by Russians (Boris Yeltsin and his leading advisory Gennady Burbulis) in concert with the former party bosses of the Soviet republics, especially Ukraine, in December 1991. The Cold War was long over by then. The Americans had tried to keep the Soviet Union together (see the Bush “Chicken Kiev” speech on August 1, 1991). NATO’s expansion was years in the future, when these disputes would erupt again, and more assurances would come to Russian leader Boris Yeltsin.
When the US and EU/NATO tried to expand once again by admitting Ukraine, Russia’s financial and military condition was far improved, and the Russian’s had enough of our perceived lies about NATO Expansion.
Russia told the West that Ukraine could NOT enter NATO, because Russia knew they were planning on placing US Missile defenses on Ukraine soil. Those missiles would have about a five minute flight time to Moscow, which no country on earth could defend against.
Russia pointed out that the conventional warheads on US missile defenses were of a type that could be “switched-out” with a NUCLEAR warhead. This change could be done in about 90 minutes, and no one would even know about it.
That would put Moscow within 5 minutes of nuclear annihilation, and Russia would not tolerate it. Russia made it explicitly clear they viewed Ukraine’s entry into NATO as an “existential threat” and they would use military power to stop it if they had to. No one in the West took them seriously.
The West apparently doesn’t teach actual history to its military and political class anymore, because folks in the US under Joe Biden continued to press for Ukraine’s entry into NATO. No one in the Biden regime realized that Russia meant business on this issue, and ALL of them were . . . . SHOCKED . . . . when Russian troops crossed into Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
(HT REMARKS:Older guys like me, who have a memory that actually works, knew full well the Russian’s were going to do this; they HAD TO. It literally is a matter of survival for Russia, given the vast expansion of NATO during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. I knew it was coming. I said so on my radio show in the weeks leading-up to the entry. I told my audience we were breaking our word and we had to stop. I told my audience this could result in World War 3 and the Russians were serious about this. No one – at least in government — listened.)
Fast-Forward to December of 2023, and former Aid TO President Zelensky now says “The West came to the war with his pants down, he turned out to be a naked king, he will not be able to win this war.
I see fewer and fewer chances for the West to win in a clash with the global South and East.”
He’s right.
But the people running the US government and military, are so ignorant of history, so arrogant in their erroneous beliefs about the Russian Army, none of them saw this coming. None of them ever expected to lose a war with Russia, and THAT is exactly, precisely, what is actually happening right now in Ukraine. Ukraine is losing and will lose. Period. Full stop.
All because the US EU and NATO install people into powerful positions who are either ignorant of history, or whose word means nothing. I suspect– it’s both.
Thanks to those people, half a million Ukrainians are now dead. A smaller number of Russians are also dead. And for what? NONE of this, had to be.
Had we honored our word, none of this would have happened.
I had a girlfriend that hit me all the time. I thought she was just being playful, until she snapped and said, why can’t I hurt you. Up until then, I thought we were just playing. I am 6′1″ 200 lbs, she was 5′1″ 100 lbs.
If you can’t tell that it was supposed to be painful, then you know how lopsided punching her back would be.
After we broke up, there were rumours that her new boyfriend was beating her. He was 5′6″ 140 lbs.
She asked me if I remembered her hitting me, I said I did, she replied, well he hits back.
So, if you can escape without being hurt, then you shouldn’t punch anyone, but if you need to punch someone in self defense, then you do what you have to do.
Simpsons Predictions For 2024 Are Insane
LOL.
Magnolia’s Spicy Shrimp, Sausage and Tasso Gravy over Creamy White Grits
Ingredients
Creamy White Grits
12 cups chicken broth
4 1/2 cups coarse stone-ground white grits
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and white pepper to taste
Tasso Gravy
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sliced Tasso, cut in 1-inch strips
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
Salt and white pepper to taste
Shrimp and Sausage
1/2 pound spicy Italian sausage (3/4 pound of raw)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 pounds medium or large peeled and deveined shrimp*
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 recipe Tasso Gravy
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
Instructions
Creamy White Grits
Bring the chicken broth to a boil in a heavy-bottomed stockpot or large saucepan. Slowly pour in the grits, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat to low and continue to stir so that the grits do not settle to the bottom and scorch. In about 5 minutes, the grits will plump up and become a thick mass.
Continue to cook the grits for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring frequently. The grits should have absorbed all of the chicken stock and become soft. Stir in heavy cream and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring frequently. The grits should have a thick consistency and be creamy like oatmeal. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Keep warm over low heat until ready to serve. If the grits become too thick, add warm chicken broth or water to thin them down.
Tasso Gravy
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over low heat. Add the Tasso. Sauté for 1 minute, browning slightly. Make a roux by adding the flour and stirring until well combined. Continue to cook over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently until the roux develops a nutty aroma.
Turn the heat up to medium and gradually add 2 cups of the chicken broth, stirring vigorously. Keep stirring constantly until the broth thickens into gravy. Reduce the heat and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes to cook out the starchy flavor. Add the parsley. Simmer for another 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Shrimp and Sausage
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
To cook Italian sausage: Place the Italian sausage on a baking sheet with raised sides. Place on the top rack of the 400 degrees F oven and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the sausage is firm and its juices run clear. Cool and cut into small bite-size pieces.
Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottom frying pan over medium heat. Add the precooked sausage and sauté for 2 minutes to brown slightly. Add the shrimp and sauté until they begin to turn pink-no longer than 1 minute. Add 1 cup of the chicken broth to deglaze the pan. Add the Tasso Gravy and one tablespoon of the parsley. Bring up to a boil and let simmer for 1 minute. The last 1/2 cup of chicken stock is to be used to thin the gravy if needed.
Divide the hot grits between 8 warm bowls. Spoon the shrimp, sausage mixture over the grits. Sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of parsley and serve immediately.
Notes
* If using large shrimp, allow 6 per person; for medium sized shrimp, 8 to 10 shrimp.
Attribution
Source: magnolias-blossom.com – Magnolia’s, Charleston, South Carolina
A family friend who worked as an FBI agent was about to get married in the early 1970s. Shortly before the wedding, he got a memo from the Director’s office, signed by J. Edgar Hoover himself, pointing out a policy to the effect that agents needed permission to tie the knot, and that he hadn’t received it.
His intended was Black (he’s white), and the Director wasn’t cool with interracial marriage.
He married her anyway, and they stayed together until death did they part half a century later.
They framed the Director’s letter and hung it on a wall in their residence.
While working at a dealership in Arizona, I was doing a LOF on a late model Nissan, and got to checking the air filter as part of my routine workup on the vehicle. I popped the top of the air box, and casually lifted the filter out, and promptly slammed the air filter back in and closed the lid. I took a breath, walked over to my service manager, and told him that we needed to call pest control.
When the pest control tech arrived, he put on heavy gloves, and carefully removed a mama Western diamondback rattler and six of her babies, all alive and well in the air box. The customer mentioned that her car had recently sat for a few weeks while she was away on business. She politely apologized to me for the snake incident, gave me a nice tip (to cover my new boxers, presumably!), Paid for the pest control visit, and left.
To top this off, the next time she came in, she requested me. When I popped the hood, I was greeted by !!! Another snake! Thankfully, this time, it was rubber. Inside the air box (I was VERY cautious lifting the air filter out this time!), taped under the lid was a $20 bill with “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!” written on it. Probably one of my favorite customers ever! She gave me a hug after I came in with a sheepish smile after I finished the oil change. I hope she’s still messing with people 🙂
“Dear teacher, I apologize to the bully for his attacking me and forcing me to have to defend myself. I promise that if he attacks me again I will defend myself to the best of my ability..I realize that the school supports his behavior and wishes us to submit to being bullied, punched hit,kicked and ridiculed. I apologize to you and the school staff, for not being a submissive punching bag as you seem to want me to be.
sincerely,
(name).
EDIT
seems a popular post. I am guessing the problem is widespread.
Keep in mind that you are looking at someone who’s already at the top of the mountain. That is to say, you don’t know the effort and time they had to put into to get where they are right now. And how many mistakes and slips they had to endure to reach that peak.
Remind yourself that the only person you should race against is yourself. It sounds easier said than done, but keep practicing and you’ll soon realize it’s not as difficult as you initially thought it was.
Throw out all the comparisons out of the window. It tends to aggravate your envy even more. Instead, focus on what you can do to get your fair share of success as well.
Don’t become resentful toward life or people who seem to have it all. Because if you do, that resentment will start living inside your mind rent-free, for your entire life.
Be grateful that nothing is over yet. As long as you are still breathing, you have a chance to change something for the better. Everyone takes things at their own pace, so don’t put yourself down just because you fell behind in the race. We can’t all be Usain Bolts, after all. So stick to the pace you are comfortable with and take occasional breaks if you have to. And once you feel rested, keep moving because, in the end, it’ll be worth it.
I was sitting on a bench outside a hotel in DC near the valet desk. I admit I wasn’t exactly dressed for style.
Lady imperiously demands I get her car and I tell her I don’t work there. She sniffs at me and scolds me for being a useless bum, a blight on humanity and if she had her way we’d be rounded up and put on press gangs to clean the streets.
About then the valet pulls up with my car, a late model BMW convertible. She started to say “that’s not my car” when I tipped the valet and drove off.
A coworker went to a local bar after work where a group from the office was going to meet up. It was a Friday so no work the next day.
He woke up in a strange bed at an apartment complex. He couldn’t find his clothes, car keys, wallet. He called another coworker to come get him. He had to look out the window and get the street intersection off street signs to tell his coworker friend where to pick him up.
When his coworker friend showed up he ran out with a sheet wrapped around himself. His coworker friend took him back to his apartment where a roommate let him in. He had a spare key for his car and he and his roomate went looking for his car. They found it in the parking lot of the local bar down from the office.
He spent the weekend trying to remember what happened to no avail.
On Monday while he was at work sitting at his desk when one of the office girls came into his office with his freshly washed clothes, wallet and keys.
She had taken him back to her apartment for an evening of love making, during the night of this he had gotten sick from too much alcohol, vomiting on his clothes beside the bed, then passed out.
She had gotten up that morning, cleaned up the mess, taken his clothes down to the laundry to wash them before ordering breakfast from a deli across the street. She returned to find him and one of her sheets missing.
She waited until Monday to bring him his belongings. They never went out again and had a strained office relationship for several years until he transferred to another office.
If I had a chance for a do over I’d take it. My life today would be totally different. I’ve never told or discussed it with anyone. I was 20 in college and I was engaged when I got pregnant. He didn’t want to start out marriage that way. He was all of 21 and also still in college. I didn’t have a job or any money. I thought my Catholic parents would disown me. I made the horrible decision to terminate the pregnancy. It took decades before I could forgive myself. He was right it was no way to start a marriage. It was a horrible way to start a marriage when he didn’t want to offer any emotional support for our shared tragedy. Nearly 10 years later we were finally blessed with a child followed by 3 more. We were married over 40 years. The roots of the failure began with I don’t want to start out marriage that way.
A few. But it’s a very hard job to be the son or daughter of a genius. I’ve had the good fortune of getting to know several Nobel Prize winners and their families. And to talk with some of the kids about their point of view. For the most part, they suffered. Many Nobel Prize winners made no secret of this. George Wald was once asked whether he might donate his sperm to a sperm bank to make superior children. He answered in two parts, but only the first was charming.
He said they should have asked his father for sperm so as to make another George Wald. Then he went on to say that his kids were not geniuses but had become bums. Which was not only unkind, but also very unfair to them as they were both teenagers at the time, sensitive and awkward, but also sweet and certainly very bright. But I remember one dinner at his house where Elijah, the son, sort of bragged about having done something clever. Most parents would smile and congratulate him. But George said something along the lines of, “Why, at your age I had already discovered….” Why was there any comparison or competition?
Other genius parents had more sympathy for their kids and took the pressure off. But still, comparisons with the father’s legendary (and oft exaggerated) accomplishments made it tough for the kid. Richard Feynman was very kind and supportive of his kids,but his daughter, Michelle, was initially too intimidated to try anything academic. Nonetheless, Richard was proud of her and of his son Carl.
Linus Pauling (two Nobels) had several children and his son Peter did brilliant work on the structure of biological molecules using crystallography. The son contributed to the work that led to the Nobel Prize that went to Watson and Crick.
But my favorite example of genius father and genius son would have to be the Nobel Laureate in physics, Luis Alvarez, who contributed much to the building of the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project, and his son, Walter. Working together they generated the hypothesis and found a testable way to confirm that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a giant asteroid hitting the Yucatan Peninsula 63 million years ago. And there are many other good examples (like Marie and Irene Curie, etc.). So, despite the psychological and social obstacles, sometimes the apple does not fall far from the tree.
When I lived in Tangxia; Danguan there was this twice-a-year event that is worthy of reporting. You see, I lived in a little city part of a bigger city next to Shenzhen. It is a small manufacturing city located North of Shenzhen in the Pearl River Delta. And being a manufacturing city, dating back many centuries, there were a lot of old buildings and old roads, and old sewer lines.
Well, twice a year, the local government would “fog” the underground sewers. This was a release of insecticide in a mist fog that would be sprayed by huge trucks all over town. The idea was to kill off the insects and rodents, and the city had been doing this for centuries.
But…
Let me tell you all that when that happened, a virtual carpet of huge (mouse-sized) cockroaches swarmed out of the sewers and carpeted everything. Some flew, many just climbed all over, including on shoes and trousers and woman’s legs. It was darn crazy!
If you saw it, you would not believe it. Not a scrap of concrete could be seen; three layer deep of swarming cockroaches everywhere. Wholly shit!
Last time it happened, my wife was so freaked out that I had to carry her two blocks back to our apartment. She was hysterical and had goosebumps all over her arms and legs. Jeeze! So imagine the scene, they were crawling, racking, flying, swarming, on everything. On our feet, the trees, the sidewalks, the store windows, the cars. They were buzzing, hopping and leaping, and my wife was in goosebumps and hysterical.
An experience that I do not want to relive ever again. Let me tell you what!
I was about 13 and was asked by a family friend to help her step daughter out by babysitting her 3 kids while she worked at a pizza parlor in town. It would be from the time I got out of school till 10pm, but Summer vacation would start in a couple weeks so I figured I could manage it.
I agreed to try it and see how it went. The day I was to start, I rode my bike to the house. I could smell some horrible smell from the yard. Went to the door and it was wide open. I yelled “hello??” and 3 of the cutest kids I’d ever seen came running! They were full of questions. I asked where their Mom was and the eldest said she was already at work. I was surprised, but I figured something had changed with our plans and she had to go in early.
I walked into the living room and the air was thick with stench. It was a combination of animal waste, rotten garbage and food. The living room had a couch, a chair and was literally 3 feet deep in clothes, garbage bags and dirty diapers. I was a kid and wasnt sure where to start, but i found a roll of garbage bags and we began. I say we because those babies were such a help!
The oldest was Michael and he proudly told me he was 5 and would be staring Kindergarten the following year. He was short and stocky with a mop of curly blonde hair. What I first noticed was his serious expression. He had an excellent vocabulary and was a chatter box. Next was a little girl named Jessica. She was 3 and absolutely beautiful. She was quiet but didnt miss anything. She was petite and had hair to her waist that was full of tangles. The baby girl was Grace and she was 2. She was very frail looking, although she turned out to be anything but frail. She was in just a diaper which was soaked, so I asked Michael to show me where the diapers were. We all headed into the girls room. It was filthy. I find a clean washcloth and get Grace cleaned up. She smiled the whole time. They were all hungry, so we head to the kitchen. I found a can of soup and some stale crackers, which they devoured. While they ate, i started on the kitchen. The sinks and counters were i overflowing with dishes. I turn the faucet handle and no hot water! So i start heating water after digging to uncover the stove. Theyve devoured the soup and want more. There was nothing more, so i grab my backpack and find a yougurt to split, some cookies and an apple which was all split between the 3 of them. I noticed there was no bickering. These 3 were accustomed to looking out for each other.
We started with the garbage and those kids really worked hard…..even the baby! We started by getting the garbage bagged up, and I started laundry. We worked for hours, and those kids didnt want to stop! They wanted a clean house. We got the living room mucked out, we found clean sheets and got beds made. The kitchen had a good start. I went in and cleaned the bathroom while they found jammies. I looked up from scrubbing and those faces were beaming. Got Grace in the tub and started detangling Jess’s hair. I know it had to hurt……but she never made a peep. Grace was clean and ready to get out. Water change and Jessicas turn. When she was clean, we changed water and gave Michael his privacy. I took the girls and checked the magical backpack. I found some nice lotion and they smelled lovely! They both had beautiful hair and kept touching it. Michael gets out and wants some lotion too. We decided to move Michaels bed in with his sisters (his “bedroom” was tiny, i think it was a.closet) We found some books and read. They were all asleep in minutes. As I detangled myself feom the sleeping babies, Michael asked if I was going to come back. I gave him a hug and said Id see him tomorrow. He grinned and it made my day. I waited for Mom to get home. It was almost 11 PM by the time she got home and I could tell she had been drinking. She introduced herself and looked around the room. She was shocked. She asked who had cleaned and i told her we all did. I see a car pulling up and its my Dad coming to see why Im so late. She says she had a meeting and was kept late. He ssaid”Look, we need her done at 10. Not 1001! If you cant be home at 10, she cant do this “ He loaded my bike up. He asked how it went. I didn’t want to tell him how dirty it was because I was afraid he would say I couldnt go back, and I had promised Michael.
And so it went. Every day, the kids and I would clean up a bit more. The cleaner the house got, the more time we had to walk to the park or go to the community pool. We had a great time and those 3 kids were all amazing.
I babysat the kids all that summer and into the start of school. It was just too much and I had to quit after Christmas vacation. I still watched them occasionally and we always had so much fun. This was in the early 70s. I still see the 3 kids who are adults now with families of their own. Michael went on to become an executive chef and works at a very trendy restaurant in the San Francisco area. He has a couple of kiddos and a lovely wife. Jess is an RN and works in the Lake Tahoe area. Shes a single mom of 2 boys and Grace is still local and keeps me in the loop with updates. She married a local guy and they have a daughter. She teaches at the local elementary school.
Its weird because it was such a short period of time, but it left us all with a bonding of the heart. Their Mom passed away last year and I went to her services and got to see all the kids (lol at KIDS!!) They introduced me as the best babysitter ever.
Filthiest house produced some wonderful humans. I was happy to be a small part of that. Sorry this was so long. Was a lovely trip down memory lane. Thanks for reading.
When my husband caught me cheating on him. There are no excuses, it was an incredibly stupid, selfish, and insane thing to do to someone who didn’t deserve it. The person I cheated on my husband with wasn’t worth it, that’s for sure.
After telling most of my friends and family what I did, my husband packed his bags and left. I spent a week on my couch contemplating suicide and hitting absolute rock bottom. My friends all took his side, understandably. Almost everyone I loved turned away. I fell physically sick with some sort of insane flue—the worst I’ve ever had in my life, probably from the stress.
I could’ve turned to the guy and tried to start fresh. New life, new boyfriend, new friends… Get that divorce and start over. Instead, I realized that what I had was worth fighting for, even if it took years to get it back. I ended the affair with that guy.
I wrote to each friend and family member who knew about this that I was going to do whatever it took to build my life back. I wrote to my husband. I begged him to come back. By some miracle… he did. We went to counselling, I went to therapy. I opened my life to my husband: no more privacy. He had access to everything, which I was completely fine with.
It took a long time, but eventually my friends came back. My husband’s trust slowly began to rebuild. Years and years later, our marriage is strong-full of incredible love, respect, and trust. I look back at what I did in complete disgust. I live everyday with that heartbreak, wishing I’d never put such an amazing person through that. Although that time was dark, it was the push I needed to wake up and stop living like a selfish idiot.
I wouldn’t trade the life I have now for the world. It took incredible pain and humiliation to get here, but it’s what led to my amazing life now. For those going through a dark time, take it day by day… one step at a time. I never thought I’d ever get here, but with hard work and patience, it will get better.
Not sure of the exact date, but it would have been mid to late ’80s in Bristol city centre.
Late one evening I was in a crew of 6 in a transit van when we saw a knackered looking Fiat 127 (they were never brilliant when new, let alone one that was 15 years old!). Half of the lights were out, smoke from the exhaust (and lots of noise).
Pulled the car over, and found it contained 2 adults and 3 children (all under 6 or 7 at a guess). Occupants were of obvious Asian descent (not unusual for that area of Bristol), so I started to ask the usual questions whilst a colleague looked over the car (which was found to have 3 bald tyres, no window wipers and a lot of rusty holes in the bodywork).
The driver and adult passenger were almost in tears, and trying to speak in English, which wasn’t that great. I established that they were Mauritian, and had only arrived in the UK that day. Once I spoke to them in French they looked relieved (my French isn’t brilliant, but was better than their English). He produced a Mauritian Driving Licence, and when asked for insurance and registration for the car (which they had purchased upon arrival at the airport), they produced a hand-written receipt showing that they had paid £1000.00 cash for the car! (it was worth about 20 quid scrap value, and certainly shouldn’t have been on a road). Even worse, he proudly produced another hand-written “Insurance Certificate” for which he had paid the car seller another £300.
They had come here to attend a family funeral, and had been royally ripped off by some scumbag near Heathrow as they needed to get down to Bristol as soon as possible.
Obviously, we couldn’t let them continue driving as it was unlikely to get them very far anyway, and was a liability to everyone else on the road.
I had no intention of getting my pen anywhere near to an official ‘ticket’, and explained the game to my Sergeant – who fully agreed with me.
All the time, the family were getting more and more upset as they started to realise the situation they were in and the trouble they thought they were in.
We took them back to our station (and a colleague drove their car), fed and watered them, spoke to relatives by telephone, and sorted out as much as we could at that time.
They were taken to a hotel for the night and agreed to surrender the car for destruction.
As the story spread throughout the night (between other colleagues, paramedics, fire-fighters, hospital staff and taxi drivers…. that was the way things were in the City at that time) offers of help came in.
By the time we went off duty at 0700 hours, the hotel bill had been waived, a taxi was ready to take them down to Exeter (their intended destination), and a collection had raised just under a grand in cash. Toys had been donated for the children, and small ‘gifts’ for the adults.
By the time they arrived in Exeter, the local police had found and purchased a small run-around car which wasn’t great, but had a few months of MOT and tax left on it, and was roadworthy… enough for their use whilst they were in the country.
We got a lovely letter from them once they were back in Mauritius, thanking us for the help we gave (and arranged) – but we only did what we could to help someone who needed it, and had been badly treated by opportunistic scum.
Edit:-
Thanks for the gramatical corrections – I try my best, but often fail!
I’ve never had a higher-rated answer on Quora, or received so many comments – Thank you, everybody.
It is not often that I bother to answer many questions, being a ‘reserved’ British ex-cop many situations just don’t seem worthy of reply, or have already got a few good answers.
I fully appreciate that probably 95% of the questions (and thus, answers) are posted from the USA, and whilst i find them interesting to read, are often so alien to a British way of thinking that I see no advantage in adding to them.
Anyone who reads my other (very few!) answers on Quora will see that I have some views and oppinions on some things – mainly to counter the critics and troll posters when it gets a bit ‘personal’, or to defend those who I feel need it.
I have no desire to be a “super user” on here, despair at many of the “questions” asked, but still feel that (every so often) even the British have something useful to add to this world.
I have to tell this story. I started writing song when l was about 15 years old. One of my biggest influences was Harry Chapin. I live in Los Angeles, and Harry played at the Greek Theatre every year. I went to see him four or five years in a row after getting my drivers license.
Harry played about 300 concerts a year. He gave about half the money he made to world hunger. After the concert, he sat and sold and signed T shirts for the cause and would stay until every person who wanted to buy a T-shirt was able to . His Security guys, always moved people quickly through, because they knew Harry would talk to everyone. After the first concert l stood in line to get a signed T-shirt, and when it was my turn l told him l was a songwriter. He smiled and said, “ Really ? I wish you the best of luck”. The following year l went to where he was signing T shirts, and to my surprise , he saw me and asked, “ How’s the songwriting going?” While he was signing T-shirts, I stood to the side and talked to him about songwriting. His security tried to make me leave, but he said, “. Leave the kid alone. He’s not hurting anyone.”
l did this every year, and the last time l saw him, l was 20 years old and had got my first job playing songs at a Shaky’s Pizza place. I told Harry that and that l played Taxi, but that there was a part l couldn’t figure out. He turned to one of his security guys, and said, “ Go get me one of the guitars out of the truck “. Pretty much all the people who were buying T shirts were done . The security guy said, “ Harry! It’s midnight man. We got to get out of here!” Harry said, “ Just do it.”
The irritated security guy did it and Harry showed me how to play the part. One thing l forgot to mention, was that l had brought me mom with me to see him. She was so happy for me and told that story to people that story unt the day she died. Harry Chapin was a very special man.
Galatoire’s Trout Meuniere Amandine
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
4 (6 to 8 ounce) trout fillets
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup milk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Oil
1 cup butter
1 cup sliced almonds
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley
Instructions
Sprinkle fillets with salt and pepper, dip into milk and roll in flour.
Fry in 3/4 inch of hot oil in a shallow skillet until golden on both sides.
Remove and keep warm.
In a separate pan, melt and whip butter until brown and frothy.
Add sliced almonds and lemon juice.
Place each fillet on a heated plate and pour sauce over it.
China has a system of Governance that is radically different to that in Western Countries
Thus it is imperative, if the West has to keep it’s “We are the guardians of democracy” model, they have to portray China as evil and the system as collapsing
Otherwise won’t the people ask how if the Chinese system is so bad, is the nation prospering so much?
My granddaughter and I were at a Denny’s. We ordered and ate lunch. The waitress came back and picked up the bill that she had left on the table. So we finished and waited for her to bring it back finally called to her as she went past.
We ask for the bill to be brought back and she said no it was paid for.
An elderly man sitting at the counter had paid for our lunch. When I asked her why she said he is a regular customer and told me that he always smiles at people and you and your little granddaughter were the only ones that ever smiled back at him.
My wife had a 6 month affair, when I found out I left her.
A number of people assumed I was the one who cheated on her. That bothered me. I corrected them.
Worse were all the people who assumed I must have done something wrong to deserve it and that I was still the bad guy. People told me I must have not paid enough attention to her, I must have some how drove her to it, etc. Some people refuse to believe that I somehow didn’t do something wrong to cause her to cheat.
All I can say is this – I loved her and treated her like a queen. When I’ve asked her why she did it, the response from her has always been that I was a terrific husband, that she loved me, and that she regrets it. The guy was nearly 20 years younger than her (he in his early 20s, she nearly 40), he was attractive and charming and started flirting with her and she found him irresistible.
So, that’s a double standard that I’ve lived through and find unfair; if I had cheated I would’ve been labelled a creep/jerk, when she has an affair I’m still somehow a jerks who is to blame??!
Back in 1997 in Canmore, Alberta, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin were in town filming The Edge. Mr. Baldwin decided one evening he wanted to eat at our local Chinese eatery.
I was an Eco-Tourism operator and frequented the establishment quite often. They had an orange chicken that I went bonkers for.
It was peak dining hour and the place was experiencing a 45-minute waiting period to get a table.
In strolls, cocky Baldwin and he demands a seat “NOW!”
The owner was this 5 ft tall fiesty Chinese woman and when she told Mr. Baldwin that he’d have to wait about 45 minutes he pulled the old, Do you know who I am?”
Man, if you could have seen this lady go into action it was an Academy Award for putting an arrogant prick into his place.
She yelled at him with her Mandarin accent, “I don’t care who you are, you get out of my restaurant and don’t come back!”
The rumours of his arrogance have always swirled in the tabloids and I got a front-row seat to see it in action.
And the winner is for putting the Douche BgAlec Baldwin in his place… The Owner of the Famous Chinese Restaurant, in Canmore Alberta.
I need do this anonymously, because it’s a sensitive subject.
I’m a father of two wonderful children, and my oldest, my son, has special needs. Due to his premature birth (roughly 30 weeks), he developed a condition called Periventricular Leukomalacia, or PVL for short.
PVL is essentially an under development, often by necrosis, of white brain matter near the ventricles of the brain. Read up on it a bit on wikipedia for more info if you interested: Periventricular leukomalacia – Wikipedia
We discovered this was case shortly after his first birthday, when doctors started noticing some developmental delays and some muscle stiffness on his left side. Some evaluations and scans, and it was confirmed what he has, and that it also the cause of his cerebal palsy. It was quite a shock.
Anyways, we start doing therapies and early intervention and it’s such a wonder watching him overcome it all in small steps, in his own way. You feel blessed at times to see his hard work pay off, to truly value life and love and family.
So what do I want to get off my chest?
It’s all bullshit. You know those parents who “wouldn’t have their child any other way because it taught us so much about ourselves and….” well fuck that.
I absolutely hate it. Hate. With a capital H.
I have other parents talk to me and they word things like “well, he’ll get past all this and so forth…”. Ummmm, no dumbass. His condition is chronic – forever. We can adapt to it, and work really hard and he’ll cope and be better off for it.
But while Johnny Awesome-Dad and Super Son are learning how to play catch, I’m helping my son learn how to alternate feet when climbing stairs, how to be aware of his raised arm at the elbow and to lower and swing while he walks, while that guy got to teach his son how to swing for the fences.
His mannerisms are collectively a huge brain capillary-exploding annoyance. From the non-sensical sounds that he repeats 100 times to the way he is so damn slow at e v e r y t h i n g.
Yeh, I hate being a special needs parent. On top of being one, I also have to be his political advocate, constantly representing other parents to our federal and state politicians to ensure kids like him get proper educations.
I really really hate all of it. I only love him – I just wish I could heal him. That’s probably the worst. Of all the things I can do and fix, I can’t make him better.
Fuck me.
(January 9th, 2019)
Edit: Wow, a lot of upvotes. Most I have ever received by far, my next closest has about 115.
Ok, to a few comments: Thank you for the kind words from most people, the support, sympathy, and empathy. I truly did not write this to receive that as I quite literally was getting something off my chest.
To those who think less of my answer, even angry at me for being so: Your opinion is valued and appreciated. My response to it though is simply a shrug and a “It is what it is.” I know my son didn’t choose to be this way, but understand I am not choosing to feel this way either.
I wish I was a better person in this regard but I’m not. However remember this: I don’t let him see it. Fuck, I don’t even mention it anymore to family because they’ll either blanket me with guilt statements and be angry at me (Fuck You btw) or keep telling me lies like “It’ll all be fine” (no it won’t) or “He’ll be fine” (no, you obviously don’t understand it at all).
How do I cope?
Weed. Makes me feel better.
Heavy bag – I punch the crap outta it. Actually split the first one and I’m on my second. Looking to buy a speed bag.
Bottle it up and get back to my life.
And lastly yes I have considered leaving because he deserves a better Dad. The problem with that is it would take a lot of time for my wife to find another person who wants to take this on. Secondly my other child would suffer the loss of Dad when they did nothing, or have anything, wrong. It wouldn’t be fair and life is unfair enough as it is – I don’t want to add to it.
Don’t be indecisive. Ain’t nobody gonna follow someone who can’t make up their damn mind.
Don’t be a two-faced snake. People can smell that crap from a mile away.
Don’t be a damn pushover. You gotta have a backbone if you want to make it in this world.
Don’t be lazy. If you’re the one in charge, you gotta put in the work.
Don’t be a know-it-all. You ain’t that smart, trust me.
Don’t be too proud to ask for help. We all need it sometimes.
Level 5 – Impossible
House of Blues Bayou Voodoo Smothered Chicken
Yield: 4 servings; 1 pound Roux
Ingredients
Brown Roux
10 ounces all-purpose flour
1 cup vegetable oil
Chicken
1 pound butter, melted
2 pounds chopped onion
1 pound chopped celery
1 pound chopped red bell pepper
1 pound chopped green bell pepper
1 pound sliced mushrooms
2 ounces minced garlic
2 1/2 ounces all-purpose flour
4 cups red wine (chef suggests Burgundy wine)
2 quarts dark beer
2 quarts water
2 tablespoons beef base
4 tablespoons chicken base
1 tablespoon liquid smoke
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons Tabasco sauce
1 cup Louisiana Seasoning
Instructions
Brown Roux
Place oil in a heavy stock pot and heat until it smokes. Slowly whisk in flour, 2 cups at a time, mixing well. Cook in oven at 350 degrees F for about 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes. Roux is done when chocolate brown color is achieved. Allow to cool.
Chicken
In a large skillet or sauté pan, add butter.
Put onion, celery, red bell pepper, green bell pepper and mushrooms into the pan and sauté.
Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute.
Add flour and stir; cook for 1 minute.
Add red wine and reduce until thick.
Add dark beer, water, beef base, chicken base and bring to a boil.
Add liquid smoke, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce and Louisiana seasoning.
Whip some roux into the sauce. Bring to a boil then remove from heat.
Put some pre-made rice on a plate, put cooked chicken breast on top of rice and ladle voodoo sauce over the chicken and rice.
Ages ago in the late ’70s I worked in an engineering department for a huge manufacturing company – one of the big three in Detroit. A co-worker had about 30 years with the company and a ton of vacation time. He and his wife had a daughter late in life. She was about 8 at the time and daddy took vacation days every Friday and Monday during her summer vacation.
Big boss comes in one Thursday afternoon looking for the doting dad. We say he’s off until Tuesday, and reminded him of daddy’s schedule.
Keep in mind that all vacation had to be submitted and approved, by boss man, in January.
But in this moment he can’t have what he wants when he wants it.
Boss man hits the ceiling. We can’t have that. Everyone has to take vacation in full week increments.
The guy had a pretty specialized skill set, and no one else was really up to speed in his area of expertise. We could fill in in a pinch. Daddy could complete final draft when he got back on Tuesday.
the following summer, I had transferred to another department, but that department struggled when dad took his six-plus weeks of vacation consecutively!
it was a whole lot easier to cover his job for four days than six weeks.
It resulting in us trying for 6 months after ending the affair. To her cheating on me with another man to eventually leave me at the end of the 6 months. Tit for tat I guess. Lots of shame and heartbreak on my end but those are the consequences. Mostly life lessons though. Divorce was the anwser and we will both be happier in the long run.
Many years ago a young woman called me up one evening to ask some questions about insurance regarding the car accident that had happened between her car and mine that afternoon. Slight problem, I hadn’t been in a car accident. She had my name and license plate from the police report so I went out and checked the number of the license plate on the back of my car, and it wasn’t the same number. After a little more discussion I got my auto registration and that did match the number on the report – the license plates on the front and back of my car weren’t the same! After thinking about it I realized what must have happened: I had returned from a business trip a couple days earlier and while my car was parked at the airport parking garage someone had swapped the license plate on the back of my car with a different one and then put my license plate on the car that got in an accident (it was almost the same make and model as my car – they must have been casing the airport). Not surprisingly this turned into quite a mess to untangle, requiring multiple calls to insurance as well as a visit by the police officer to verify my car had not in fact been in an accident. The weird part that still bothers me to this day – the woman driving the car who’d gotten in an accident had the same last name as me. My last name isn’t an unusual one, but it’s not extremely common either. She told the police she was my niece (not likely – I’m white and she was black). How did that happen?
Have you noticed big brands dropping A, B & O from their signs and logos?
Most people who noticed the same, thought that it could be some malfunction but the real reason for the missing A, B, and O’s is something more serious and amazing.
NHS Blood and Transplant organization, along with PR agency Engine Group has launched the ‘Missing Type’ campaign. It has undertaken this campaign to make people aware the benefits of blood donation and its importance of saving lives.
Big brands and companies likeTesco, Mirror, McDonalds, Starbucks and Hardrock Cafe have agreed to be the part of the campaign to make people aware of blood donation.
As a part of this campaign, NHS has asked big brands to omit the letters that signify blood types from their logos and signs viz, blood types A, B, and O.
I watched a 90 lb female put a 235 lb guy in the hospital. This was a fight between 2 neighbors in my neighborhood. This guy harassed her for weeks then for some reason he decided to walk up to her front porch and knock on her door. I was sitting on my front porch when it happened. I was thinking this is not going to be good, and had my cell phone within reach.
She open her door and in a clear loud voice, she requested he get off her property. He said, what are you going to do about it. She said, I’ll call the police. He laughed at her and reached for the screen door. Before I could move she kicked him in the head twice, swept his legs out from under him, and he was down and bleeding.
I started to call the police, but again before I could dial the number a patrol car pulled up and the officer put the guy in handcuffs. I just sat there, drank my coffee and waited for him to come over and ask what I saw. I told him and signed the bottom of the form.
As he walked away he said you know the woman? I replied yes, she’s a former Marine. He chuckled and said. I guess the guy didn’t know that, and I laughed.
When I had an Amish girl come live in with me during the week to help take care of my three-year-old daughter and my brand new twin boys.My husband was in Vietnam.
The first night that I went out to play cards with friends I came home at 10:00 p.m. everybody was sitting in the dark. It was pitch Black and it had not occurred to me that she would not be allowed to turn on the lights or use the electric stove to heat formula.
From them and I would make sure everything was turned on before I left. I only played cards twice a month but they were never left in the dark again. I would heat formula and put it in the thermos bottle but I also showed her how to fill up pan with hot water from the tap to sit the bottles in.
EDIT due to the amount of people that think it was horrible to leave my newborn twins and 3-year-old daughter with a stranger I need to explain the Amish girl lived with me. I would take her home on Saturday morning and go pick her up on Monday morning. I even knew her family. She had helped raise 9 younger brothers and sisters.
When I was in high school I would get terrible menstrual cramps. I would leave school and go to the cab stand down the block. The dispatcher was a man that I’ll call Joe. He was blind.
I would walk in on a wooden floor and Joe would say hi Linda you need to go home? I would take a taxi and come in after school the next day to pay for it. This was in a small town about 15,000.
I grew up, graduated high school, moved away, got married and got pregnant. My husband was going to Vietnam and I went back home to stay with my parents. This was about 6 years after I had left home.
I stopped at a bakery before I went to my parents house. I took one step on a cement floor and a man standing at the counter buying some donuts said “Hey Linda when did you get home?”
I never understood how Joe recognized my one step on the cement floor and I was very pregnant. You would think the sound would be different but he recognized that one step immediately.
A guy I went on a first date with (set up by a friend) told me how his ex wife was having a breakdown and had messaged him that day, to say that she couldn’t cope and was going to call social services and have their two children placed in care. Shocked, I looked at him and said “Couldn’t you take them for a couple of weeks and give her a break?” I kid you not, his genuine, honest response was “Not a chance, I have them every other weekend, that’s enough for me!”. I don’t think I hid my horror very well. Ugly, ugly man. My own son was 3 years old and the time, and if he wouldn’t step up for his own kids, he was going nowhere near mine!
It takes about 66 days for an average individual to make something a daily habit.
Eye pupil dilates to 45% when an individual looks at somebody they love.
Food prepared by someone else tastes much better than your own preparation, even when you use the same recipe.
Hearing a single negative thing could damage at least five positive memories.
Studies have shown that consuming food without preservatives will increase I.Q by up to 14%.
Men aren’t more entertaining than women: they only make more jokes, they don’t care whether others like their humor or not.
Shy people tell others very little about themselves, but they do it in quite a manner that makes other individuals believe they know them better than they actually think they do.
People in blue rooms are also much more productive.
Being alone is harder for your health than you really believe.
Any relationship born between 16 and 28 years of age is more likely to be robust and long-lasting.
If we have a plan B, our plan A is less likely to succeed.
Being happy around people makes you happier.
Convincing yourself that you slept well tricks your brain into believing you did.
The sort of music you listen to influences the way you view the world.
A hug longer than twenty seconds will produce hormones into your body that makes you trust the individual who is hugging yo
Not so much amazing, as being extremely useful to me. I was on a European Standards Committee for several years. Members came from many European countries and it was customary to conduct all meetings in English.
Often the French and German delegates would speak to each other in the meeting in French or German to try and exclude the UK delegate from what they were plotting. This was on the basis that they assumed that the British could not speak other languages. It was advantageous to me for them not to know that I understood at least the gist of what they were saying.
However, when meeting in Dusseldorf the German delegated took us all out for dinner after the meeting. This was in a very German restaurant and the waitress approached me asking, in German, what I would like to eat. Not thinking, I blew my cover by replying in German.
The German delegate’s jaw dropped and said “you speak German!”. Trying to save myself I admitted that I could speak enough basic german to get by, but I couldn’t resist adding “ but my understanding is better”.
The Swedish delegate sitting next to me actually laughed and gave me a pat on the back.
A 26 yrs old with a decent job(in Indian Silicon Valley), beautiful girlfriend, about to be promoted, in short, enjoying my life.
But now,
A road accident(to save a little girl), which confined me to home for 4–5 months, had a kneefracture, operated, implanted with a metal plate inside(permanently).
Promotion aborted(as i m on Medical Leave for quite a longer period).
Cheated by my girlfriend when we were planning to get married, our parents accepted us.
My situation after surgery,
I was full of life. Travelling, working out in gym used to make me feel energized, lively, confident. But my eyes in the above picture are full of unnecessary thoughts, wandering with all the lively moments I had before.
Permanent Implant,
I was planning to call my parents to bangalore so that i can arrange some vacation for them and let them know about me and my girlfriend. But this was not the way i wanted them to come.
Even after accepted by my parents, she cheated on me. This was the time when i needed her the most. I know that,
“We should Forgive people in our life, even those who are not sorry for their actions. Holding on to anger only hurts us, not them.”
Also after one-by-one misfortunes, my self-confidence is f**ked like a Gangbang. So i’m not in a place to keep grudges with her and trying to move on, to forgive her and forget her.
Now they want me to settle downin an arranged marriage with a girl of their choice. And neither I am in position to ask for getting married with a girl of my choice nor in a position of getting married with any girl due to hindrances in my promotion, beautifully f**ked self-confidence.
I’m just trying to recover as soon as possible from the physical and emotional injury so that i can go back to my self made track of life.
Go ask Russians, nearly all western countries did the same as you mentioned to Russia, including the so called “nuclear option”: kicked Russia out of SWIFT, did Russian economy collapse?
Oh, maybe you don’t know the real world, just living in the “information cocoons”, you’re fed with selected information, which made you believe China is easy to win, like our beloved president 45 said, trade war is easy to win.
This is his easy to win:
Now, it is America who’s relying on China, not China relying on America. Say you to buy a Toyota and wait for over a month, sometimes you need to pay extra money, and its price is rising year after year, while in China, Toyota is to buy at will and drive away upon you paid, and its price is lower and lower. For example, RAV 4 in America starts from $29K, while in China, it starts from RMB 175,800, which is about $24.5K.
The problem is not China, it hides in America, destory China can’t solve your own problem.
The big heads are more informed and clever than you average Americans do. They know they can’t win, sanctions, trade wars, are just to slow down China’s pace, not to stop it.
Years ago, I was involved with a lawsuit against a tech company. Kind of “class action,” which meant a lot of people were there.
I noticed two levels of dress: casual and super-expensive suits.
As the process unfolded, I realized that those two levels of dress represented three levels of wealth.
The expensive suits were all worn by guys (and, yes, sorry, this was long ago, and everyone was a guy) who had high-paying jobs. Most would regard them as well off. They drove new, leased BMWs, etc. They were supercilious toward everyone because THEY were the only ones wearing expensive suits, shoes, and Rolexes.
The casual dressers represented two economic levels:
Those who could not afford expensive suits or Rolexes.
Those who had so much money they didn’t need to impress anyone.
At one point during the proceeding, I ended up in a room with four suits while I was dressed in jeans and wore a lightweight “Members Only” jacket. (You can tell this was long ago, right? Remember when those were cool?)
At first, they spoke only among themselves, treating the “obviously” poor guy like I couldn’t possibly matter. I let them go for a few minutes and then interrupted them for an important message on life. I told them how their expensive suits put them at a disadvantage because the only thing obvious in the room was that none of them were in the top tier financially.
They included me from then on.
To answer the question: The truly rich wear whatever they want. Only those who are still struggling to become truly rich are slaves to the “badges of honor” that they THINK demonstrate they are rich.
I was at a Home Depot and saw this lady trying to lift a 90lb bag of cement from a flat cart into the trunk of her car. I said let me help you with that and grabbed the bag and put it in her trunk. She said I don’t need your damn help. I said sorry and grabbed the bag and put it back on the cart. As I was pulling out of the parking lot I saw that she had dropped the bag and it broke open all over the parking lot. I honked and waved.
During the Vietnam war President Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara came up with “Project 100,000,” and the idea was to kill two birds with one stone by drafting men who were developmentally disabled or just too stupide to be left into the army. It was to provide more men for the war effort and give the less fortunate a chance at being productive members of society.
There’s typically an IQ minimum of 80 points to serve in the US military, but the rule was loosened, and they started allowing in men with mental disabilities. These men became known a “McNamara’s Morons” and died at 5 times the rate of other Americans in the war.
You had men turning up to basic training that couldn’t even tie their own shoes and couldn’t even understand the basics like dressing the bed. Some of these soldiers didn’t even understand why they were utterly exhausted at the end of a run when they were full of energy at the start of the run.
When in combat training, none of the men could pass their physical training because they couldn’t grasp the idea of throwing a heavy training grenade in a high arc to reach the target that was 90 feet away.
A lot of the men were protected from battle and kept safe by sergeants who took pity on them, but a lot were sent into dangerous battles on the front line. Not only were some of these men a danger to themselves they also put their fellow soldiers in harms way by not being able to grasp the seriousness of what they were involved in.
For example, in one platoon a dozen men were injured when a live grenade was tossed at them by another soldier as a prank. The soldier in question didn’t have the brain function to understand how dangerous a grenade was.
The word McNamara Moron’s was a derogatory term used by many of the sergeants to describe many of the men that fell under their care. Although the experiment was a disaster, not all of the men drafted under this new legislation failed to learn and grasp the fundamentals of combat. Many went on to have distinguished careers, and many were awarded the “Medal of Honour.”
The story of Forrest Gump was inspired by McNamara’s soldiers and the bravery some of these men showed when faced with impossible odds.
A quiet little boy was putting up with the abuse of a foot taller, loud mouthed girl. The girl was berating him for being a Nerd.
The teacher heard what the girl was saying to the boy, and admonished her, “Karen! You should be nice to Billy! He is a straight A student, and someday he just might be your Boss.”
Billy looked at the teacher and quipped, “But I don’t want to be a Pimp!”
When I had just turned 18, my mother came into my room with a birthday balloon. It was one of the nice fancy balloons. She was really happy to give it to me.
But I, being the selfish spoiled teenager reacted in anger.
“What! Is this it? I don’t get a cake or presents?!?!”
I will never forget the look of hurt and pain on my mother’s face. She turned around with tears in her eyes and quietly took the balloon from my room.
I knew instantly that I hurt her. I tried to run after her and apologize but the damage was already done.
I know she forgave me right away and gave me the balloon. But, you see, we were a low income family and balloons were rarely given. It was a gift I should have been proud of, but I turned it into something painful.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. You can’t take back words spoken in anger.
I will be 40 this year and my mother has been gone for 16 years and I can still see that look on her face as clear as if it had been yesterday.
I miss her.
I just do
Make America Go Away
The United States is like an abusive, narcissistic uncle that just knows that you will always need him; he is the indispensable uncle that just requires that you accept his authority by saying “uncle” otherwise he will sadly have to increase the level of abuse until you either “get the message” or die from the abuse. The vast majority of the world’s population understands this, whether it be the Latin Americans cheated out of democracy again and again, the Africans who had their post-independence dreams destroyed, the Middle Eastern modernizing and secular states that were eradicated, the Vietnamese that died in their millions to rid themselves of US occupation, the people of Gaza being murdered by US bombs and shells, or the Chinese, Russians and Iranians who face the wrath of the US for not understanding their place. The last thing they want is for the US to be “great” again, and they certainly do not see it as indispensable or a shining city on a hill, as the US political elite claim again and again in the form of religious-style mantras.
US politicians, policy makers and even international relations scholars accept this abusive, narcissistic narrative as they waffle on about a “Liberal International Order” where the US acts as the mafia-boss who makes the rules while not being subject to them, and bloviate about the decrepit “shining city” that must deliver its “gift” of liberal democratic capitalism to the world’s unwashed. Just as they did to the Amerindians in their three century war of extermination, ethnic cleansing and land theft, as they established the “new Jerusalem” of ethnic supremacy; personified by the racist bigot President Wilson who spun a good yarn about “freedom” while bringing the very opposite to not only many foreigners but also the US population. It was he who placed the velvet glove of sweet words about “Western culture” over the hard, racist fist.
So yes, the vast majority of humanity just want the US to go away and leave them to manage their own affairs. The problem with abusive narcissists is that they can turn into “family destroyers”, wiping out the rest of the family because they just know that the family (i.e. humanity) cannot survive without them. If they are to go away, then so must humanity. When those wanting a faster rate of change complain about the careful and patient diplomacy and actions of Russia, Iran and China, they must remember the dangerous lunatic that those nations are dealing with; one that can make humanity disappear with it if it so decides, in a global murder suicide. Anyone looking at the current psychopathic thrashings of the Israeli state must hold no flights of fancy about a US where a quarter of the population still believe in a heretical bible Armageddon fantasy, and its elite are wedded to their global dominance. Such lunatics have to be carefully managed and slowly subdued in order to reduce the possibilities of self-destructive and psychopathic rage-induced paroxysms.
Please Make America Go Away, as peacefully as possible.
The CORE FANTASY that drives women to ORGASM and WHY
I needed a “C” to pass my college communications course.
If I didn’t get a “C,” I would fail to meet my college major requirements setting me back an entire semester.
Here’s the problem: The semester was over, and I had a D+.
My only hope was to email the teacher asking for a bump in my grade.
I wrote an email to her explaining how my past school performance warranted a higher grade and that not passing me would only hurt an ambitious student.
When I hit send, I realized I made a HUGE mistake.
I addressed her using another teacher’s name.
I tried to calm down, but then I remembered we’d spent half the semester covering email etiquette.
Shoot!
What did I do?
Two days later, she emails back.
First, she addresses the glaring mistake then says she bumped my grade up to a “C” to never have me as a student again.
I went out for drinks that night.
This is by far the best mistake I’ve ever made.
US is Militarizing Itself to Death, While China Emphasizes Cooperation.
When I was in high school our physics teacher gave us a challenge that involved making a paper air plane of any shape. The only objective was to get it to fly as far as possible. I had some paper air plane making skills so I made the best plane I could and it flew pretty far.
One guy made the greatest, yet simplest paper airplane of all time. He stood there at the starting line with a regular piece of paper. Some classmates scratched their head while silently chuckling to themselves. Moments later he took the flat piece of paper, crumpled it up, and threw it down the hall way.
He beat the class with ease.
Some of the students got mad and said that he cheated.
The physics teacher said, “How so? I said it could be any shape. A paper ball is indeed a shape.”
He won the contest with flying colors.
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
When I graduated from nursing school 10 years ago, I was flush with cash for the first time in my life. Within the span of a month, I went from having an after tax income of $600/month to an after-tax income of $1200 every 2 weeks.
I felt rich. I was 21 years old. I didn’t want to just save. I would invest.
I read a couple of books, opened a brokerage account, and proceeded to buy and sell stocks and call options. I made a lot of money quickly.
I concluded that I was going to be a stock market genius.
So, when I started losing money, I of course knew that it was a temporary setback. So I played, er, invested some more, and some more, and some more.
After a while, I had to admit to myself that I had a problem. I stopped after a couple of years. I had maybe lost $30K by then.
I repeated the same experiment at the tail end of med school. I decided to borrow an extra $20K and invest. This time, I was going to be disciplined. I was going to focus on buying call options on companies that were going to spin-off part of their assets into standalone companies. The idea was that the market was mispricing the combined companies and that the sum of the parts would be greater than the whole, after a spinoff. It was not an entirely crazy idea. I’d made money that way before.
Anyway, my roommate started making a ton of money in penny stocks of companies involved in the marijuana business. I was jealous of how quickly he was making money. I joined in. I lost another $10–15K. I pulled out. He continued playing. He made money for a while. Eventually, he lost more than he had made.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d lost about $50K in the stock market over the past decade. That has been my worst financial decision. I see it as tuition money that I paid in order to learn that I am emphatically not a stock market genius.
I’m a physician. My mistakes are going to be relatively costless to me. Please don’t try this at home.
The U.S. has 2 choices. And Americans need to wake up to this reality to face the new world. China will always be independent from the U.S. in technology. In many cases it will from now onwards be ahead and with far better technologicallyDon’t than the US and the west. It is happy to share its benefits but it will never allow the U.S. and the West to ever threatened them again. Ever. Never Ever.
Don’t blame China. China were happy to play second fiddle till the despicable US foolishly thought that it can easily contain and control China in Chip technology for a generation. It took less than 3 years for China to catch up. It won’t look back. Now all the trillion of dollars shit it cost to do this shit will ll be wasted. If the U.S. never learnt then they can always lose more trillions. China don’t mind.
What does it mean for the U.S. government? It needs to know that the US has 2 choices. Either it work and I am cooperate with China and profit from China’s humongous market and manufacturing prowess or it loses it all including the access to the global south market representing som 120–150 nations around the world. The U.S. needs to make this decision. Americans need to learn humility and accept that it no longer can dictate to the world.
China will design its own chips, it will manufacture its own chips and it will sell to whoever wants to buy it and use it. It will do so at a faster rate and take less time, and make it a a lower cost and make it cheaper than the US and the west. That is what China always do and and the Chip Ban, the GPS threat and the ISS ban will simply motivate China to dominate all technology. Thanks USA
What do you like to ban, sanction, blockade from now onwards? I think China should stop the U.S. from using paper to clean their backside since China invented paper. Let the use their hands.
I worked at Apple in the 80’s and think the movie grossly underplays how much of an asshole he was.
I’ve worked with many billionaires in my career, and Jobs was the biggest asshole I ever met.
He would destroy people just for the fun of it. He would make it personal.
There were a few who managed to survive and even thrive, like Andy Hertzfeld.
Even on the original Mac team, there was a small number that Steve treated with respect, and the rest he treated like shit. It’s one reason the Mac team fell apart after the Mac shipped. Steve glorified about 10 of them; they were on the cover of Business Week IIRC. The rest he made clear were shit. They had worked their asses off and built a magical product, but Steve didn’t recognize them. So the glorified rock stars got big heads, and the others were deeply slighted. So the team fell apart.
It’s also true that at NeXT and then his return to Apple, Steve grew up and learned to treat people better. Steve v2 wasn’t exactly Mother Theresa, but he learned a lot of lessons and was much improved.
Yes, I still shiver 10 years later. My husband and I were thinking of buying a lot in a new intentional community in Belize (think semi-rainforest, not beach). We stayed at the guest house for several days to tour and explore the area. Activities included canoeing on the beautiful river, hiking, learning about the local culture, etc… Now, recall there’s a river, hence big rocky, sandy, soil-y hills that sloped down to it. Also, no paved roads yet. One day we decided to do a driving tour in our all-wheel drive rental (as opposed to a 4WD we had reserved). You can guess where this is going. We came to the top of a steep incline, and to continue, there was no choice but to proceed down the other side. Approximately 10 feet to our right was a cliff that dropped steeply into a gorge and the river. (I was driving because my husband isn’t crazy about manual transmissions.) Then, the brakes failed. As we gained speed, rocks began to bump us closer to the edge. Honestly, we were thinking that was it- the end of the road for us. But in a moment of something- not brilliance for sure- maybe instinct, I threw the car into first gear. It slowed, then came to rest about 4 feet from the edge. Finally I screamed, just to release the tension. Somehow I didn’t leave a puddle in my seat.
If that wasn’t enough, seconds after we got out of the car, we heard the screams of several women who were crashing through the dense forest to our left. When the three women reached us, they were completely out of breath but managed to yell, “Wild pigs! Wild pigs!”. Just as all of us squeezed into the car for (protection, not escape!), we heard the pigs retreating and running back where they came from.
“Snake” or sometimes “snakes”, Snakeye bombs. Mk-80 Series bombs of various weights fitted with a high-drag devise to provide rapid deceleration upon release.
The special fins were held tight to the bomb casing until release, at which time they popped open to insure maximum horizontal separation between bomb and aircraft at detonation. Without the high-drag unit added, bombs could strike the ground and detonate under the aircraft. In some cases the explosion would bring down the delivering aircraft. At one time, this was called a “Low Blow”. Snakeyes were generally dropped at low to very low altitudes to enhance accuracy. Mk-80 series bombs without the decelerating tail unit were generally described as “Slicks”.
When I was 15 years old I made a decision that to this day still baffles me. I spent the weekend with my good buddy putting a hot motor into his car. We finished the work on Sunday afternoon and my friend told me he would come by my house and get me later so we could go celebrate the car and new motor.
When he got to my parents house that evening I walked out to the driveway and made that fateful decision by telling my buddy that I had “homework” to do and wouldn’t be going with him.
Later that night my friend and two others hit a tree going about a hundred miles an hour. It killed my friend and the other guy in the front seat and put the backseat passenger in the hospital for a month.
To this day I have no idea why I didn’t go with them. I really didn’t have any homework. It just came into my head that day and I said it and that was it.
I would have been the guy in the front passenger seat that night.
When I had a daycare I had a four year old who went through a terrible phase of pulling hair. He didn’t just yank; he’d get his fingers tangled in there and twist and pull with his entire body. It was extremely painful. He once got hold of my hair and pulled some out.
I tried everything to stop him. I watched him like a hawk. I stopped him when he got that look and lunged for someone’s hair. His mom acknowledged the problem she was having with him at home with his two older sisters. She tried everything; we both did, but nothing stopped him.
One day he got hold of this cute little two year old’s hair. She was screaming in pain as I tried to detach his fingers. And I finally had had it. I grabbed his hair and pulled just as hard as I could.
He let go immediately and started crying. And he never pulled hair again.
His mom thought he had finally grown out of his phase. I never told her what I did. I didn’t abuse the kids I watched; never spanked them or yelled at them. I still feel guilty for what I did. He probably would have stopped on his own.
My sister. It was the day of my mother’s funeral after a very fast illness and sudden, unexpected death. My husband had run an errand for Dad. He was gone about an hour. During that hour, one sister (older, middle one of three) cornered me as I sat at the dining table. She spent most of that time telling me what a horrible person I was, listing every perceived mistake I had ever made in my life, all the times I had disrespected her, etc. When my husband came home he found me sobbing, curled into a fetal ball behind the guest bed.
That afternoon and for the rest of that weekend I would not be in the same room with her. I spent my time composing a long email listing every claim she had thrown at me and why each was wrong (or blown out of proportion). It was all I could emotionally manage.
She never even acknowledged the email, let alone apologize for being such a bully. I waited two weeks and sent another email, asking if she got the first one. She acknowledged that she did. That’s all. Just a “yes I got it.”
I have not spoken to her since. And because my other older (oldest) sister just stood there, I have barely spoken to her. Their emails are automatically filtered to trash. They don’t even know my phone number in Spain, where I now live. I no longer have any sibling photos on the “photo wall” in the hallway. I consider myself an only child. I will not return to the US for either of their funerals when the time comes. They are not welcome to visit me in Spain and I don’t even want them notified when I die.
My daughter is a single mom, and once a week I help her out. I pick up her kids, aged 8 and 7, from school and watch them until their mother comes home around 8 PM.
The older one is a lot like me. Introverted, shy, a bookworm who goes through a couple of books a week. I never have a bit of problem with him. We understand each other. We’ll watch TV or play a game of chess together.
The younger one is the social butterfly of the family. She goes outside and plays with the other kids in her neighborhood.
She’s also stubborn to a fault. Just like her mother at that age.
And one evening about a week ago she started getting defiant. Refused to do anything I asked. I was losing patience.
Just then her mother came home and things escalated. I watched the two most stubborn human beings I’d ever met lock horns for about half an hour. I’d seen this behavior before — we got it from her mother, my daughter, when she was that age.
“Dad, I am so sorry for all the trouble I put you and mom through when I was her age,” she told me.
I laughed. “It’s OK. You grew up to be a pretty good kid and I’m sure she will too.”
But she was right. Everything she had put us through when she was young and stubborn was now coming back on her.
Thanks for the a2a. I have Chinese friends living all over the world. Some of them without fail ask me nearly every day if I have eaten yet. I have never thought it was anything other than kindness.
You see, I am from the Deep South in America. We Southern women show love and hospitality through our cooking. When I visit family, we’re having a meal and I have brought a dish. Or if they visit me, I’m feeding them and they probably brought something. I know my mother loves me because every time I visit, she makes tea exactly the way I like it. My brother knows I care because I make his favorite foods or desserts. My father is proud when I compliment his ability to grill a steak, and my sister requests my old-fashioned strawberry cake for her birthday. My daughter, she wants to make birthday cakes for everyone—whether it’s their birthday or not!
Food is a language, and that language expresses love, hospitality, kindness, care, and friendship. I believe Chinese people (as well as other cultures) understand this. I have always taken my Chinese friends encouragement to eat dinner or breakfast as a sign of their care for me, and I express the same care toward them. If they ever came to visit me, I wouldn’t let them leave my home without feeding them first. They don’t have to be fluent in English and I do not have to speak perfect Mandarin when it comes to sharing a meal together.
Americans foolishly screamed and shout that they are the leader of the free world without ever questioning if it is even remotely true or not! Please don’t be angry or upset if I help you guys since I understand you can pretend to be free or even dare says you are ordained by god to spread democracy and freedom but you Americans are one of the least free country on earth.
Let me help you good American. So first I like to explain how unfree you guys are.
35% of you cannot get health care when you fall sick! The most basic of freedom is the freedom to see a doctor and get cure when you fall sick. At least 100 million Americans don’t have this basic of basics of freedom.
Next 1 million Americans are homeless and don’t have another basic of basics of freedom. The freedom to have a roof over their head.! They have to live in makeshift tents on the streets.
20% of Americans don’t have 500 dollars to their name and don’t know where their next meal is coming from! Surely everyone must have the freedom to have a hot meal to stay alive!
USA with about 4% of world population has 25% of the worlds prisoners population! Think about this my American friends, prisoners are certainly. Not free. Many of them coloured people thrown into jail for the slightest reason. How on earth can you keep a straight face to say U.S. is the leader of the free world. No one know!
In many cities in the U.S. one cannot go to certain parts of the inner city like the Queens in New York. As crimes are rampant. So normal innocent and good Americans like you have to avoid that part of America! Surely freedom means you can go to anywhere or any part of America.
Kids and parents suffers the mental turmoils daily for just going to school. Many got shot to death in schools, public places, cinemas and even in Capitol Hill! Is that freedom? Even your kids are not free to go to school without a random mass shooter lurking with military grade weapons to murder them! Is this freedom?
If you are not fortunate to have a white skin you could be necked to death in the bright daylight of even driving a good car may be be shot to death just for suspected of stealing the car! Everyday you live in fear of a white policeman! Is that freedom to live? Freedom to avoid death at the racist inclination of the white racist? Surely not.
Freedom means you can choose who you really want to be your leader. Only 30% choose Biden. Or 35% choose Trump! Why are they your president? Your system allowed 0.8% of the richest and most influential people to choose your candidates! Surely this is not political freedom. This is far from democracy. How on earth can you call yourself the “beacon of democracy” who in a sane mind can claim that?
Oh today you country stop the Americans from having access to best 5G technology, Smartphone, best EV’s, drones and others for some geopolitical nonsense! Is this freedom? Freedom to be deprived? Let me help you understand. You are deprived from buying a 10 thousand bucks EV that need to be charged once a week but you are not allowed to! You cannot buy your Tesla like for half the price! Just to support your too big to fail auto industry paying 100 million bonus doing shit for good Americans!
But to me EVs and Drones are just the top of the iceberg of your draconian and suicide policies that takes away the freedom of Americans like you. Think about Jullien Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden! Freedom? American is anything but free.
I wasn’t fired, I just quit a job with a window replacement contractor after finding full time premanant employment. I called to inform the man and give him two weeks notice. He cussed at me and slammed the phone down. I called him right back and asked him to send me payment for the previous weeks work and he ratteled on about how I installed those last windows wrong and that he would not be paying me what was owed and told me never to call again followed by a loud “click”. So, I tallied all my hours plus all the OT I’d worked but was never paid more than a flat hourly rate. I took this document to the owners of the business he had contracted with, explained the situation and said “I just want to give you the opportunity to resolve this before I take the matter to the labor department” (they had a local office). The owner said “Thank you” and said they’d take care of it. The man was in a back office supposedly waiting for a meet so I said “Great! We will just need to come to agreement on what he owes me” The man said “Nothing to worry about there, whatever you say”. I asked when I might expect payment from him and the man said, if this amount on your records is good, I’ll cut you a check right now and we’ll just deduct the funds from his contract payment. I never saw the man again but he was a hot head all the same and I could feel the burn of his rage as I drove away.
As for my ability to install windows… The man had previously took me aside, giving me a raise because, as he said “You’re the only one I have who can read a tape measure”.
About 5 or 6 months ago, my girlfriend and I threw a little get together at our place for friends from work. I cooked dinner for everyone, and we just sort of made it buffet style. The whole affair was great fun and will make for great memories. After everyone had left Emily and I decided that we’d at least get the major stuff picked up, (the dishes and glasses into the dishwasher and the leftovers put into the fridge). While Em was finishing up in the kitchen I began moving things around in the front room, and there I found a pair of thong panties next to the couch. I picked them up and walk into the kitchen with them hanging on my finger. Em stood there looking at them and doing her best not to laugh. Because they were pink, I knew it wasn’t something that fell from the laundry basket by mistake. Neither of us likes pink.
To this day nobody has come forward to ask about them.
Best video Ever
Men, Listen up. It doesn’t matter (to anyone) if you win or lose. What matters is how you take it.
Yes. It’s 1986, I’m 9 years old and I come downstairs to get ready for school. My dad is reading the paper and he says, “Hey Corey, what do you know about comets?”
I immediately spout off everything a space-addicted 9 year old kid can/should know about comets. My dad beams at me and tells me bedtime will be postponed.
Night falls and my dad comes home early. We get into his Ford Escort and drive to K-Bee toys where he buys me a pair of GI Joe binoculars just as it is closing.
I can still remember what they looked like in the packaging.
We drive to a subdivision that is under construction and park on a mound of dirt that is now someone’s home.
We both lay on the hood of that car and look at the stars. We talk about space. We talk about life. He tells me that the next time this comet passes by Earth he will be long gone, but he hopes I will watch it and remember what it is like to be a child staring at the night sky with his dad.
We never saw Halley’s comet that night. Our binoculars were too cheap, the light pollution was too strong, the comet was too far away. To be honest, I think I prefer it that way.
Because what I want to remember about that day has nothing at all to do with a comet.
There’s a great many things I wanted for my life. Some of them have come to pass, others never will. But above all I hope that, one day, I will sit on a mound of dirt as an old man. I will sit with the great love of my life and our children and our children’s children.
And we, all of us, will look at the stars. And maybe we’ll see a comet and maybe we won’t.
But we’ll look regardless and we will think of the ones we have loved.
Your U.S. workers demand 5 times Chinese workers income, and 10 times more benefits and are willing to world half as hard and are 75% as smart or well trained and your CEO expects and demand 100 times more income!
As such if you produce here Apple 15 must be marketed and sold USD5000 instead of less than USD1500! Ask your local customers, friends and colleagues will they buy Apple 15 or save USD4000 and buy a Chinese phone this is faster, better and cheaper.
You decide. Tim Cook knows the answer! China knows Tim Cook knows the Answer and the 7.999 billion people except you and your 6 racist friends need to ask!
I had a coworker who disliked me the moment she saw me. Idk why, but it seems to occur to me a lot, “hate at 1st sight”, lol! I am a very friendly person who has found that if I treat an unfriendly coworker respectfully and don’t react to their nastiness, they will eventually grow to like me.
Well, after nearly 2 years of her passive-aggressive behavior and snide remarks, I finally grew weary of her abuse. FYI she was almost my doppelgänger in every way. Nearly identical facial features, hair color, style, figure and dress size Misses 0. Acquaintances usually couldn’t tell us apart.
So, one day she came to work wearing a very cute summer dress. I complimented her on it.
She smirked and said, “Thank you! I’d tell you where I bought it, but there are no extra large sizes left.”
About a decade ago, I got an Interview for a network administrator position. The phone interview went really well. I had a panel interview with an HR rep, some VP, and the manager I would have reported to. It goes great, and I get a conditional offer later that same day. They even offered me more than I asked for, though I suspect the recruiting agency may have padded my range to get a bigger commission (and I loved them for it). I sign the background check paperwork.
Two days later, I get a call from the recruiter saying that the offer was rescinded and that the recruiting agency can’t work with me any more. Ok, that’s really weird. My credit score is shot due to having been unemployed for a bit with bills piling up, but that’s not usually the kind of thing that gets a recruiting agency to drop you. I ask for details, but the recruiter will only say that I will receive communication by mail.
A couple weeks later, after I had finally accepted a lower-paying offer elsewhere, a letter comes in the mail with a copy of my background check. I read over it and see convictions for armed robbery, attempted murder, aggravated assault, and a bunch of other stuff I don’t remember … except remembering I’ve never been arrested or charged for anything like that, let alone convicted. Well, I look at the paperwork l, and what do you know. The first and last name are correct, but the middle name and date of birth are wrong. It’s almost as if they Googled my first and last name and just read the results of whoever popped up first.
I kind of wish they had done a bit more reading, because it would have been hard for him to attend interviews seeing as he was literally in prison while I was in their office.
I did point out the error to the recruiting agency … and never heard back.
Originally Answered: What is the best case of “you just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?
A woman called my newsroom crying. Nobody wanted to deal with her. So they sent her to me. She was crying and hard to understand, but the basic story went this way…
She had bought a used car. She needed it badly to get to the THREE jobs she held to support her children by herself. No husband. Less than two weeks after buying the car, it broke down. She called the dealer who had told her it had a 30-day warranty.
He told her he couldn’t help. But, she told him, you said it had a 30 day warranty. His response — too bad. When she complained, he told her — “lady, you’re dealing with the big boys now.”
She was crying as she told me this. I was — to put it mildly — angry. My response to her — let me call you back.
I called him. I explained the problem and when I did not get what I considered a good response, I “explained” things to him:
He needed to respond appropriately to her and solve the problem.
If he did not respond appropriately, I would have my entire investigative news team look into his operation.
He did not like that.
Cautionary note here: My response – YOU picked the wrong person to fight with, and no, NOW, you’re playing with the Big Boys, expletives to follow…
He took back her car. Gave her a slightly newer model without any problems. She called crying and thanked me. I may have cried a bit too.
PS – I didn’t do the story about him. I wonder if I should have?
Operation Bodenplatte, also known as the “New Year’s Offensive” or “Unternehmen Bodenplatte”, was a large-scale aerial offensive launched by the German Luftwaffe against Allied airfields in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 1 January 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge. The operation was intended to cripple Allied airpower and support the German ground forces in the Ardennes region.
Despite achieving some initial surprise and causing some damage to Allied aircraft, Operation Bodenplatte was ultimately a failure. The Luftwaffe suffered heavy losses, losing over 250 aircraft compared to Allied losses of around 130. The operation also failed to achieve its main objective of crippling Allied airpower, as the Allies were able to quickly recover from the attacks.
There were several reasons for the failure of Operation Bodenplatte:
Poor planning and coordination: The operation was poorly planned and coordinated, with many of the Luftwaffe units involved not receiving their orders until the day of the attack. This led to confusion and delays, and the attacks were not as coordinated as they could have been.
Allied air superiority: The Allies had achieved air superiority over the skies of Western Europe by the end of 1944, and the Luftwaffe was no match for the combined strength of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces.
Adverse weather conditions: The weather on the day of the attack was poor, with low clouds and fog, which made it difficult for the Luftwaffe bombers to find their targets and for the Luftwaffe fighters to intercept Allied aircraft.
Allied intelligence: The Allies had broken the German codes and were aware of the planned attack. This allowed them to take evasive action and scramble their fighters to intercept the Luftwaffe bombers.
As a result of its failure, Operation Bodenplatte marked the beginning of the end of the Luftwaffe as an effective fighting force. The operation resulted in the loss of irreplaceable experienced pilots and aircraft, and the Luftwaffe was never able to regain its strength.
A top bunk is not “disrespectful”…. It is its own special fucking misery in a world of miseries…
Having to sleep in the top rack forces the occupant into constantly climbing over and disturbing the occupant of the lower bunk, denies the top bunk the use of “Privacy Curtains”, is fully exposed to the ventilation system which will always be too hot or too cold, is fully exposed to the lights, which can often be on 24 hours a day, prevents easy access to possessions stored under the bottom bunk, it forces the top bunk occupant into waking up the lower bunk every time he has to use the toilet or sink, and cuts down on the number of places the top bunk occupant can sit, since sitting on someones bunk without their permission is an act of disrespect…
I have seen more SERIOUS fights between cellies over “bunk territory” than any other issue… I’m talking about fights when one or both combattants require hospitalisation and a trip to The Hole…
My wife and I were out to eat with some friends. We were having a good time and enjoying ourselves when all of a sudden this horrific smell wafted towards us. The unmistakable smell of baby shit.
Eww, but whatever. Babies shit. It happens.
However, what happened next left us speechless and without appetite. The man with the baby was at a large round table with several other people. When they smelled it too, there was the standard, “Ooops, someone made a poopy” comments towards the baby.
The man picked the baby up, pushed some plates and glasses out of the way, and proceeded to open the offending diaper right there in the middle of the dining room. The smell was bad to begin with, but once he opened that thing up, it was nauseatingly bad. We had just received our meals, but there was no way we were eating anymore.
People around the restaurant were staring at the table, but no one at that table seemed to think anything of it. They were going about their conversations as though there wasn’t a shit-covered child on the table. One of the tables next to us went up to the bar to complain; the bartender said “That’s Jane’s family, she’s the manager. I’ll go get her.”
Jane came out of the back with an irritated look on her face. When the customer complained, she loudly said, “Oh, it’s not that bad. He’ll be done in a minute.” and walked over to the infant and made baby noises at it while the dad finished changing the diaper.
We and a few other tables all got up and headed for the door. “Hey, you didn’t pay!” was shouted after us. One of our companions turned and said to the manager, “You call the cops, I’ll call the health department. I’m sure they’d love to hear about this.” and we left.
I used to really like that restaurant, now I can’t even drive past it without gagging a little.
Seriously, how can people be so fucking disgusting?
Originally Answered: Have you ever stood up to a bully at the workplace and they back off?
Yes indeed. Two years ago, we had a hurricane. I had no food, no lights , no power. The next morning, I still went to work.
My manager raised his voice and was abusive. He wanted to push his work on to me, but I had no power, and didn’t see the email the night before. I spoke up to him and said he was totally unrealistic. He was stunned, like no one had ever spoken back to him.
The manager told the director, and the director texted me two hours later, getting harsh, saying “I know you have power supply issues, but the three of us need to meet“.
Ten minutes later, I sent a letter to HR complaining of harassment and abusive speech. I copied the email to an executive three levels above my director. The executive texted me back and said to keep him informed.
HR saw the executive’s email response, and the HR director called me within 40 mins of getting the email. I told her I wanted a management change. She switched me to a new set of directors an hour later. The new directors are professional and wonderful to work for.
The main point: Bully bosses don’t back down right away on their own. You must save yourself by contacting a boss two levels above your boss. Two levels, not one level. Use email letters to complain. Letters put everyone on notice, and they’re like a hand grenade.
When I was about 17 years old, my dad walked in on me and my then-boyfriend having sex.
The house I lived in at the time was located directly across from my high school. I was enrolled in a lot of sports, as was my boyfriend. Our practices often didn’t start until a half an hour or so after school ended, so most days we had a little bit of time to, um, kill. This particular day, I thought my dad would be at work. We raced to my house, went to my bedroom, and went at it. A few minutes later, without warning, my dad did the thing he always did – knock, then immediately open the door. Seriously? What was the point of knocking? I’ll never understand.
So there I was. His precious baby, naked with a boy. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to do a little *roll* off the bed, and then a second *roll* to hide myself underneath my bed. Leaving my bare-bummed boyfriend to the nightmare above me.
The only words my dad said was, “get dressed.”
I did not go to practice that day. Instead, I had to have dinner with my dad, alone. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I was mortified.
We tried to have small talk???? “How was your day?” “Fine, yours?”
Two guys, college-age were yapping and I heard them say, it would be nice if the old f***er would let us go before him.
I looked up ahead of me in line and there were two young women, and then a man and wife and I didn’t see the advantage of them wanting to let these guys go before them, and they didn’t look all that old, then I realized that they were talking about me.
So I reached in my basket and took a shirt I was buying and pulled the tag off it, so when it was my turn and I didn’t let the sh**heads but in line, I left the shirt for last after taking my time unloading all the merchandise and striking up a nice conversation with the checker that always stalls a little and then she got to the shirt.
By this time the guys were really pissed. She said sir, your shirt doesn’t have a tag, let me call someone and get a price for you. I looked back with a grin. and said, you just got old f**kered.
I got married in 2008, my sister in 2009. My wedding was lovely and small but I felt like it meant a lot. My sister got married a year later. My Aunts bestowed upon her a family necklace (something borrowed and old) that was blue, and a simple flower bracelet for her something new.
They had done none of that for me.
I cried for 3 days. Like my marriage didn’t matter at all.
I was nearly killed in a multi-vehicular accident when I was 25. The first police officer on the scene pronounced me dead, but, luckily for me, there was a nurse on hand to confirm that, while I was gravely injured and in shock (which means that you don’t have a pulse in your arms and legs because your blood pressure is so low), I was actually alive.
By the time the ambulance got there, I was conscious and screaming from the pain of my injuries. I had broken both my legs, my pelvis and three vertebrae (they were not displaced), but the source of my agony was a dislocated knee joint. My knee-cap was 6 to 8 inches north of where it should be and my upper and lower leg bones over-lapped by 3 or 4 inches.
It hurt. A LOT.
So, they cut me out of my car and got me into the ambulance and rushed me to the hospital. I was in bad enough shape that they called ahead so an Orthopedist was waiting for me. Unfortunately for me, he was a newly minted doctor fresh out of his residency.
When he came into the exam room he:
did not ask my name
did not introduce himself
did not examine me
did not look at my chart
did not attempt to take the pulse in the ankle of the mangled leg
What he DID do was say, “Oh, that leg has to come off.” Those were literally the first words out of his mouth.
Now, my sister is a nurse and my mother wanted me to be a doctor, so I knew that he should have at least looked at my chart and attempted an exam. I was so angry at his utter lack of bedside manner that my immediate response was, “If I lose my leg, you’ll lose your license.”
Honestly, I don’t know who was more surprised, him or me. Admittedly I was having a REALLY bad day, but normally I would never say anything like that to anyone.
Now, what I didn’t know at the time was that in 95% of the cases where a person has a dislocated knee joint the way I did, the femoral artery that supplies blood to the lower leg is crushed beyond repair. But I was extraordinarily flexible, and luckily, my femoral artery was NOT damaged.
So after a short but pointed argument and a bit of malpractice (on the doctor’s part), my injury was reduced and I got to keep my leg below the knee. It has taken a lot of surgery to fix the damage and more than a decade of physical therapy to relearn how to walk but I can walk and 99% of people won’t notice my limp.
So that is how a split-second decision changed my life. If I had let the doctor amputate, no one would have known that my artery hadn’t been crushed and I’d have a prosthesis and be buying my shoes one at a time. I thank goodness every day that I said what I did to that insufferable jerk.
Women and their tests…
Heaven on Seven Chicken Voodoo Rigatoni
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 tablespoons plus 1/4 teaspoon Angel Dust Cajun Seasoning
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup diced yellow onion
1/2 cup diced red onion
1/3 cup thinly sliced green onion, white and green parts
2 tablespoons Roasted Garlic Puree
1/3 cup diced celery
1/2 cup seeded, diced green bell pepper
1/2 cup seeded, diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup seeded, yellow bell pepper
1/3 cup seeded, diced poblano chile
1/4 cup seeded, diced cubanella pepper
1/4 cup seeded, diced banana pepper
1 tablespoon seeded, minced Fresno chile
1 1/2 teaspoons seeded, minced habanero chile
1 teaspoon seeded, minced jalapeno
1/2 teaspoon minced serrano chile
1/2 teaspoon seeded, minced fingerhot chile
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon Hungarian paprika
1/4 teaspoon Spanish paprika
1/4 teaspoon chile powder
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup peeled and diced ripe banana
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
3/4 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup mango juice
1/2 cup papaya juice
1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon Key lime or regular lime juice
1 tablespoon Hot as a Mutha hot pepper sauce or habanero sauce
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
2 pounds dried rigatoni pasta, cooked according to package directions
Instructions
Season the chicken with 2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning.
In a 5 quart Dutch oven, preferably enameled cast iron, heat the oil over high heat. When oil is hot but not smoking add the chicken and brown for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Stir in the yellow, red and green onions and the garlic puree cook for 2 minutes.
Add the celery, peppers, and chiles cook until vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes.
Add honey, sugars, paprikas, chile powder, allspice, coriander, turmeric, salt, black and white peppers, red pepper flakes, remaining 1/4 teaspoon Cajun seasoning, and stir for 2 to 3 minutes to coat meat and vegetables with the seasonings.
Mix in the banana, tomato sauce, water, coconut milk, juices and hot pepper sauce. Bring to a boil reduce the heat to medium low and simmer uncovered for 1 hour.
When ready to serve, stir in the butter until well blended and toss with rigatoni in a large bowl.
Attribution
Posted by Recipethyme at Recipe Goldmine 8/18/2001 5:26 pm.
Source: Chef Jimmy Bannos – Heaven on Seven Restaurant, Chicago
While we usually call it the “sixth sense”, the military term for this phenomenon is “premonition and intuition”.
Soldiers who fought for a long time on the battlefield have often developed sharper senses. Their bodies and minds are adapting to a survival situation:
After you have been away from any artificial light sources for a while, your night vision will improve. Being constantly exposed to enemy fire, your ability to see and recognize objects at a long distance increases.
You will be able to fine tune your hearing so that you’ll will be more perceptible to all “man made” sounds, for example tank engines or sounds of movement in the underbrush.
There are even soldiers who are capable to smell human feces from long distances away.
And some soldiers go even further: they develop an elevated state of mind, where their subconsciousness is able to connect the tiniest sensory inputs with the soldier’s vast experience. This way, soldiers can “foresee” future events on the battlefield, can “sniff out” ambushes and “know” where the enemy has put the mines.
This is not a new phenomenon, though there are many accounts from WWII and the Vietnam war where soldiers acquired extraordinary perception skills. Unfortunately, the military often dismissed them as “spooky stories”.
I was able to acquire a limited set of “extrasensory perception” skills myself. Interestingly, while I was fighting in the Bosnian war, I wasn’t really able to develop above average senses. As the war went on, I became better in anticipating enemy positions, or mined areas, but this was purely because of my ever growing experience and improved knowledge of our enemy’s tactics. When you’ve seen the enemy attacking a couple of times, always in the same way, it’s really not too difficult to figure out what their next steps will be.
During the war in Kosovo, however, I went one step further. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that we were nonstop in combat. There were no clear front lines (like in Bosnia) and everyday was a fight for survival that demanded from us to be 100% alert and sharp.
I remember one particular day: it was the third day of a massive enemy attack and I was manning a position together with a comrade. We were expecting that the enemy’s main assault would happen just in front of our position. We were in a small house and the moment I entered the building I felt that something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it, though, but an inner voice told me: “this place is no good!”
We waited, but nothing happened. The fighting had started on our right flank, but in front of us, everything was still calm. All of a sudden, I told my buddy: “Let’s go somewhere else!” He trusted my word and didn’t argue with me and so we moved to another house that was a couple of hundred meters up the road.
On our way, we passed two of our comrades who were waiting in another position. I took a short look at their spot and told them to move fifty meters up the road to another place. I didn’t know why I said it, but they obeyed my order and moved immediately.
My new position was in a big three story house, only hundred meters to their right side, and so I was able to keep an eye on them. After an hour, the enemy attacked us with tanks. I shot twice with an RPG, but the enemy was still advancing. Our house had a very safe place in the basement and more and more soldiers came from other places to find refuge there.
Our last position, the “big house”, seen from enemy side. Picture taken after the war.
Outside the house, bullets and shells were flying from every direction. Suddenly my alarms went off again. I stood up and said: “Let’s go! Now or never!” and we all exited through a small window at the back of the house.
When I got outside the house, the air was red from the dust of the houses’ red bricks. Trees were hit by artillery shells and one fell just one meter in front of my feet. I waved and screamed at the two comrades that I had left nearby and told them to join us. Somehow we all made it to a safe place.
What I found out later was that an artillery shell had hit the exact place where I had my first position, just minutes after we decided to leave the place. The shell went straight through the roof and would have killed us immediately.
The two soldiers that I had asked to change their position came to thank me. They told me that only one minute after they were in their new position, an artillery shell had hit the old one.
And the last man who had left the big house from the small window told us that the moment he was leaving the building, a tank round had hit the room in the basement where we had stayed the whole time.
Of course we had a lot of luck that day, but there was more to it. After having spent a long time in combat, I was able to trust my instincts, my gut feeling, although it didn’t make any logical sense. From a military point of view, the positions that we had been using that day were carefully chosen and the best possible choices. Still, some inner voice told me to abandon them.
There were more occasions where my extrasensory perception skills (or those of my comrades) were either saving our lives or made us better soldiers. Especially during night combat, we often “knew” where each of our soldiers was positioned and what they were doing, without being able to see them. We were able to move without wasting time figuring out where everyone was left and we could shoot without hitting one of our own people. This made us better and more lethal soldiers.
Yield: about 8 to 10 gallons of gumbo. Can cut recipe in half to reduce.
Ingredients
2 cups vegetable oil
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups diced onions
2 cups diced celery
2 cups diced bell pepper
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 cups chopped green onions
3 gallons water
1 pound fresh or frozen okra
1 (28 ounce) can Ro*Tel diced tomatoes or 2 (10 ounce) cans
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
2 ounces crab boil
8 dashes Tabasco sauce
8 dashes Louisiana hot sauce
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 ounce Paul Prudhomme’s Seafood Magic seasonings
1 ounce Cajun seasoning
1 ounce dried basil
1 ounce dried thyme
3 pounds peeled and deveined shrimp (70 to 90 count)
1 pound claw crab meat
2 whole crabs, cleaned and halved
1 pint fresh oysters
1 ounce file or to taste
Instructions
First, you make a roux. In a large, heavy stock pot on medium heat, add 2 cups vegetable oil and bring to temperature.
Add flour gradually. It will sizzle when it is at the right temperature. Using a whisk, stir roux constantly. Stir until it reaches a peanut butter color. When it reaches the desired color, add the onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic and 1 cup of green onions (in that order) until all ingredients are cooked down or caramelized.
Add water, okra, Ro*Tel tomatoes, seasonings and bring to boil. After it reaches boiling, reduce heat to low and let simmer for at least an hour.
Add seafood and continue to cook on medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Taste for seasoning and texture.
Add file to thicken.
Stir in the remaining green onions and simmer for a few more minutes.
It was older than I was. The biggest issue was, the floor pans were pretty rusted out (and the Flintstones jokes that came with it). I could see the road flow by if I looked down under my feet and pedals. Water would splashed up when it rained.
So I try to fix it. Some rolled stainless steel wouldn’t stay down right. Riveting just made more holes. And I gave it a break. Later that afternoon, I noticed my mom’s cookie sheet. It was almost the exact right size! And it wouldn’t roll up. A few clips with tin snips, and some epoxy, I had the floor of my car (on my side) waterproof!
Later that week, my mom wanted to make cookies. I, of course, had no idea where her cookie sheet was.
I think the worst part was me “helping” her look for 5 or 8 minutes.
A few summers ago, and 20 or so years later, I finally came clean about it. Time heals all wounds, and she wasn’t too upset.
I was quite a lonely boy, and longed for a relationship. On holiday, I met a girl who seemed interested in me, and we had fun: we walked, climbed, sailed together and did a lot of talking. At the end of the holiday, we exchanged addresses and corresponded for a year or so. I kept ALL her letters.
One day, she wrote to tell me about her new boyfriend. He was wonderful (apparently.) Being rather immature, I felt betrayed. I had no reason to feel this way, we were only friends and I should have felt glad for her, but hey. Teenage angst.
I took all her letters, threw them into my metal litter bin, and set fire to them.
IN MY BEDROOM.
I had the window open, and there was no-one else in the house, so that was cool. I remember the IMMENSE satisfaction watching those letters burn.
When the bin cooled, I decided to bury the ashes, and with them my heart. I lifted the bin – and there was a perfect bottom-of-the-bin shaped hole in the polyester carpet.
My father was fairly physical in terms of punishment, so my heart did not just sink: it scuttled itself. I knew that Armageddon would ensue were this to be discovered.
In panic, I looked around and realised that my room was a perfect oblong. The bin-shaped burn was in the left corner, my bed in the opposing right corner.
I have (up to this day!) never worked so hard or fast in my life. I removed the furniture from my room, managed to lift the carpet, desperately salvaging the carpet tacks, turned the carpet around, nailed it back down and replaced the furniture, with the bed covering the offending burn.
My parents wondered why I suddenly announced my decision to assist with the housework by taking responsibility for all upstairs vacuuming and cleaning. They were surprised but pleased: I was desperate to keep my crime concealed.
I am now 59. My father has passed away, but my mother still lives in the family home. And the burn is still under my old bed. 45 years later, my crime remains hidden.
1. Pretty people are automatically more acceptable by people. Average looking people have to do something above average to get accepted and ugly people have to do something extraordinary!
It is because the human mind appreciates physical beauty and repels ugliness because of immaturity of mind. But in the end what matters is inner beauty or ugliness and that wiseness comes with experience and time.
2. Leaving your girlfriend/boyfriend seems much tougher than leaving your friends.
It is because romantic relations induces strong pheromones secretions in your body that cause you to develop strong bonding feeling with your partner. It is not the case you have with friends and hence breaking a strong bond seems tougher.
3. People who get goosebumps frequently while listening to music have a special connection with it. These people listen to music very frequently and their work capacities and capabilities are partly dependent on it. If they are barred from listening to music for 1 month, their productivity will fall.
It is because the hormone adrenaline increases in their body while listening to the music and that causes more activation, more awakening and better functioning of their body. Plus, it keeps the mind calm.
4. The more attention you give to a person, the more attitude he/she will show you and the less crap he/she will give about you.
It is because as the humans get more attention, their minds tend to think that they are very important and good looking and the person who is giving them attention needs their company desperately and is not equal to them at all.
5. Money instils confidence and happiness in majority of people. It increases their desire to work.
It is because anything (money) that is able to complete every single desire of people is very much acceptable to them as human desire are insatiable.
In 5th grade I had a 1st year teacher, Ms. Craig, who was amazing and one of the reasons I went into education, but I digress. One day we were studying the United States and where all of the states were. I noticed that she had switched Missouri and Minnesota. I remember thinking – that is not right. you see my dad is from Minnesota and my family lived there for a short spell when I was 4. I decided, to ask her if that is really where Minnesota located. I will never forget her reply – You know Denise, I am not totally confident that it is let’s check. So in front of the entire class, she lifted the map she had written on to look at the map that contained all of the States written on it. Well, look at that Denise is correct, I made a mistake and mixed up two states!
Miss Jana Craig if you are out there and can read this, you made a very strong impression on a 5th grader in the very first class you taught. You were the BEST teacher ever! Thank you for making me love school.
The most important required secondary power is to be born in an upper class family. Most of those high IQ people who succeed, have born with silver spoon on hand.
The reason is trivial. Nobody makes it alone nor in a vacuum. To be successful, you need to get socialized with right people, to know the right people, to be encouraged, to have social support, you name it. The less you have those, the less likely you are to succeed.
Then there is the thrice-goddamned communication range. If you are a high-IQ person in a middle class environment, you are likely to be branded as a weird kid, a nerd, a geek, an egghead and bullied and ostracized. You learn very quickly to hide your intelligence to stay below the radar lest you are torn into pieces. And God help you if you are born in a working class family – you will be stampled as a weirdo, a misfit, an outcast, and eaten alive.
For a middle class and working class high IQ individuals, the best hopes are military and STEM branches. Military because militaries are meritocracies, and high IQ is an asset once you are past buck sergeant or lieutenant. STEM branches, because they are difficult and require brainpower, and you are likely to get networked with similar-minded youngsters.
Forget the rags-to-riches fairy tales. They are just that – fairy tales invented to deceive the gullible and to make the proles to blame themselves for their failures.
When I was a Senior in High School I was “big” into weight-lifting. I was “pumped” and I was quite an “amazing specimen.”
In fact, during the class physical check-up for us boys, the female doctor and the female nurse asked me to go to the back room (in my underwear) and pose for them. They just smiled and looked on.
I, being young and a dumb shit, didn’t know what was going on.
Anyways, some friends offered some steroids to me to help me get and build up mass. I thought about it, but you know, I was concerned about this. So I made a doctor’s appointment, though my mother, and went to the doctor.
When the doctor asked me what was wrong I had a trouble answering. I did a lot of hemming and humming.
Finally I asked about steroids, and the doctor (a woman) told me that it was a serious, SERIOUS issue and that I should not do it.
She saw me off, and then her son (who was in my class) brought me an envelope filled with papers about the dangers of steroids. She also continued to check in on me. She did this over the next five months. And she checked up on me though my mother.
Well, I really didn’t need a follow up.
I just didn’t do any steroids.
It was one of the BEST things that I ever did. And honestly, I am so happy that I lived in a small town and community. Access for these kinds of medicines was difficult and I did not pursue them. Thank JESUS!
Our decisions ALWAYS possess late-game impact.
You are the sum total of your previous behaviors. And that is why it takes a while for the affirmation campaigns to work. You have to untangle decades of previous verbalizations.
Smile. All of you are doing great right now. I believe in you all.
The best food in France ever is the Jambon Beurre.
But that’s just a ham sandwich, and you’re correct, it’s a ham sandwich, but not just a ham sandwich. The jambon beurre is a gastronomic lesson. It exemplifies how to make great food: take the best possible ingredients and prepare them with great technique, and no unnecessary fluff. The jambon beurre is simply a freshly baked baguette, delicious jambon de Paris and creamy 85% fat butter. Sometimes you’ll see sweet and sour cornichons or a few slices of cheese, but nothing else. No lettuce, tomatoes, onions, jalapeños or overpowering Subway styles sauces or dressings. This sandwich is just an assembly of three fine ingredients and it is divine.
Quality ingredients and good technique are the keys to great food. French cuisine taught us that lesson and the jambon beurre shows us it is true.
Wendelstein Church on Wendelstein Mountain, Bavarian Alps.
The global financial landscape is witnessing a seismic shift as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) boldly moves away from the US dollar in its oil trade dealings.
This strategic pivot aligns with the broader ambitions of the BRICS economic alliance, of which the UAE is a recent addition.
The changeover, involving the transition to local currencies for oil transactions, marks a significant departure from the long-established dollar dominance in the global oil market.
The BRICS bloc, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, recently expanded its membership to include the UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and Argentina.
This expansion signifies a growing inclination towards de-dollarization among these nations, a move that challenges the traditional hegemony of the US dollar in international trade.
The UAE’s decision to prioritize local currency over the US dollar in new oil deals is a clear reflection of this sentiment. This move isn’t just a mere policy shift; it’s a strategic maneuver in the complex chess game of global economics.
By aligning with the BRICS nations, the UAE is not only diversifying its economic partnerships but also reinforcing its position as a global oil powerhouse.
This change could potentially reshuffle the cards in the international oil trade, impacting the dollar’s stronghold and introducing a new era of currency dynamics in oil transactions.
ONGOING CATASTROPHE FOR USA
The shift away from the U.S. dollar is not some distant, arcane, thing which doesn’t affect YOU. It is affecting YOU already and it is going to get worse. Much worse. In fact, it’s going to be a catastrophe.
You see, since the 1970’s, ALL sales of oil, worldwide, have been transacted in “Dollars.” Everyone who sells it, sells in dollars. Everyone who buys it, buys in dollars.
In order to do that, every country on earth needs to hold “dollars” in its central bank.
Now that countries are starting to sell oil in currencies OTHER THAN Dollars, the central banks around the world won’t need to hold all those dollars. They will start to send those dollars BACK to the United States and say convert these back to OUR currency.
As dollars come back to the U.S. and other countries currencies are exchanged, THEIR currency will rise in value compared to ours. Our currency will FALL in value compared to others.
Now, we don’t manufacture much of anything here in America anymore; we import a lot of what we need/want.
So as we need to import, the value of OUR money is going to be worth less, and less compared to foreign countries, meaning what we need will cost VERY VERY MUCH MORE.
Inflation will hit the US in almost every sector because the things we need to import cost more and more dollars that are worth less and less.
So if you think things have gotten expensive this year, hold on to your hat; it’s going to get a LOT worse.
Moreover, at some point, countries may decide that the U.S., being so far in debt, makes our currency worthless. They may decide to STOP selling anything to us in US Dollars.
Despite being universally accepted nowadays, the fear of our currency becoming worthless is real because there is literally nothing backing our currency. Government keeps going farther and farther into debt until at some point, people around the world will simply NOT take our money anymore.
When THAT happens, the shortages and “supply chain disruption” seen during COVID-19, will look like kid games.
GOVERNMENT TO BLAME
The sole entity responsible for all this trouble is the US federal government; specifically, YOUR member of the US House of Representatives and YOUR US Senators.
It has been these people who have literally spent the country into oblivion. THEY voted for each and every dollar spent which had to be borrowed.
So as they come back from Washington to back-slap, glad-hand, and kiss babies, know that it is THESE PEOPLE who are personally responsible for wrecking this nation, and ruining everything you and your family has worked all your lives for.
More importantly, it is THESE PEOPLE who have mis-used their positions to impose “economic sanctions” on country after country around the world; telling those countries, “If you don’t do what we want, then you cannot use OUR money in YOUR trade.”
All those countries are tired of US meddling in THEIR internal affairs.
So they’re moving away from using US dollars, so that the US cannot sanction them anymore.
The result will be hyper-inflation for us, and wrecking of our country. All because THEY will not stop meddling in other people’s business.
1939 Delahaye Type 165
1939 Delahaye Type 165 is viewed by many as the most beautiful French car of the 1930s, only 5 of them were ever made with this one having been fatefully chosen by the French government to represent France at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
I was once the daytime caregiver for a little boy with a massive brain injury. The damage was so extensive that a large part of his right brain had been surgically removed. He was paralyzed on his left side. He also probably suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, but the doctors were unsure. He hoarded food, because he had gone hungry many times in his earlier life. Altogether a really lousy start.
I was pushing little X in his stroller. He was about three years old at this point. We were walking toward the high school, and there was a group of girls on the sidewalk. Black clothes, black hair, smoking, swearing girls.
X was a bit unusual looking, due to his injuries. I was thinking that these girls were going to laugh at him, or tease him, or something. I was getting tense and defensive.
As X and I get close, he hollers out, “HI”, which was his only word at the time. I was not expecting the response he got from those girls.
They were totally sweet. They were all saying hi back and asking his name and saying how cute he was. One asked me about his injuries, and I gave her the short version. She started to cry, and then I did, too. It was hard for me to talk about his history. We ended up hugging each other.
I have always remembered that group of girls, and how completely wrong I was about them.
They remind me often not to judge people by their appearance.
Copeland’s of New Orleans the Guitreau
Ingredients
4 ounces butter
4 ounces chopped onions
5 single mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
8 ounces fish fillet (red or black drum recommended)
4 ounces crawfish tails
4 ounces 90-100 size shrimp
Instructions
Cook fish on grill approximately three minutes on each side.
While fish is cooking, sauté shrimp and crawfish tails for about one minute. At this point, everything else may be added. Cook until vegetables are translucent. If mixture is too thick, add a splash of dry white wine. If too thin, turn the heat up and cook down until the right consistency.
South Korea, Japan BETRAY and ABANDON U.S, Rush to CHINA!
Breakup of antiwar coalition on Taiwan Island brings war clouds closer to East Asia
Taiwan is not Ukraine. The Taiwanese army is compulsory conscription for one year, extended by Tsai Ing-wen from the previous four months, making her extremely unpopular. No one in Taiwan has the delusion that Westerners have that the Taiwanese army can withstand the PLA for more than a day.
Most of them will tell you the PLA takeover will last only a few hours.
The reason is none of these young men want to die fighting the PLA, not even the deepest Green. Many street interviews of youngsters in the deep Green country of south Taiwan have shown as much: don’t know history, don’t understand why Taiwan is the Republic of China and its airline is China Airlines, don’t like China, don’t want war with China, won’t fight the PLA to defend Taiwan.
In truth, most of them will simply surrender, because those who do not will be tried for treason or, as a minimum, carry a black mark for themselves and their family so that none of them or their offspring will enjoy the privilege of say working in government jobs or state corporations.
Don’t forget that Taiwan is an island. The shortest distance from China to Taiwan is about 220 km. Hawaii is 8500 km away and the American west coast is 11,000 km. People on the island can’t run off to Poland. No one is going to save them when the PLA lands. Taiwanese people understand this but try explaining it to people like Mearsheimer.
Another thing about America arming Taiwan. It’s a scam. Taiwan is going to get antiquated equipment at exorbitant prices. Taiwanese people also know about this because it is not new. It happened before. The US is worried there may be many Yifu Lin types in Taiwan, taking the latest US war technologies to join China. The last time they armed the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War, the PLA got their hands on a large amount of the latest American weapons.
America is really good at lying. The country is built on lies. Ask any native American how many times the white man has lied to them and they will tell you as numerous as the stars in the sky. It’s too late for the natives, but we can learn something. Don’t trust any words or narratives that come from the direction of the hegemon.
You met a girl. You smiled. She liked. You gave her compliments. She liked you more. You used every textbook trick to impress and voila! She indeed was impressed.
Time flew. Your mask fell off.
Now, she hates you.
Persuasion techniques are, at times, indeed useful. But if you want relationships that last, always be real. These techniques may capture someone’s head, but being who you are will capture their hearts.
That genuineness and sincerity, my friend, will always be cool! 🙂
A friend and I had plans to hang out. For whatever reason, she couldn’t make it and canceled. I didn’t want to hang around the house and went out anyway. As I approached the car, I got an uneasy feeling. I opted to take the other car; I still got an uneasy feeling, but it wasn’t as intense. I got in the car and left the house. Thirty minutes later the car was totalled; I didn’t even see it coming. When I came to, the car was upside down. I was still in the car, but laying on the roof. Had I take the initial car, I probably would have been dead or severely injured at best. I literally got up and walked away from the car on my own (I did pass out a couple times while the ambulance was en route). I broke my ankle and sternum and needed a couple stitches.
Chimney Sweep, outside 97th General Hospital, Frankfurt.
When my husband had been a consultant for about a year, and had been traveling 80% of the time for a job that he absolutely loved.
He came home one weekend and said, “Yesterday I was sitting at a table with five other consultants, and one of them told the group that I was on my first wife.
They all laughed and said, ‘That won’t last long!’ Two of them are on their third wife! That’s when I knew for sure that I have to change jobs.”
And that’s when I knew for sure that he would always put me first.
That we would always put each other first.
We’ve been married more than 40 years, and we’re still putting each other first. (He has since had several jobs that he enjoyed as much as that one, I’m glad to say. I wouldn’t want him to be unhappy at work because of me! I’ve always supported him in whatever his work choices have been, and he has been supportive of my career too.)
I didn’t technically “meet” the guy. But when I was about 10yo & my mom asked me to run to the donut shop before going to school (it was less than a block from our apartment), I was so stoked, I ran the entire way!
As I went to pull the door open at the donut shop, this big grisly bear of a man sorta stumbled towards me from me pulling the door open so fast.
I looked him right in the eyes & got The biggest shot of freezing cold fear through me, turned right around & ran straight back home.
When my mom asked why I didn’t get any donuts, it took me a minute to answer. I asked if she remembered the creepy old big guy from the show we were watching last night & my mom replied “you mean Americas Most Wanted?”!
I said yes, she said “yeah, and?” I told her I’d ran straight into the featured criminal that was a father who raped & molested his daughters & their friends for years & was on the run with his wife (she said she didn’t believe her daughters or their friends, eww)!
My mom asked if I was sure & I was absolutely sure it was him. My mom called the tip line immediately & they said I wasn’t the first to report seeing him at that donut shop. That couple got so spooked by my reaction that they apparently immediately went back on the run. I believe they gave chase for a bit but somehow evaded police, but were later found dead from self inflicted injuries. I was told my report was the final “straw” for cops to believe it was a legit sighting.
No joke that when I say I felt straight evil from him, the burning ice cold feeling his eyes gave me, I will unfortunately never forget it.
Always, ALWAYS trust your “gut”! That intuition is inside us all for a very good reason.
Chinese journalist Liu Xin: DON’T MESS WITH CHINA!
Some years back, a close friend of mine, let’s call her Jane, underwent a significant surgery. She lived alone, and the recovery period was expected to be long and challenging. Jane’s sister, who lived in a different city, offered to take her in during the recovery. The sister had a spacious home and a supportive family, making it an ideal environment for Jane’s recuperation.
Jane, always mindful of not imposing, devised thoughtful ways to contribute to the household. Since she couldn’t engage in physical activities initially, she used her skills as a seasoned graphic designer to help her niece with a school project, creating an impressive presentation. This gesture was immensely appreciated and brought her closer to her niece.
As she regained strength, Jane took up the responsibility of managing the family’s online affairs. She organized digital photo albums, set up an efficient bill payment system, and even taught her sister and brother-in-law how to use various apps to streamline their daily tasks. These small yet significant contributions made her feel useful and less like a burden.
Additionally, Jane used her savings to occasionally treat the family to meals from their favorite restaurants, understanding that her presence had increased the household expenses. She also made it a point to maintain her space meticulously, ensuring that her temporary stay caused minimal disruption in their routine.
When Jane finally returned to her home, her relationship with her sister’s family had deepened. They had not only supported her through a challenging time but had also received her gratitude and contributions in a way that enriched their lives. This experience, my friend often reflects, taught her the importance of giving back, even in times of personal difficulty.
The best relationship advice I ever got was from my grandma years ago, while we were sitting on our back porch swing. There was a thunderstorm going on, and we were enjoying the rain and swinging and talking and nothing was off limits.
At one point, Grandma said, “When we stop expecting someone to be perfect, we can begin to appreciate them for who they really are. No one can ever be perfect. That’s just the way things are.
Crying is okay, too. Sometimes, love is just too big for words …”
The way you treat yourself is the standard you set for others.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend . A successful woman is one who can find such a man .
Sometimes following your heart means losing your mind.
The most beautiful woman is someone who’s happy and is always smiling.
The sexiest thing about a woman is not in the clothes she wears , the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair but Confidence in a humble way, not in an arrogant way. Sense of humour is definitely important.
The biggest asset in the world is your mindset.
Good looking people are trusted quicker by the subconscious mind. No clue why ? But there’re many good looking manipulators. Trust by character not appearance.
Someone you’ve only known for ten days could have better intentions for you than someone you’ve known for ten years. Time means nothing; character does.
Don’t let the world define your identity for you . They don’t know you and likely they don’t care about you.
After twenty years of marriage I got crippled up by arthritis and my wife came to me and asked for a divorce so she could go out and live her life.
I pointed to the door.
Signed the divorce papers for her so she saved some costs. I got no child support even though both our kids stayed with me. Actually they gave her half the house I had built and the entire time I was building it she didn’t want me too because I was “wasting” money on it.
A few months after the divorce was final she actually told me I was going to have to marry her back. Right.
I said no.
Today I’ve been married to a wonderful woman who’s supportive and I enjoy every day.
I did recover from being crippled with a lot of rehab and I made sure to tell my wife to be that I could never guarantee that being crippled wouldn’t recur.
Then a couple years after we married she had to have open heart surgery to repair a bad heart valve and I was there taking care of her with no complaints while she recovered. She’s always doing things to make my life easier. It’s what marriage is all about. Teamwork.
Many years ago, I was approached by a woman I knew through our homeowners’ association, and she asked to talk to me. She said that she was getting ready to leave her husband, who was a brutal and abusive alcoholic. She had a tiny puppy — a little fluffy mix that was mostly Yorkie and Pomeranian — that he was kicking and mistreating, and she wanted to get it to safety as soon as possible before he either damaged her or killed her.
She knew I was a dog lover, so she proposed that she leave her back gate unlocked, and after she was sure her husband had passed out, she would put the puppy on the back porch behind the unlocked gate. I could take the puppy, and disappear into the night.
I lived a distance from the woman’s home, so there was no danger the puppy would ever be seen by her husband. So, I agreed. We decided to do it that night.
The arranged dognapping went off without a hitch, and Rita made her home with us for many years. The woman also escaped her husband, as planned.
I buried my wife a week ago today. Alzheimer’s disease is a terrible way to die. She was diagnosed in 2013. She died October 10, 2023. I delayed her services until one of her siblings returned from a cruise. Since she chose cremation long ago, there was no urgency to bury her in my family’s grave plots.
She was an RNC – BSN in Labor and Delivery. Dedicated her life managing a 40 bed LDRP unit with NICU.
The Hospice nurse thought she was stable earlier in the day, but she later observed a change that I probably would not have recognized. The Hospice nurse told me I should come. She had been non verbal for about a year. Had to be fed, and was in a special Hospice provided wheel chair when out of her bed.
I knew as a lifelong nurse she did not want to live like that, but a DNR covers no cardiac crash cart intervention and no tube feeding. It is way above my pay grade to opine that her quality of life was near zero. A Hospice nurse knows when there is more brain activity than many of us might think.
She had been in a nursing home exactly three years. When she first arrived, she never stopped nursing, looking after those residents who were no longer ambulatory. In fact, she thought she was in charge of the nursing home because she was a Director of Women’s Health before she retired. At the peak of her career, she had 150 employees and a seven figure annual budget. A few years later, she could not balance her check book.
The Hospice nurse told me the last thing to go with an Alzheimer’s victim is their hearing, so even though she looked comatose, the nurse convinced me she could hear me.
I believe her. No finger squeezing, no eye movement, nothing but labored breathing. I told her I loved her, and that I would have been nothing without her.
Thinking she was stable for maybe another day, I went home to get something to eat. Hospice called and said she was gone before I got back to the nursing home. We would have been married 51 years December 30. Planned our wedding around an OU Sugar Bowl game in 1972.
I hated myself for leaving the nursing home for what seemed like only a short time, but maybe she knew I had been there, and she was tired of the pain. Maybe she held on just long enough to see me or hear me one last time.
I’ll forever regret not spending more time with her. I honestly did not think she knew I was there during visits the last year, but now I know she knew I was there near the end, so she probably knew I was there during those times when I thought there was little brain function remaining.
I regret not spending more time with her excellent Hospice caregivers, to better understand that though my wife seemed near comatose for over a year, she would know I was there if I had spent more time with her.
Always pay attention to the Hospice nurses. Milk them for more knowledge about how it will probably end.
I am forever indebted to the Hospice nurses who cared for my wife. Hospice was there when I could not be there. No one should die alone.
Not long ago, Western media were promoting “the Chinese Air Force intercepted a Canadian aircraft.” But they don’t tell you that this interception took place in the northern part of the Taiwan Strait, only dozens of kilometers away from the coast of China.
Now, the Western media is once again propagating that “the Chinese Navy is unprofessional towards Australian warships.” Okay, let’s look at the truth of the matter again.
The “exclusive economic zones” of China and Japan overlap on a large scale, and the overlapping area is closer to China’s territorial waters.
First, Australia claimed that “the warship is located within Japan’s exclusive economic zone.” It seems to tell us that they are near Japanese territorial waters. But is this true?
Let’s take a look at how big Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” is. As we all know, Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” was set unilaterally by Japan. It has a large number of overlapping areas with mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, and North Korea, and is not recognized at all in East Asia.
Therefore, the fact that the Australian warship is “located within Japan’s exclusive economic zone” does not mean that it is “close to Japan”. On the contrary, it is likely to be close to China’s territorial waters, has entered China’s exclusive economic zone or even approached China’s territorial waters. This is also the reason for this type of incident. normal. The Chinese almost never go far from their shores on such missions.
Secondly, the news that the Chinese Navy’s use of “sonar” caused “slight injuries” to divers is not credible at all. According to news reports, the warship that intercepted the Australian Navy was the Chinese Navy No. 139 Ningbo Ship. This is a modern-class destroyer with a full load displacement of 8,500 tons and an old Soviet warship. According to public information, the sonar equipped on this destroyer is the MGK-335 hull-acoustic hull sonar. This is an active high-power sonar designed for deep-sea nuclear submarines, with a peak operating power of hundreds of kilowatts.
The shock waves it emits can hit the submarine’s hull several kilometers away and detect the echoes. There is no point in turning on sonar for surface ship monitoring.
Because this type of sonar is powerful enough to cause injury to large marine life such as dolphins and whales, it is generally not turned on. When the warships of both sides are approaching, if the Chinese Navy really turns on this sonar, then the diver will not suffer just a “slight injury”, it will shatter people’s internal organs.
Therefore, the real situation may be that the diver suffered minor injuries due to other reasons in the process of rushing to shore. After all, the Australian Toowoomba is just a 3,600-ton frigate. When facing an 8,500-ton Chinese warship, a hasty retreat is a normal reaction.
There are a few more noteworthy keywords
2. Sanctions tasks of the United Nations
This statement is the same as that of the Canadian military aircraft, which also claimed to be carrying out “UN sanctions supervision against North Korea.” But they flew to the northern part of the Taiwan Strait.
China has publicly stated many times that the United Nations has never authorized such a mission. As one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, China’s statement is credible, and other countries have not raised any objections.
Therefore, the Australian warship’s so-called “implementation of United Nations sanctions and supervision of North Korea” is just a farce written and directed by several countries led by the United States.
3. The fishing net entangled the propeller
It shows that the Australian warship has entered the fishing area instead of the normal route. This will cause disruption to both Chinese and Japanese fishermen. Whether it is Japan’s exclusive economic zone or China’s exclusive economic zone, it is undeniable that it is more than 1,000 kilometers away from Australia. That is China’s doorstep, not Australia’s.
The incident took place so far away from Australia. What was the Australian Navy thinking when it sent a small warship to the coast of a nuclear-armed superpower to show off? If the opponent was the United States or Russia, they would have been sunk long ago.
4. Unprofessional
The Chinese Navy’s approach to foreign warships approaching China’s territorial waters has always been to “identify, warn and drive away”. This is their “professionalism”. There was no warning of weapons and no active collision, indicating that the Chinese navy was restrained. It makes no sense for the Australians to use the excuse “sonar harms divers” to divert attention.
There have been several over my long life but the one that still hurts the most was when my family decided to do a family photo.
For context:
my parents (mom and dad), 4 others siblings with their spouse and child(ren)
18 people total including myself and husband.
I’ve always been a coordinator of events and the like so I offered to find and buy all the children’s outfits so they match/color coordinate.
All the adults wore coordinating colors. We planned on having an outdoor spring photo shoot and I purchased all items to stage the pictures (included a setee, velvet arm chairs, Persian rug….you get the idea not just outside but staged. We hired a professional photographer with each of us paying $200
to cover the bill.
A week before the photos were supposed to be done, my older sister comes over and says my parents want our children but not myself and husband in the pictures. I say nothing, think about it an day and then call my dad. I ask him did he and my mother say we were not to be in pics? He never gives me a direct answer. Says they really just pics of the grandkids, I ask him then why is everyone else included besides my husband and myself? -he gives Half answers until I say I have to go-I sent all of them an email laying out how hurt we were and Don’t understand what we could have down to be excluded like this. Not one response.
Picture day:
My older sister had the audacity to call me and ask if my kids were ready and she was on the way to pick them up. I told her Nope and hung up.
That is the last one I ever spoke to or heard from any of them. Family should never hurt like that
My generation, the boomers, was encouraged to take risks and accomplish great things. We were told that we could do anything and should. We had people like JFK pushing us to go to the moon.
I grew up in a violent, terrifying and poor household where I felt great responsibility for the younger children. I felt no love from my parents. I was just scared all the time. I subsequently had little energy left for doing well in school. I had only one friend. I was always afraid of authority and had no self-confidence. I was not equipped for adulthood and most of it was a struggle to do well at whatever job I held.
When I retired, due to my great fear of poverty, i had plenty of money saved and my own home. I also realized something important. I didn’t have to have regrets even though I had not taken risks or accomplished great things.
I had survived. I had accomplished something important. I was safe. I had made it through all the troubles and fear. I had gritted my teeth and pushed through all the pain and loneliness and self-loathing that comes with being treated badly.
I am old but I have many years to go and I’ll spend them being proud of myself for making it through to safety. This might not seem like much of a goal to most people but it was what I dreamed of for myself and unwittingly worked hard for. I have no regrets.
She ran a very successful Dentist as Practice Manager…she has been a Dental Nurse since the early 90s and worked her way up.
Probably about 80% of the role was managing the staff…whereas 80% should have been running the regulatory side of the business….unfortunately, that meant that the regulatory side had to be done after hours.
She would put in 12 hour days, come home, have dinner, then start again and not stop until near midnight, nightly!
Now the business owner and principle knew HE could not manage the staff, but he then started demanding that she was ‘front of house’ due to her professionalism…even though others were just as capable…so of course, that meant other things started to suffer…initially her health, but she persevered…she ‘loved her job’!
But then, the inevitable happened…he ‘decided’, without any consultation, that her role was now ‘salaried’ and he would no longer pay overtime.
Now, there’s a rock and a hard place…the regulatory side could not be undertaken during the day, would not be compensated, and was a legal requirement for the Practice to operate; so she took the only option available; she resigned (her health was deteriorating anyway…and that was due to the stress of the job!)
6 months later, she is in a far better place physically. The business she left is on its knees. All the staff had left, and it is now – just about – scraping by as a single dentist practice (there had been 10 dentists and 26 support staff!).
I reckon that it has 3–4 months left before it goes completely under….all because he started interfering in the staff roles and didn’t want to pay a little overtime.
Lets do what China or Singapore is doing and ensuring that their police remain tough but relatively free from any corruption and actually follow the law
Pay
India pay their policemen a pittance. I am talking about the rank and file cops. If you look at Comparative Median Income- a Middle ranking Indian policeman (Non IPS) gets only 1.06 times the Median income compared to 1.41 times for a Chinese Cop and 1.83 times for a Singaporean Cop and 1.82 times for a US Cop from NYPD or CPD. A 41% Pay raise for Middle Ranking Cops and allowance raise and upto 77% Pay raise for the Rank and file would work wonders.
Housing and Allowances
China, Hong Kong have police departments which purchase their own lands and commercially build apartments and sell them at zero interest to Cops and retired cops. 2,3,4 BHK Apartments with all the luxuries like a Swimming Pool, Gymnasium etc provided.
Hamara Bharat – How a Police Quarters looks like in Bharat with Inspectors living in this dilapidated building. The Toilets are particularly a bonanza. Departments have to beg and beg for the most basic of maintenance and painting.
Death Insurance
In India a Cop shot and killed while on Duty will get a flat sum of Rs. 18 Lakhs to Rs. 85 Lakhs depending on City and State with Mumbai and Delhi paying the highest.
85 Lakhs sounds good right?
Sorry. First the money is taxable, Second the average time to get this money is 17 – 24 months if you are lucky and third – an Insurance company pays this sum and it will dodge and demand a lot of documentation like death report etc etc etc.
A woman called Gurbachan Kaur who was supposed to get Rs. 78 Lakhs for her husbands death (He was Senior Inspector of Police) is yet to get any money after 1 1/2 years and after taxes and deductions – she is expected to net Rs. 58 Lakhs. Its around 5.25 times his median annual income. Even this sum is in doubt as the Insurance company is now saying the man died of a heart attack which means natural death (Far low payout).
Lets take China or HK – the sum for death of a Similar rank is around 8.25 times the Median Income and NO TAX. And you get the money within 60 days. Its a law. If you dont get the money in China within 60 days – the Department will be questioned and the LEPPA laws will be applied and No insurance company – money belongs to the Department directly
And many others – Good Healthcare plans, Good Education Plans, Education Trusts for Kids of Cops, Free Education etc.
The Cops are taken care of decently and so they do their job well.
Then there is the question of Punishment. Cops who break the law are brutally punished. In China except the Political Police – all other cops can be punished brutally for Bribery or for Public Abuse or false cases etc. The LEPPA which applies only to cops and can put a cop for 15–25 years for a custodial death within 3 months through special courts.
Its the Double Edged Sword – Good Incentives but Brutal Punishments
Its what India should do
PS This only applies to officers. Chinese Constables are very less paid (Same as Indian PCS) but they get commissions (Hyeung Ya or Golden Fragrance) of 55% – 150% of their monthly salaries. Legal commissions on which they have to pay tax.
Our Poor Havildars have no such incentives and can get a CBI Case for a mere Rs. 500/- bribe.
Weißer Turm (The White Tower), Galgengasse, Rothenburg.
An expensive education system that does not give people the most basic knowledge.
The world’s largest prison system.
An expensive healthcare system that is against disease prevention. And which gives decreasing life expectancy.
A colossal big expensive army which is not able to overcome the Taliban. And the army’s expenses are poorly documented.
The judiciary is large and expensive.
The financial sector is filled with at least 90% air, which will give rise to a new financial bubble, which will empty people’s pensions.
The two identical parties present only the interests of the rich. And yet they are extremely hostile to each other.
Real wages for the middle class have not increased since the 1970s.
Many of the politicians stand with one foot in the grave, so it will never be them themselves who will pay back the country’s debt. Their goal is to survive only four more years.
I could make several points. But why do you think it is difficult to sell this system, Western Democracy to the Chinese?!
Wasn’t it a better idea to sell Chinese socialism to the Americans?! Who wants a government that will multiply your hourly wage?!
The bloody history has told every Chinese: China’s peace today is not because the invaders abandoned evil and turned to good, but because of the powerful PLA.
Mike Tyson is the father of my favorite sports quote. Reporters were questioning him about his new opponent. They were building up the rivalry, talking about how dangerous this fighter was, how he planned to keep Tyson at a distance with his jab, how he planned to wear him down.
Getting annoyed with the questions, Mike looked up from tying his shoes and said, “Everyone has a plan — until they get hit.” It’s so perfectly translatable to life. Everyone is on a diet, until they get hungry. Everyone wants good grades, until it’s time to study. Aspirations and reality are often star-crossed lovers: desperate to be together but doomed to be apart.
We don’t like what most goals entail. There’s a way to make things easier. It starts with understanding the process of productivity.
Slow down your mind to produce more
In a 2013 experiment, scientists showed flashing images to young mice for six hours a day for ten days straight. The changing images emulated cell phones and TVs. Those mice later displayed significant difficulties getting through mazes and finishing cognitive tasks versus non-stimulated mice. Science has long known overstimulation leads to deficits in cognition and attention span.
More plainly, when you are bored with a task, you are often overstimulated. It’s worse than most people realize. Our minds are lost in thought for roughly 47% of our day.
Concentrative meditation, a focus on one specific thing, is proven to boost your focus over time, even if you only do it for five minutes a day. Letting too many voices in your head drowns out those that need to be heard. It’s counterintuitive to think that slowing down your mind increases its potency. The brain is like a lightbulb: too much energy makes it shine less.
If you are feeling ambitious, a Harvard study found that 27-minutes of meditation per day led to increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, resulting in improved learning, empathy, and memory.
Start easier by creating mental opposition
My girlfriend works in academia and occasionally writes huge, thickly worded papers. On the scale of writing projects, it’s one of the most nightmarish. She was working herself up over a paper last month. She talked about it all week, dreading it, venting about it. She was eventually in full-blown tears, despite not having written a single word.
I’m a fairly patient guy but I do have limits. I finally said, “I need you to do a favor for both of us and get this done. Do it for me, please.” Her dread was bleeding into our relationship. Seeing my point, and to her credit, she powered through it and was a new person afterward.
Procrastination is the hellspawn of anticipation. We expend so much energy thinking about doing something, building up the tension, contemplating the boredom and pain involved. Our energy is sapped before we even begin.
Defeat it by inverting your thoughts
The next time you are putting something off, pay attention to your thoughts. Notice when you have a ‘dread’ thought, “This is going to be so hard.” Notice how you feel heavier. I can literally feel my body getting more immobile when I catch those thoughts.
The trick is to invert that process. I write for a living. When my keyboard is roaring at me like a 101-toothed monster, I’ll itemize reasons I should write. For example:
If I write now, I’ll have free time later.
It will be fun to discover which words show up on the page.
The show I’m watching is useless and boring.
I’ll make more money if I spend more time writing.
It’s going to ruin my mood if I keep procrastinating.
Make it a game to verbally list as many reasons as possible. This will magnetize your motivations. Actions are an extension of our thoughts. Starting is often the hardest part of productivity.
How to stay in the pocket after you start
When I was a swimmer, I didn’t have aquatic headphones to get me through a workout. Swimming is an exhausting exercise in sensory deprivation. You can only see the bottom of the pool and hear the water in your ears. Workouts were miserable and every stroke invites you to slack off.
The key was to stay focused at the moment. I did this in two ways. First, I focused on my technique, giving 100% of my focus to my coach’s instructions. When that technique crumbled, I fell back into reminding myself of my goals. I singularly focused on them, much like you would with concentrative meditation.
Remind yourself that you want to get promoted and get a raise. Reflect on sub-goals. Reflect on what happens if you quit now and flake out. Thoughts can be weaponized against laziness. Productivity is a battle in your mind. If you let weakening thoughts run about unchallenged, you are doomed. Focus on perfection and your attention to detail.
The takeaway and tying it all together
Remember, productivity has three key elements:
Convince yourself to start.
Stay focused despite distractions.
Continue working when you don’t feel like it.
Convince yourself to start by being cognizant of detractor thoughts. Dismiss them quickly and list out reasons to start.
To avoid distractions, practice slowing down your mind with meditation. Additionally, make a mental note of every time you lose focus. When I start getting sloppy, I’ll keep a piece of paper and make a line every time I catch my mind drifting.
Lastly, to get through arduous, monotonous tasks, focus on being present in the moment. Focus on the details. Think about your goals. But never dread the painful aspects of your tasks. Motivation is war. Know how to rally your troops.
Roman Empire and Chill
Dinardo’s Italian Restaurant Creole Carbonara
Ingredients
1/2 cup chicken thigh meat
2 1/2 tablespoons Creole seasoning
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 ounces andouille sausage, chopped
8 ounces medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 cup green onions, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 pound fettuccine, cooked
Instructions
Coat the chicken with one teaspoon of the Creole seasoning.
Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and sauté chicken for approximately one minute.
Add andouille and continue cooking one additional minute.
Season shrimp with remaining Creole seasoning, add to chicken/andouille mixture and cook until shrimp are pink and curled.
Add green onions, garlic and whipping cream. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat to medium.
Add Worcestershire, Tabasco, salt and half of the Parmesan cheese.
Coat fettuccine with sauce and top with remaining cheese.
West Germany.
Appreciation
***** REAL ****** Trouble: No One Buying US Treasuries
Nobody wants U.S. Treasury bonds. Bond Sales are in the worst stretch since the Civil War. The federal government has run up so much debt that few if any around the world, want to lend them money anymore. This cannot end well.
Once a symbol of America’s economic might and accepted as a global coin of the realm, US Treasuries have fallen badly out of favor, with serious consequences for taxpayers, investors, and financial markets.
Elementary economic forces — too much supply and not enough demand — have collided to create the worst stretch for U.S. government bonds since the Civil War. The government keeps borrowing to cover its budget deficits, while once-reliable buyers of that debt, both at home and abroad, have pulled back.
The result: Investors are demanding the steepest yields since 2007. Auctions of fresh bonds that were once routine are now going terribly. And bond portfolios are getting absolutely hammered. The longest-dated Treasury bonds are in a bear market worse than the dot-com bust and almost as bad as 2008.
Already 2.5% of the U.S.’s economic output is going to service its existing debts, a number that some analysts expect to hit 4% by 2030. Already running huge deficits, the only way for Treasury to pay the interest — along with ambitious spending programs like the CHIPS Act and student-loan forgiveness — is to keep borrowing.
They are now TRAPPED in a vicious spiral that can ONLY lead to financial death for the country. There is no other possible outcome because the government will not stop spending.
He worked in a private local company. At the end of 2017 the owner of the company changed which means the head of the board of directors changed (let’s call the new guy Jim). Obviously, Jim wanted to make some changes himself, mostly to establish dominance and show he’s the new sheriff in town. Rumors say he promised to double company’s profit in a single year (remember this). There’s a thin line between ambitious and cocky.
The first move he made didn’t have anything to do with the increasing work efficiency or meeting heads of departments or actually know the work that is done in that company. Jim had installed one of those time clock machines where employees check in when they get to work and check out when they’re done. Something like this:
only they didn’t have tokens, but cards. Installation and writing guidelines took about a week after which he announced to heads of departments that every employee must check in and check out themself even when they’re going out just for a break. Also, heads of departments should’ve forward these news to employees. The thing officially started second or third week in January of 2018.
At first, employees didn’t take it so seriously and some of them didn’t check in/out every day or didn’t (sometimes even forgot to) note down their breaks. At the end of the week, Jim would go through every employee’s record to see does any of them have less than 40 hours. (Notice he wasn’t interested in those who had more than 40 hours.) Friend told me that most of employees were in the range 38–45 working hours and a very few around 37 but none under 37. Jim called for a meeting with heads of departments every Friday to inform them about the records and to warn those who work less. Also, there was no compensation for those who work more (stay late or work on weekends).
Employees protested about that kind of behavior and wanted time clock out. That only made Jim to push that thing even more and convinced the board of directors and the owner that the time clock is necessary. So it passed.
The thing is that the work climate has changed. Everyone was more concentrated on if they checked in and if they worked enough than the actual work and the pressure started to build up. The thing went on for two whole months until the most of the employees (friend said 80% but maybe he exaggerated a bit) decided to come to work, check in, work their 8 hours at a moderate pace, check out and head home. No overtime, no working weekends, if the clock hit 16:00 people would leave midwork or in the middle of the meeting not giving a shred of an F. Their excuse was that they did their 8 hours and if they want them to stay, they want a written notice (which is a proof of working overtime and must be paid).
This way every single employee had 40 working hours a week and not a minute more or less. But you know what? Jim wasn’t satisfied. Why? Because work suffered. He made the employees numbers and working slaves that have only one purpose – to work. This killed all the passion people had towards the job they were doing. It demoralized people. They had a feeling that someone is standing above their head every second of the day. And the time clock might not be a bad thing to check employees every once in a while, but to terrorize them like Jim did made them do anything just in spite of that work regime.
After 3 and a half months, the moment of truth came. The first quartal report came. It was a bit better than the last year so Jim stayed at his position. Employees continued with their strike. The second quartal report came and the profit was ~8% less than the same period of previous year (maybe 9% I don’t remember). Jim ascribed it to a bad economy in the country and stayed at his position. Employees were informed about the drop in profit which made them to continue their strike. The third quartal report came. The company’s profit was down by amazing 34% compared to the same period of the previous year. Jim was fired on the spot (even though his mandate supposed to last 5 years) and time clock was left just to control employees every now and then.
Conclusion: Treat your employees as humans which they are and maybe consult someone about your radical actions.
Many decades ago my Dad was a high school teacher in the inner city of Boston.
One of the students in his class was a nationally ranked Judo practitioner who competed at the national level. This young man might miss weeks of school to attend an event around the world. IIRC he may have been part of the US Judo team at the time.
This young man was very quiet and kept to himself generally head down looking at a book at his desk. However he would sometimes be taunted by other students and generally would ignore the idiots.
One day Dad is writing something on the blackboard and behind him he hears one of the jerks taunting. He hears things like “You gonna show me some of that kung fu shit” and then he hears “Let’s see you block this punch”.
Dad hears a small amount of noise and turns around. This is a matter of seconds. The Asian Judo practitioner is sitting in his chair, head down reading a book. And the jerk kid is unconscious on the floor peeing his pants.
The jerk on the floor starts coming around. Dad tells his friends to get him back in his seat. And everyone starts laughing at the jerk because of the giant pee stain on his crotch.
That seemingly ended the attempted bullying. Everyone realized that this kid could kick everyone’s ass if needed.
I love a happy ending!
On Mount Wendelstein.
Wife Cheats On Work Trip And Now Is Losing Her Mind That Her Marriage Is IMPLODING
Her: I ripped the soul out of my husband through betrayal.
Also her: I made him coffee and did some chores. We should be all good, right?
There’s a lot of people chatting about “reptilians”. My (MM) opinion is that (as far as the Earth is concerned), our environment is not conducive and supportive of a human-sized intelligent reptilian extraterrestrial. The size betrays the need for large amounts of oxygen and that impacts the brains size and cavity.
Reptilians can exist, mind you, but not as intelligent beings. Not around our star, and within our present environment.
I had the opportunity to inquire to the Domain Commander about this issue on a chat that I had while riding the public bus. (Yup, welcome to MM land.)
There ARE extraterrestrials that have a reptilian form, and they are intelligent.
They however, are unable to operate within this solar system effectively.
Thus, any extraterrestrial beings that operate within our Earth environment take on other “forms”. Not reptilian.
That being said, one should not discount the reports that reptilians and shape-changing beings are common in the earth environment. They are not. What is instead being reported is a cloaked image that presents a reptilian image directly keyed to satiate the observer.
The primeval state is insectoid. Not reptilian, however, many human observers would find a projection of a large insect far too disturbing for purposes of contact, thus a reptilian image is preferred.
Better to see a human-sized lizard, than a giraffe sized preying mantis. Don’t you know.
Back when I was in college (early ‘70s) everyone hitchhiked. I would hitchhike alone or with friends almost every other weekend in upstate New York (yes, I’m a guy). Our trips were always taken on part of the NYS Thruway, and there were unwritten rules that hitchhikers followed. There were usually three, four or more hitchhikers just before the toll booths, each person or group would be spread out 20 or so feet apart. We would all have signs for where we wanted to go, usually the city/town/exit we wanted to get dropped off. The person/group that was closest to the toll booths had priority for being picked up, if you were just getting to the thruway entrance, you took the spot farthest away. As people got picked up, your place in the queue got better.
My friend and I actually started a small business. We got large pieces of white oaktag (two feet wide) and created stencils that we would spray paint with dayglow orange paint. We would sell them to people who were going to hitchhike, they were always the best signs of anybody looking for a ride, they loved them. We also made copies of tips and rules (we would always be amazed at stupid ways people dressed to be standing outside, sometimes in the snow/rain for hours). I’d say we got a ride 95% of the time, we never had any problems.
The topper though was: “You will have to wait until Monday.”
Er, no I don’t.
I paraded in front of that branch with a sign stating the facts – this branch did not have $1000 on hand – causing quite the queue to form….of demanding account holders.
Presto. $1000 cash appeared, with no delivery that I observed, nothing.
Dude, age 37, sexist as hell, has a theory that only very few women are smart. Very few. He could maybe count them on one hand.
He, on the other hand, is the love child of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein high on NZT.
We are at a party, all PhD students, the women’s section seriously looked down on by this Dude. He of course has to start an intellectual fight over something one of the girls is majoring in. He dies to prove that she has grey spots in her logic/theory. Girl is super chill, Dude makes very little sense actually. He is mostly arrogant. Finally he names a study written by a female author, says Girl should only talk with such confidence if she is as smart as that woman. Yeah, the author lady is one of the few super intelligent “females” he would be able to accept as a partner in all terms.
Girl laughs and pulls out her laptop to show Dude how the study is actually her own article. She wrote it. She is the super intelligent author lady.
Laugh rumbles for minutes, Dude leaves a contrail behind in his rush to get out, trying to act hurt.
I was 19 and doing my internship in a midsize Pune based CA firm. My boss and I were working until around 8:30 p.m. Other employees had already left.
My Boss: Vikas, we should leave now, it’s 8:30 p.m.
In an attempt to impress my boss, with how dedicated and hard working I am, Isaid “Sir, you leave. I will finish drafting that partnership deed and then go.”
My Boss: Are you sure? It can take 2 hours.
Me: No problem, Sir. I’ll finish it this evening and set the copy on your desk before leaving.
My Boss: OK. Lock the office carefully.
Here is the catch, I had already drafted that deed, and it was ready to be printed out. I went to my desk, waited few minutes, ensured boss had left his cabin, then took printouts, neatly placed it on my boss’s table. Switch off lights and locked the office. Went down the cafeteria downstairs and started having my food.
But I forgot, there’s a balcony adjacent to my boss’s cabin. He was actually in the balcony talking on a phone, while I locked him in his own office.
But that’s only half part of embarrassment story.
My boss realised I’ve locked him in, saw the partnership deed print outs on his desk, he understood the entire matter (he was a smart and jolly person in 30s, who has gone through that same phase of internship).
He called me : Vikas, where are you? what are you doing?
Me: Sir I am in office, typing that partnership deed.
Boss : There’s no need to type that deed. I’m in my cabin now, holding the printout of that same partnership deed.
Me:……………!
Boss : So please come to the office, unlock the door, let me go home!
If he had scolded me, then okay. But he never said a word about my oversmartness.
It was a second date, and we went to an Indian restaurant. The waiter made a mistake with our order, and instead of causing a scene I was apparently completely sympathetic and understanding.
I say “apparently” because I don’t actually remember this at all, since being nice to waiters is my default mode, but my date really noticed. It seems that almost everyone else she’d dated would put on some kind of show in order to show how assertive and macho they were, no matter that it involved humiliating someone for a mistake anyone could have made – and she said that that was the precise point when she thought that I might have long-term relationship potential.
Fifteenth wedding anniversary this month. Moral: be nice to waiters.
My father was a very distinguished British judge and widely recognised as one of the finest legal minds of his generation.
Whenever he bought a car, he set up a savings account to pay for the eventual replacement. The account was with a major international banking group.
When the time came to replace his car, he discovered that this type of account had been mothballed, and no interest had been paid for years. He’d overlooked the notification small print amongst the endless stream of marketing bumf from the bank.
His initial complaint was rejected. So my father wrote directly to the Chair of the Board, pointing out that this policy discriminated against the bank’s most vulnerable customers, with an incisively argued opinion that the policy was illegal under EC consumer law.
Not long afterwards he received a personal letter from the Chair. After apologising profusely, he assured my father that the policy would be changed, and that many thousands of customers of discontinued accounts would have their interest paid in full plus additional compensation. This will have cost them many millions.
It’s not often that a single customer complaint changes the policy of a major corporation. Their lawyers must have checked my father’s reputation and realised that they were on a legal hiding to nothing.
They tangled with the wrong guy!
Copeland’s of New Orleans Bananas Foster
Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) whole butter
4 whole bananas, peeled and cut into fourths
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup light cream or Half-and-Half
1 ounce banana liqueur
1 ounce rum
Instructions
Place half of the butter in a heavy gauge skillet over medium heat and melt. Add the sugar and cream. Cook for approximately 2 minutes until the sugar is dissolved.
Add cut bananas and the cinnamon to the skillet and stir to coat.
Remove the skillet from the flame. Add the rum and the banana liqueur.
Swirl to incorporate and place the skillet back on the flame. (**Be careful because the alcohol may ignite when you place it back on the flame.)
Add the remaining butter and swirl to incorporate.
Serve over your favorite ice cream, pound cake, or biscuits.
They had a warrant for the guy related to money laundering and racketeering, but they knew he was a hit man too. They were going to hit his house early one morning. The bust crew staged around the corner, and my dad said he would cruise by the house to check for any unforeseen circumstances, and verify the street address. My dad pulled up in an unmarked suberban, and stopped briefly in front of the guys house. At that moment, hit man dude walks out in his bath robe to get the morning newspaper. My dad (in plain clothes) said “excuse me, can I ask you a quick question?” Dude said sure. He walked up to my dads window. My dad says aren’t you so-and-so? Guy says yes i am. Dad flashed his badge and says sir, i got a warrant for your arrest. Dude looks around, then said really? Dad says yes sir, put your hands on my hood please. And handcuffed him right there in his bathrobe. Then called the bust crew and told them “well, i got him. He is in custody “.
Dude was actually super cool. Said he was gonna need a few minutes to explain this to his wife because she had no idea about this part of his life. They gave him that courtesy
When I was younger I had been babysitting for my nephew but they had recently moved to a new apartment in a part of the city I didn’t know. My parents had drawn a map to get me there, but I ended up not quite getting the same route back. It was gone 2am and I emerged onto a little roundabout from a different road than expected so I went around twice to get my bearings. And of course a cop car just happened to see it and pulled me over.
They asked me why, I told the truth and showed them the paper map. They asked me if I’d anything alcoholic to drink and again I truthfully said no. I don’t blame him for not believing me, given the time, a Saturday night and the situation so I took the breathalyser. I knew it would come back totally negative so I wasn’t worried. So of course it did, and they let me go. But before they left, the officer looked at me and very honestly and earnestly thanked me for my polite, respectful, courteous and cooperative attitude.
Apparently they don’t get pleasant, polite attitudes from the people they encounter very often and it was nice for them.
Not too long ago, I was “de-marketized” by my former bank, Royal Bank of Canada, for accepting too many payments from companies I work for from PayPal.
from the Financial Times
This is one of Canada’s Big 5 banks, and I had been banking with them for well over 30 years. I had actually spoken to their security department about this as they wanted to confirm that all of my transactions were legal and not something out of fraud or whatever, which I didn’t mind being audited on as all of my work was legal, just not paid through the usual ways.
The bank’s security had cleared me, but they were then overruled by some other department in their head office, and suddenly I get a letter saying I was being “de-marketized” which involves having ALL of my accounts, investments, retirement funds and so on be shut down and be forced to move to another bank. There was no way to appeal, no way to complain and no act I could do to stop this. So having exhausted almost all of the avenues of redress (there’s still the Federal banking ombudsman), I had to scramble to get all of my accounts out to another bank.
Now normally I would say, “good riddance” as I’ve found that the service at my new bank far superior than what I’ve encountered with RBC. RBC put me through essentially bureaucratic hell for a month as I had to fill out this form and that form…. but now you’re probably wondering where I’m going with all this.
Well, when I had moved my investment accounts (my retirement funds) out to another bank, they had the gall to charge me $150 for the priviledge to MOVE THE MONEY OUT despite them FORCING ME OUT. And worse, if I hadn’t screamed absolute murder to the highest mountains, they tried to RETURN MY RETIREMENT SAVINGS STRAIGHT TO ME AS CASH. To do this would AUTOMATICALLY incur an instant 25–30% INCOME TAX CUT OFF THE FUNDS, which would have been in the THOUSANDS of dollars! If it wasn’t for my new bank instructing me EXACTLY what I needed to do to avoid incurring the loss and telling them I was absolutely ready to put this whole mess on LOCAL NEWS, they wouldn’t have “suddenly” discover that there was a way for me to transfer the money without the tax implications.
So in the end, I still only got hit by the $150 transfer fee, but this was absolutely absurb as I never would have been hit with this if they didn’t force me out in the FIRST PLACE.
High Alert! China Is Now Launching Their ‘Submarine Killer’ To Counter US Nuclear Submarine
China commands one of the best naval powers in the world. With modern naval vessels, advanced naval technology with no rival, a majestic naval infrastructure and the largest commanding navy in the world, the PLA Navy is by no means playing around. A recent development has come into light which reveals China’s plans of developing a next generation naval demolisher that will definitely be a force to be reckoned with.
My husband was the 82nd paratrooper with the tweaked shoulder, I was the new wife hip deep in a Ford Pinto doing an oil change and tune-up at the Hobby Shop on post. He was an E-5 Sergeant, we didn’t have money for someone else to work on our cars, so “we” were working on the Pinto of Many Colors (think primer on all four fenders in four different colors — not me, I swear!) This particular Pinto we’d paid $186 for because the little old lady who sold it to us took $14 off because we’d have to register it — 94,000 miles later, I figured we got our money’s worth. But it did require maintenance.
Hubby was handing me tools one-handed. I asked for an extension for a stubborn spark plug and he went to “check it out” which you could do at the post Hobby Shop.
Someone from the next bay handed me the tool and said, “Try this one.”
I took it and said, “Thank-you, kindly.”
There was some inconsequential chit-chat, and I said, “You sound like home.”
He was from home, less than an hour from home anyway, La Follette, TN.
That was it, a short conversation with a soldier, a good ole Southern boy in a white T-shirt tucked into belted jeans. He was a little older than everyone else in the bay, but oil needed changing, right?
Hubby gave me big eyes and said, “Thank-you, SIR.”
It was the GENERAL Carl Stiner, his many boss’ boss, head of the 82nd at the time.
The Pinto started right up and ran like a top. Hubby’s shoulder healed. And the general went on to great things with Special Operations Group and to co-write a book with Tom Clancy. But I think of him changing his own oil in a tucked-in T-shirt at the Hobby Shop.
Strangest things on camera
WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG?
A man was skydiving one bright sunny day. He pulled the string to open his main parachute – but nothing happened – the parachute did not open! So he pulled the string to open his reserve chute – but that didn’t open either!!
‘Oh no’, the man thought to himself. ‘The way things are going, my car probably won’t start either when I try to drive home!!!’
This is a favorite story of mine. If you watch my show the original creature features on YouTube, You will note that I wear an eye patch. I have been blind in one eye for almost 60 years And I have made a point of wearing an eye patch in all of my ID photos because it makes it easier for people to know it’s me. Having a damaged eye is a hard thing to fake. So I went down to the DMV to renew my license and they said I had to take an eye test remember I am wearing an eye patch. They first told me to cover my left eye and read the chart, the eye with an eye patch. I told them that it would not affect anything as I don’t have an eye and I am in fact wearing an eye patch but they said I could be faking it so I had to cover my left eye and read the chart. That was not the stupid part. They then told me I had to cover my right eye, The only eye that can see and read the chart. I again told them that I was blind in my left eye and was in fact wearing an eye patch over my left eye which i’d be willing to remove so that they could see the lack of a left eye. They pointed out that despite being qualified to be at the DMV or Possibly because of it, They were not qualified to look at my eye and tell that it was blind and that I still had to cover my eye and read the chart. Again they pointed out that I could be faking it, There could be a hole in the eye patch that I’m seeing through. I said let’s just write down that I saw nothing and they said they couldn’t believe me until I covered my eye and then told them I saw nothing. I asked them what would be the advantage to me to lie on my DMV eye Test that I was blind. They couldn’t tell me but required that I covered my only good eye and try to read the chart. I covered the eye said I couldn’t see anything and they proceeded to give me my new driver’s license. I desperately want to work at the DMV as I don’t believe I am stupid enough to possibly ever be fired.
“We all printed off our copies of the speech and she had hers on her computer! I can’t even believe that. I was so pissed.”
“Did you tell her to print it?” I ask.
“Well, no,” she admits. “But I think it’s fairly obvious—”
“If it’s so obvious, you’d think she’d’ve done it,” I observe.
“She was probably just being lazy.”
“Or she didn’t have the same expectations as you. If you wanted her to do something, you should’ve told her. You can’t really be mad about something you never said.”
Many people think it’s valid to get upset about assumptions.
But if you want something done, say it. If you don’t like something, say it. If you need something, say it.
Don’t assume that others see what you see.
It never hurts to discuss things.
And it never hurts to say what you’re thinking.
Communication.
It rocks, yo.
NDE REVEALS: The REASON We CHOSE To Incarnate During This DIFFICULT Time!
My best friends 5 year old son stayed with me for a week (my friend and her husband went on holiday). I was pregnant at that time.
One evening after bringing him back home from the park, i was panting walking home. As soon as he got home, he disappeared into the bathroom.
I could hear running water, but didn’t think much of it. I thought he was washing his hands (and he takes long).
While he was doing his thing, I went to the kitchen to warm up dinner, I saw him pull a chair to the bathroom. Obviously this wasn’t normal. I followed him to the bathroom, but he asked me not to come in for two minutes.
When he finally opened the door, he’s filled the bathtub with hot water, added soap for bubbles, cologne for smell (he probably didn’t realize that soap had smell too). And he’d kept the chair just outside the bath tub so I could sit and soak my feet in hot water.
He said that’s what dad did when his mum was expecting his sibling. It takes away all the pain he said!
Obviously the sweetest thing a child has done
Wife Says She “Wasted Her 20s Raising Kids” So She Wants An Open Marriage…I Said I Want A Divorce
So you know how in the Lord of the Rings books, orcs are corrupted, debased creatures made by foul darkness in mockery of elves?
That’s kind of what English muffins are to crumpets.
If you’ve only had English muffins but never has your mouth known the blessing of a crumpet, you might think they are in some way kin, without realizing how the English muffin is a fel and evil mockery of a crumpet. To taste a crumpet after a lifetime of English muffins is to know true bliss, as if you’ve had your first hint of a brighter world, a breakfast delicacy buttered by the loins of Aphrodite herself.
Not my boss, it was an important client. A client we couldn’t afford to lose.
A desperate call came in Friday morning. An American investor wanted an English translation of their just released 68-page German annual report for Monday.
I knew it was a huge problem, but I stayed calm as I ran the word count to see how bad it was.
Doing the rough math, I told him we needed to find at least 3 additional financial translators (plus yours truly) who might be willing to work a 32-hour weekend on short notice. I would call him back as soon as I had news.
Now this was back in 1998, long before Google Translate and DeepL.
I sent an email out to 11 translators and got on the phone to follow the mail.
After 8 calls I had my 3 translators, but there was a catch. The least expensive one was asking for 240 marks (120 EUR) per hour. The most expensive wanted 400 marks (200 EUR).
That was outrageous, but as they all pointed out to me, only outrageous people ask suppliers to change their weekend plans on Friday morning and tell their loved ones they are working a 16-hour Saturday and Sunday.
Normally this job would have been quoted just under 8,000 marks with a one week delivery time, but to complete over the weekend it would cost 45,000.
I called back the client and told him we could deliver for Monday at a price of 45,000… or we could deliver a week later for 8,000. I asked him to talk it over with his investor and get back to me asap.
The return call came pretty quickly. Monday in a week would be just fine.
The moral of the story is, be nice, but be firm. Set a price for losing your weekend. It can be extra money, extra days off or maybe even a promotion.
Then let the boss decide whether it’s worth it. Your weekend belongs to you, but you can always sell it if the price is right.
It was on our honeymoon and I knew then I made a mistake by marrying him. We argued a lot. He was angry with me because I couldn’t read a map. I COULD read a map just fine, it was the map that wasn’t clear as to which way to go. I gave him the map and he couldn’t figure it out either. 15 years go by, our two daughters were 10 and 13 and starting with the mouthy disrespect, but only towards me. The girls and I got into a verbal confrontation about respecting me, right in front of him. He gathered both girls to hug them and told them I was “tetched” or in other words crazy and they didn’t have to listen to me! So instead of backing me up he just made it worse. It was all downhill from there. Time goes by. Every single night, just like his parents, come home from work, eat, shower, watch TV and go to bed. Repeat until death. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Rarely go to a movie or anything else. NEVER go anywhere on vacation. I could not live like that so I decided to start my own business, which did pretty well. Went by myself on simple vacations since he didn’t want to go. So after 32 years wasted with this man, he decides to cheat with my businesses book keeper who was my best friend. I should have listened to my instict, left him to figure out his own map and walked out while on our honeymoon.
Psychologist Explains WHY Women Have To EARN Affection
“Women treat men like men treat their jobs. Men treat women like women treat money”.
And…
“people want what they want. Not, what wants them.”
I had an offer and counter offer then agreed to sell. I signed the papers and gave them to his realtor. The realtor said he would take them to the buyer tomorrow. It would have closed in a couple weeks. I was on a tight deadline to sell, it was 1994 and tax law gave me two years to sell and time was up soon. Later that same day another realtor brought me an offer that was VA preapproved and could close that week. Since the first buyer hadn’t signed yet I was able to recind my agreement to sell and accept the new one. His realtor cost him a house
“You haven’t passed the trial period”, I said to the manager.
I was having this interview for a job I really wanted. The interview went well, but the employers explained that since they couldn’t tell from an interview how I would do in practice, there would be a trial period of three months. I was happy with that; if I didn’t pass the trial period, at least I’d gain experience.
So I began my trial period, but already in the first week I didn’t like the atmosphere in that place. The manager who was so nice during my interview, turned out to be loud, on the verge of being a bully. He was walking in the place like a dictator and people would go quiet every time he was around them. I’m prone to anxieties and I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. Yes, I needed the money and I loved what I was doing, but it didn’t do good to my soul.
I was taking my time deciding though, but then one day he was shouting at one employee so badly (and in front of others), that I made up my mind. It was nearly the end of my trial period, and at the end of that day I went to his office and asked to talk. He said, “Please come in, I was actually planning to talk to you after the weekend, we’ll sign a contract next week.” I said, “Thank you but I won’t be staying, I can’t stand the atmosphere in your place.” He said, “What? why? don’t take it like that, we are busy, it’s nothing personal, and you have definitely passed the trial period.” I said, “Yes, but you haven’t passed the trial period!”
I was 17. 2 cops pulled me over and checked me and my car out. They found a pair of pliers on the back floorboard. They were looking at me all suspicious like. I was shaking. One of them said “We’ve got you now”. I managed to say “For what?” They looked at each other and then one said “Cattle rustling” I said “But we’re in the middle of the city”. They started laughing. Turns out there’s an old Texas law dating back to the 1800s that forbids anyone from carrying wire cutters. We all got a laugh and they let me go.
I came to USA married and our daughter arrived 5 years later.
I decided to teach her Portuguese since it is our mother tongue.
When my daughter was 7 years old, she did not want to speak Portuguese anymore. One day, coming from school, she began telling me some situation that happened at school in English. I told her: “Please, tell me in Portuguese.” My English is excellent, but the reason that I wanted her speaking in Portuguese was because of her future, it is a plus when you can acquire a language as a child.
She got upset and told me she did not want to tell me anything anymore. I told her to go to her room and come back when she was ready to speak. It took her a few minutes, but her reasoning was valid: “Mom, everything happened in English”. But she told me the story in Portuguese, with some American words.
A decade passed, she is in nursing school where she learned Spanish. Since both languages have Latin roots, it was not very difficult to learn it.
Today she is a nurse. Almost every week she comes home telling me how impressed her foreign patients are with her Portuguese. The hospital administration asked her to do some tests for her to become their official translator.
Here and there she thanks me for not giving up on teaching her Portuguese. It has opened many doors to her.
They took all the power tools off of my service truck.
Told me I had to go see Bob Laublaub (not his real name) at the shop.
Yup…They’re firing me.
So I go into Mike’s…Ermmm Bob’s office. He has a termination slip and a check he is filling out by hand, my payoff. He says, “We are letting you go, it’s a clean layoff”. True to his word it was a clean ROF (reduction of force). I sign it, he already has. As soon as I sign it I am no longer his employee, so I ask him, “Why”? He states “We had a complaint from a customer that you were spending too much time in your truck smoking cigarettes”.
“Ohh,” I replied and handed him his copy of the termination form.
When one of my best friends from high school got married, she asked me to be a bridesmaid. I was pretty honored, and said yes. Then she told me I had to order a dress in a size 16. I was a size 2 at the time.
Her reasoning: she was portly, as were her bridesmaids, and if I was up there in a gown that showed how slim I was, I wouldn’t “match” the bridal party.
The dress was very low cut, and the only straps a loop of fabric on each side, like this, in lieu of sleeves. The skirt was much fuller.
What was I supposed to do, walk down the aisle holding my arms over my head, dragging two pounds of fabric? How would I walk with all the fabric tangling between my legs?
The amount of U.S. treasury notes held by foreign countries is well known.
China’s current holding of U.S. treasury instruments is, roughly, $859 Billion (U.S. of course). That’s less than one trillion.
And the U.S. treasury owes that much money to China because China loaned the United States that much money (although there’s probably some interest in there). The United States isn’t going to turn down perfectly good money just because the Chinese have it. For one thing, if the U.S. government refused to sell U.S. debt instruments to countries for U.S. dollars, those countries would probably trade them on the open market for Euros or something and drive down the value of the dollar. Then the Europeans who sold Euros would be investing the money in U.S. treasury notes anyway.
They are intelligent and play the long game. They’ve watched the effects that immoral contents have had on other countries for the past few decades and they’ve decided they do not want a similar fate for the youth of China. I commend them.
Meet the woman who killed the President of France with a blowjob:
Marguerite Steinheil was a woman who lived a very interesting life. She was a socialite whom became famous for her many affairs with very prominent French men at the turn of the century, she became embroiled in international political scandals and once attempted to frame her manservant for the brutal murders of her husband and mother, a crime for which she was heavily implicated but never convicted.
However, it is for her relationship with Félix Faure, 7th President of France, that she became infamous.
Steinheil was introduced to Faure at a social event and quickly became his mistress. She would often visit his office at the Élysée Palace and disappear with him into his private chambers. One day, having visited the Palace, Steinheil rung urgently for the servants, who entered to find Steinheil adjusting her clothing and Faure having a seizure on the sofa. Within a few hours he was dead.
The story that came out was that Steinheil had been performing oral sex on Faure when he suffered a fatal stroke.
It’s tragic, but undeniably a pretty awesome and quintessentially ‘French’ way to go. The Presidents legacy lived on through a ship named for him, which ironically went down a few years later.
When I was an ENT resident, I had a patient named Alvin who had been treated multiple times for an oral cancer. What happened on a visit after a biopsy stays with me today. At that time I wrote an article about it. Kind of a long answer to your question,, but I think worthwhile:
Alvin lay on the gurney, oblivious to the huff of the respirator forcing oxygen into his lungs. Pulling the surgical mask from my face, I reached for his pulse and checked his pupillary reflexes, matching the physical input against the digital readouts on the recovery room monitor. Everything looked good except that Alvin was going to live.
Alvin, a master woodworker, had cancer. At least, he’d had it before. Four years ago a small sore on the floor of his mouth proved positive for squamous cell carcinoma. Chemotherapy, radiation and three mutilating surgeries over as many years battered the disease to a standstill.
Throughout his ordeal, Alvin was indomitable. His face disfigured by the loss of half of his lower jaw, skin burned leathery by radiation, he saw no reason to complain let alone despair. Although he couldn’t smile, he never failed to joke with the nurses and talk about the mountain cabin where he planned to retire.
When Alvin presented for his checkup, there was another lump. My heart sank. He’d had all the drug and x-ray treatments his body could tolerate. Another surgery was out of the question.
“I don’t know about this, Alvin,” I said. “I think we’d better biopsy it.”
With a voice made raspy by his treatments, he said, “Sure, Doc. No problem.”
A week after the biopsy, Alvin bounced into my office after a wave and a wink to the receptionist.
He plunked himself in front of my desk, eyes still bright but unaccompanied by the usual deep laugh lines. He unshouldered a Woodworker’s Supply tote bag and set it beside the chair. “So what’s up, Doc?” he said.
The damning pathology report lay on my desk like a sheet of lead. My voice broke on his name. I took a sip of water and pulled myself together.
“It’s not good, Alvin. The cancer’s back. I don’t think we can stop it this time.”
Alvin nodded and leaned back, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. Leaning forward, he rummaged in his bag, extracting a package about the size of a cigar box brightly-wrapped in silver paper. He placed it on the desk and pushed it across to me.
“I know, Doc, and I knew you’d feel real bad about it. I thought this might cheer you up a little. Made it myself.”
Speechless, I carefully unwrapped a wooden box with an intricate inlay of a bird on the lid and scrolls of a yellow wood encircling the periphery.
“Not bad, eh?” he said. “Now the box is amboyna burl from Southeast Asia. One of the most exotic burls around. Chinese emperors used to hoard it like gold. Now they use it to make the dashboards on those high-end Mercedes. Just a delight to feel it in your hands, isn’t it? Like butter.”
He reached across to outline the yellow scrollwork inlaid on the sides. “Now that’s East Indian satinwood,” he said excitedly. “India and Sri Lanka. Tightest grain you ever saw. Hold it up to the light and it looks like it’s embedded with diamonds.”
I ran my hand over the polished surface, turning it to catch the light, catching some of Alvin’s enthusiasm for the natural beauty of the wood and marveling at the craftsmanship.
“The bird,” he said, “is my poor attempt at a phoenix. Lots of different woods in it for the colors: bloodwood for the fire, granadillo for most of the body, plum for the wings, some ebony for the talons. Whaddaya think?”
I stared slack-jawed at the man who’d just received a death sentence. “Alvin,” I managed, “it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Knew you’d like it,” he said, his voice smiling for him. “Thanks for being my doc. We gave it a good run didn’t we?”
Kyle McDonald, a guy (26 years old at the time of the events) who in 2006 managed to trade his way from a single red paperclip to a house.
It happened in Kipling Saskatchewan, Canada. In July 2005, Kyle posted an ad on Craigslist: “My name is Kyle, I’m an unemployed 26-year-old Canadian, I want a house in exchange, starting the trade by offering the red paperclip on my desk.” The idea came from a popular Canadian children’s game called “Bigger and Better,” which involves trading an object for something bigger or better until you get what you want. It took 14 trades and one year, but he finally succeeded.
The first to respond, two days after the initial blog post, were Rhawnie and Corinna: via email, they offered a wooden fish-shaped pen. Kyle went to Vancouver and met them, completed the trade, then posted their photo on his blog. And so, he waited for another trade. In Seattle, the pen was traded for a ceramic doorknob made by a lady named Annie. The doorknob turned into a barbecue, then a gas-powered generator (September 24). Within weeks, the internet buzz about young McDonald’s idea reached the media, and CNN and BBC competed for his interviews. The electric generator was traded for a beer keg, a snowmobile, a trip for two to Yak, British Columbia (February 2006), until he got a van and a record contract with Metal Works (February 22, 2006).
Later, he could trade the contract for a year’s free stay in a house in Phoenix. Kyle accepted, updated his blog, and started again. But renting wasn’t enough for him; he wanted his own house. Then came the real turning point in Kyle’s already lucky story: metal rocker Alice Cooper offered an afternoon in his company in exchange for the year’s rent. Leslie, an employee of Alice Cooper’s restaurant in Phoenix, lived in the apartment rent-free for twelve months. After closing the deal, Kyle had many offers to choose from, and he made the only trade that seemed like a loss: the afternoon with Alice Cooper went to Mark Herrmann of Kentucky, for a KISS band glowing orb. His popularity helped in the search, and in February, director Corbin Bernsen offered a role in his next movie in exchange for the KISS orb. At this point, the town of Kipling stepped forward, offering McDonald a recently renovated house in exchange for his role in Bernsen’s film.
It was July 5, 2006, a year had passed.
Kyle had made it, and on the lawn of his little house with red windows, there’s a large red metal paperclip.
I live in the wilderness. One night, just after dark, I get a knock at the door. Other than a few neighbors who would have phoned. I live miles into the woods, and nobody knocks on the door after dark.
I go to the door and there’s an older man and a woman, in pretty rough clothes, the man is holding a pretty beaten up rifle.
He claims that they went scouting elk in the morning, left their car, and went on foot, and got lost. The rifle was just for protection from Grizzlies. He was going to show his girlfriend a valley of elk, that would blow her away.
I hated to break it to him, that there had been no elk in that valley since the wolves moved in.
Elk season didn’t start for another week, he had planned on poaching. But here was a couple in their late sixties that had been walking for 8 hours, so guest rules were in place.
So I offered them a drink. He wanted a ride to his car.
I explained that it was a 40 mile drive, half of it on rough roads. Even though his car was only 10 miles as the crow flys away.
So we hopped in my truck, I took his gun, before we got in the truck. Though, with my hands on the steering wheel, he could have taken it while I was driving. But it was a good faith gesture.
It took close to an hour to get them to their car. I waited until they got it started, and they drove out ahead of me.
Of course, they were flat busted, and I wouldn’t even ask for gas money, because they didn’t look like they had a penny.
Went to a local mechanic to get some tires replaced on my vehicle my current set was bald and I was traveling from North Carolina to Florida.
After the tires were changed everything seemed fine until I got above 60 miles an hour at which point there was a severe rattling/wobbling coming from the rear end.
After the Florida trip I took my car back to them they told me I needed a new rear axle. Never had that kind of problem before so I took it to the dealership I bought it from. They examined the car and asked me why I had roughly 6 extra ounces of weight on my passenger rear tire on the back side of the rim. I said I don’t know please remove it they did problem was solved. The dealership didn’t charge me anything.
Upon returning home I went to the scam artists and said I am going to do everything I can and tell everybody I can not to use their services and why. Even went so far as to keep the weight strip in my car to show people.
We live in a very small town and word travels fast they we’re shuttered never to open again 6 months later.
Commander’s Palace Sour Cream Pecan Coffee Cake
Ingredients
Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) softened unsalted butter
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 pinch salt
1 1/2 cups sour cream
Pecan Filling
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter well a 10 inch Bundt pan and dust with flour, shaking out the excess.
Cake
In a bowl with an electric mixer beat the butter until smooth.
Add the sugar, a little at a time, and beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy.
Beat in the vanilla extract and the eggs, one at a time.
Into a bowl sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture, beating slowly until just combined.
Fold in the sour cream.
Pecan Filling
In a bowl combine filling ingredients. Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan, sprinkle the top with the pecan filling, gently pressing filling into batter, going completely around the cake until all remaining nut mixture is used. Add remaining batter to pan and smooth top.
Bake for 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. If necessary, loosely cover top of cake with piece of aluminum foil to prevent overbrowning.
A corporate party in a 4 star restaurant a guest was talking full advantage of the open bar, and when told he would not be served he grabbed at the bartender.
The bartender was a former Michigan state police officer and he grabbed the man’s hand and was punched in the side of the face.
An all call went out for help as every bus boy, prep and chef poured into this party and restrained the drunken patron.
As they attempted to evict him he dropped to the ground. The two chefs, large, strong and burly, fell with him. They lay there on the steps holding his arms when the police came through the door yelling at us.
“LET HIM GO!” the officer commanded. And so they did.
This drunk idiot screamed, shook off the chefs, blew past me and attacked the cop!
I’ve never seen a baton wielded in such a dramatic fashion. From his side it smoothly went up and across that man’s head with a this and a “uhg” he dropped like a rock.
The dining room didn’t react at all. We all went back to work.
Your U.S. CEO earns 100 times that of Chinese CEO! Your Employees earn 5 times Chinese worker but Chinese workers work twice as hard. Your employees expect 10 times more benefits yet product half the Chinese worker productivity.
Your ports and infrastructure is dilapidated China’s infrastructure is state of the art latest technology. You turn our bill shit artist and Chinese workers are well educated, willing to learn and highly driven.
Every shit you do China will do it better, do it faster and do it way cheaper than you. So go figure why everything China do is get done at a fraction of your cost! It is not nuclear science!
CHINA, in every respect, I know every yank will say the USA but I don’t think so, not anymore, mainly because of their debt, and growing daily, yes, the US have a very powerful navy, but SO WHAT? Ships can be sunk, and sunk quickly, missiles are the thing these days, and China is way ahead with their hypersonic missiles, double the speed of US ones. According to all reports. Also, they run rings around the US in speed and cost of manufacturing. Which also puts China in front.
An elderly neighbor died. He was a mechanic before he retired and had a large set of tools. His widow held a garage sale to get rid of his things, and she had a large rolling tool chest, filled with the tools of his trade, marked at $25. I took her aside and told her “Withdraw that from the sale. It is marked way low. I will sell it for you.” She demurred, but I talked her into it.
Three phone calls later I had it sold for $1500 to another mechanic I knew. I also managed to sell the rest of his tools at a good price over the next few weeks, including a few I bought myself at fair market price.
Sleeping at night is worth more to me than getting a good deal at a yard sale.
Because (many) human beings think in terms of archetypes, not individuals, and the archetype of the abuse survivor is not a man.
I recently (last year) had a conversation about this with a therapist who works with abuse survivors. She was quite blunt and up-front about it. She said (paraphrasing) “A man can have video of a woman hitting him, and many people will still insist he can’t be an abuse victim.”
Liberals often make this about politics. A lot of liberals will point to toxic ideas about masculinity common in conservative circles (men are stronger than women, women can’t be a threat to men, women are kind and nurturing while men are aggressive and warlike) and say “therein lies the problem.”
While there is some truth to that—-some people do discount the idea men can be abuse survivors because they hold traditional gender-essentialist ideas about men and women—liberals have their own dirty closets when it comes to this issue as well.
A lot of liberals will say “believe survivors” when what they actually mean is “believe women,” and “believe women” when what they actually mean is “believe cis white women.” (Trans women? Women of color? They have a very different experience when they talk about being abused. I personally know a woman who says “believe women” who silenced a woman of color when she came forward about abuse.)
So, why does this happen?
Because people think in archetypes.
This isn’t actually about left or right, and it isn’t even about abuse. Step back for a moment. What’s the first thing, the very first thing, that pops into your head when you visualize a welfare recipient?
For a great many Americans, the prototypical welfare recipient is an inner-city black single mother.
Would it surprise you to know there are more white people than black people who receive welfare in the United States?[1]
This is an archetype: a quick mental image of the exemplar of a group. Many Americans think the exemplar of the group “welfare recipients” is “inner city black single mother.” Many Americans think the exemplar of the group “abuse victim” is “cis white woman.”
People make judgments based on archetypes, not individuals. People who make public policy decisions think in terms of archetypes, not individuals. When the archetype of “abuse victim” is “white women,” you build shelters around…white women.
And the thing is, even people who will tell you “oh, yeah, I know anyone can be a victim” don’t act like that’s true, not really. Liberals will point out hypocrisy in conservatives and conservatives will point out the same hypocrisy in liberals, but this is a “humans think in terms of groups” problem, not a left/right problem.
The very same conservative who will say “those social justice warriors always go on about how men are bad and women are perfect” also think that a real man, a strong alpha man, is not a weak pathetic pussy who would ever be hurt by a woman.
The very same liberals who will say “those knuckle-dragging conservative Neanderthals always sneer at beta males weak enough to let themselves get pushed around by a woman” also think that in any patriarchal society abuse is always a phenomenon perpetuated by men against women.
They both have the same archetype. They have it for different reasons, but ultimately they have the same archetype.
My husband and I have a very “boring” relationship. We don’t fight, we don’t “just pick up our backpacks and go for a vacation”, and we don’t indulge in “let’s do something crazy” moments. For (up to now) over twelve years together (including get-to-know-each-other, relationship, and marriage), we haven’t done anything “just because”. Anything we do, we have a plan for it.
The love my husband has for me is not the kind of love that the teenage me once dreamed about (I always dreamed that someone would love me like Gatsby loved Daisy). His love is not a love that burns like lava, seething with passion. His love is like the essence of life, filtered through time and crystalizes into a steady, solid, giant rock that I can lean on. His love is so tangible that I feel I could see it and touch it.
And I believe it’s the best kind of love one could ever ask for.
We often dream about someone that willing to die for love, willing to die for us, and we are willing to die for them. Yet, I’ve come to understand that we don’t need an eventful relationship to feel fulfilled. It’s far more enriching to have someone that we are willing to live for, to build a life together.
When I was a five year old boy, my father gave me a magnifying glass… set me on the curb near an anthill, and I spent the entire afternoon burning ants.
It was cruel.
But I had no idea about that during that time in my life. I mean, I was only five.
I wonder how many times that I hurt others though ignorance, and a lack of compassion. I really do wonder.
Look guys, we cannot change the world, but we can alter our little piece of it. Let’s just strive to be a little bit better on a day to day basis. What do you say?
I’ve been teaching nearly 20 years and my favorite lie is still the one that I heard as a brand new teacher.
A student came to class with his hand bandaged, carrying a doctor’s note. He told me “last night, my computer blew up and the shrapnel injured my hand so I couldn’t complete the homework assignment that was due today.”
I took a look at his hand. The bandage was so loose it was falling off. There was no way that any sober doctor had done such a sloppy job. It looked like he had tried to apply it himself and been unable to do it properly one-handed.
Then I took a look at the note. It was from a doctor’s office and it said “[Student’s name] has been seen for a ___ hand procedure.” I took a closer look at the blank space between “a” and “hand”. The word “minor” had been erased (but not well enough that I couldn’t see it if I squinted). I was guessing he had a wart removed or something that morning.
I didn’t need to point out the holes in his story, though. I just told him, “I’m sorry to hear about your injury, but the assignment wasn’t due today. It was due two days ago- the day before your ‘accident’.”
He walked to his seat without a word. He looked like he was going to be sick.
China’s People’s Liberation Army – Navy ship “Longushan” is reportedly ablaze just off the coast of China tonight. The vessel is reported to be “China’s most advanced warship.”
No OFFICIAL word on what caused the fire. (There ARE rumors . . . .)
All mention of this is being rapidly scrubbed from China social media networks, and no official information is coming out of Beijing.
The vessel bears Hull Number 980 and is described as a Type 071 landing ship.
China’s fifth Type 071 amphibious transport dock (LPD) Longhushan; with hull number 980) was commissioned with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN or Chinese Navy) on September 12, 2018 in Shanghai.
Originally designed after the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the Type 071, measuring 210 meters long and 28 meters wide, is capable of carrying an 800-man marine battalion and some 20 amphibious tanks.
During building construction in an Athenian suburb in 2014, a tomb of the classical period was unearthed. It was no big deal, it happens frequently in Athens. Archaeologists took over but the findings in it weren’t of much interest…until they assembled a ceramic wine cup (a skyphos) smashed in 12 pieces, this one:
The cheap cup belonged to a man named Drapetes (the name, inscribed at the bottom of the cup, indicates a slave) However, the big surprise came from the other six names inscribed on the cup:
Aristides, Diodotos, Desimos, Arrifron, Pericles and Efkritos. Could this Pericles be the famous general?
Archaeologists say yes! This is why:
One of its fragments is engraved with six names, including Arrifron — the moniker of Pericles’s grandfather and brother. “The name Arrifron is very rare,” said A. P. Matthaiou, secretary of the Greek Epigraphic Society
. “The mention of [Arrifron] over that of Pericles on the surface of the vase makes us 99% confident that they are the two brothers.”
The inscription of the name Aristides also points favorably to Pericles having used the cup. Aristides was a politician who acted in Athens between 488 and 478 BCE, while Pericles led the city-state from 460 BCE to his death from the plague in 429 BCE. The cup dates between 480 and 465 BCE when the two might have interacted in a social setting such as a symposium or tavern. As men commonly drank from the same skyphos, it’s possible they would have carved their names onto the cup as a token of their meeting. “[He] certainly was dizzy from the wine as it is clear that whoever wrote the name of Pericles made a mistake initially … and then corrected it,” Matthaiou said.
Drapetes kept the cup. We don’t know why or how, maybe he was flattered by the presence of the noble company in his tavern.
It’s always a little magical when archeologists turn up objects that place such mythic figures in real time and space, breathing the same air and walking the same ground we do today. It seems miraculous that 2,500 years after the orator’s death, an ancient cup just happens to contain six complete names evidencing a life that has evaded archeologists for centuries.
U.S. Army prepares for War with China and Congress is EXCITED about it
Sigh. You all afraid, yet?
Angelina’s Zydeco Creole Jambalaya
Ingredients
1/2 pound smoked sausage, cut
1/2 pound ham, diced
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup bell pepper, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
1 can whole tomatoes, drained (reserve liquid)
Pinch thyme
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice
1 1/2 cups stock water
2 pounds fresh shrimp, deveined
Instructions
Place sausage and ham in very heavy Dutch oven and sauté until lightly browned. Remove from pot and set aside.
Sauté onions, bell pepper, celery, green onions and add meat drippings. Cook until tender.
Add tomatoes, thyme, pepper and salt. Cook for five minutes. Stir in rice.
Mix together liquid from tomatoes, stock and Worcestershire sauce equal to 2 cups and add to sautéed vegetables. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and add fresh shrimp, ham and sausage. Cook uncovered, stirring often for about 30 minutes or until rice and shrimp are done.
Loyalty
U.S. Marines shifting focus to China, threat is “real”: top general
The U.S. Marines view deterring China as their key focus and will strive to make sure a conflict in the Indo-Pacific does not “spill over” to Japan, the military branch’s top general Eric Smith said Monday, while warning that Beijing’s missile capabilities are “significant” and “real.”
The Marine Corps’ No. 2 officer, who has been nominated to become the next commandant, also said in an interview in Tokyo that a littoral regiment being formed in Japan for remote island defense is being designed to provide “advanced maritime domain awareness” to allies and partners, in order to better detect events in surrounding waters.
The United States and Japan announced in January that the existing 12th Marine Regiment based in the southern prefecture of Okinawa will be reorganized into the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment by 2025, making it the first MLR to be forward-deployed against China.
The regiments will possess advanced surveillance capabilities and will be armed with long-range fires. Consisting of about 1,800 to 2,000 personnel per unit, they will also be capable of flexibly deploying small groups of marines to remote islands in the South China Sea.
The forming of the regiments comes amid China’s increased military assertiveness around far-flung southwestern Japan islets and Taiwan, which has raised the risk of conflict.
The Commandant of the United States Marine Corps is hospitalized after a serious medical emergency. General Eric M. Smith suffered a medical emergency on the evening of October 29 and was taken to a hospital.
He is now in stable condition.
Per Statute Law 10 U.S.C. §8044, as the senior officer assigned to Headquarters, US Marine Corps, by date of rank, Lt. General Karsten Heckl, the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, who is the Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Command, is serving as Acting Commandant of the Marine Corps, for the interim.
Wife Cheated On Me With Her Colleagues, so I Snatched Everything She Had – FULL STORY
“You didn’t dodge a bullet. 14 years with her, you got shot.”
I received a resume from someone who had recently graduated from high school. They had one job on the resume and their job title was Director in Charge of Company Morale at a prestigious local law firm.
The resume lacked all the things I was looking for, but the job title listed intrigued me. I set the interview and was waiting to hear a litany of lies.
On the day of the interview this cleancut sharp dressed young man showed up. After brief small talk I asked about the prior job and what it entailed.
Turns out his Director in Charge of Company Morale Position entailed him going out each morning and getting coffee for all the partners. He said without their morning coffee, morale was very low.
Best belly laugh in an interview ever. I hired him. And he worked out well because he found a way to place a positive attitude on everything he did, however menial the task.
Edit: I am honored that so many people like my answer. Thank you all.
Update: I’ve had several people suggest editing the gender from “they” to “he”. At the time I read the resume and set the appointment, I had no idea if the applicant was male or female. Gender was not a decision point in our hiring process. This is why I have left the answer unedited. Thank you all again for the overwhelming response.
I called and the automated machine said it would read back my last five transactions to check for anything weird.
“Video entertainment— $65. California.”
“Video entertainment— $10. Declined. France.”
“Video entertainment— $10. Declined. France.”
“Gas— $30. Colorado.”
“Gas— $30. Wyoming.”
I was pretty sure I hadn’t been to France or California recently, so I checked my account summary and noticed I had -$50 in my account.
I’m taking poor college kid to a whole new level. I’m negative poor right now.
So I called their fraud number and the woman on the other end walked me through securing my account and getting a new card. She asked a few questions, told me my card was on its way, and hung up.
The achievement was not that I got my card number stolen. It wasn’t that I managed to put my account $50 under.
It’s that I made a phone call.
That sounds awfully small and to everyone around me it is, but I have been known to have panic attacks when forced to make phone calls. I hate ‘em. They make me anxious and uncomfortable and incredibly stressed.
I struggle with hearing on the phone (and in general, really), which exacerbates my social anxiety and makes phone calls some of the worst interactions I can have.
But today, I did it. The woman even had an accent and I think I understood her and responded correctly.
It’s a small thing, but when it’s one of your biggest fears, it can feel like the greatest thing in the world.
I was 20 and dating a guy that I met in a 20s chat room. This was the year 2000. We went to a grocery store and was walking down the Easter candy isle when I spotted these malt eggs. I stopped and said, “eww! Do you remember getting these in the bottom of your Easter basket every year?!” He simply said, “No.” Stupid me goes on and on about how I hated them and that he MUST remember getting them… He finally says quietly, “No. I didn’t ever get an Easter basket. My parents didn’t have the money.”
THAT is why I’m an asshole.
FYI, I married that guy that same year and we are still together with 3 amazing kids.
The next Easter morning he woke up to his first Easter basket from the Easter bunny complete with malt eggs. 🪺
I was cleaning the coffee cart when a guest at the soup kitchen walked by me.
“You’re wearing Converse. Do you collect them?”
“No,” I tell her. “I just like my old black pair. They’re comfortable shoes.”
“They are. I have some pink ones that don’t fit me—I’ll bring them and if they fit you, you can have them.”
True to her word, I glanced out of the kitchen door today to see her holding them up, much to my coworkers’ confusion.
At work, I can’t walk two steps without someone stopping to talk to me.
One man spent all day poking fun at me about how sunburned my arms are.
Another gave us all breakfast burritos and promised sopapillas tomorrow.
I spent a good part of an afternoon with one of our volunteers trading fun facts and talking about theatre.
Sometimes strangers stop in the serving line to tell me their story.
I learned about Rainbow Gatherings and how they send positive energy into the world.
About powwows.
About brain injuries and single parenting and the best way to make spaghetti and bonnets purchased in Missouri and what chickens like to eat and how they make decaffeinated coffee.
About cancer and babies and sunburn cures and about how food is one of the greatest gifts known to man.
I took the job at the soup kitchen because it paid and because they called me back first.
But damn, my job fuels my artist’s brain more than anything else.
People. People are all that art is.
And if you can be in a room where veterans and drug addicts and businessmen and hitchhikers all sit at the same table for a meal—
You’ll find no better place to hear someone’s story.
Today, I got new shoes, and I don’t even know that woman’s name.
But I know her. I know them all, even if all I know is that one guy likes the comics in the newspaper and another always waits for his wife before eating.
You ask if I’m happy with my current life situation.
I’m poor. My pay is calculated at pretty much the poverty line for the local community, so I’m making fuckall in money.
I’m tired and I’m sunburned and I’m sore and I’m still excited to go to work every day.
It doesn’t feel like a job. I don’t dread it like I honestly thought I would.
I’ve been sleeping full nights and working full days and while the depression doesn’t just go away, it finds someplace else to be during the work day.
I wish I had the money to do everything I want to do, but I will honestly take full days at the soup kitchen over working fast food any day of the week.
I guess I’m happy.
I don’t know. I’m content. The days are flying by faster than I can count them.
If anything, this work strengthens my desire to work in nonprofits. I don’t think traditional schools are for me.
I’m excited to keep going, and that feels good enough for me.
I was very surprised with American attitude towards (partial) nudity. A couple of real-life examples from when I lived in NJ:
My kids were 2 and 3 years old and during the summer it’s very normal in Europe for small children to run around the house and yard naked. When they did that in the US however, I received several complaints from our neighbours and one of them put up a solid fence between our properties after that.
Two years later we went to a water park in Hope, NJ and our daughter was only wearing bikini bottoms. The top didn’t fit well, would only annoy her and there was nothing there to hide or cover up (so we thought). We received a warning from the park and had to cover her up or leave immediately.
When our daughter was in pre-school we (the parents) had to stop by the principal for a serious discussion: they noticed how our 4-year old daughter started undoing her pants before she got in the rest room with the door closed, which was apparently shocking to the other kids.
After that we started adjusting better to the local norms and didn’t have any incidents anymore. I’ve always wondered though why this was such a big deal and suspect it to be a nutty religious thing.
CHINA, in every respect, I know every yank will say the USA but I don’t think so, not anymore, mainly because of their debt, and growing daily, yes, the US have a very powerful navy, but SO WHAT? Ships can be sunk, and sunk quickly, missiles are the thing these days, and China is way ahead with their hypersonic missiles, double the speed of US ones. According to all reports. Also, they run rings around the US in speed and cost of manufacturing. Which also puts China in front.
Yes! Just recently my husband and I did this. We were visiting NY. Our hotel had a restaurant in it. We went down for breakfast. There was a menu just outside of the restaurant. The continental buffet was $29. The hot buffet was $45. A little steep, but we figured those were just NY prices.
When it was our turn to be seated, they but us at a high communal style table. I’m 5″2 and I HATE high tables! We sat down and looked around. We looked at each other. The kind of silent communication you can do with someone you’ve been with for years. Then we decided that we were not paying $100 for breakfast while we sat at an uncomfortable “display” table. I turned and looked out the window. I saw 53rd St. Grill across the street. We walked past the waiter as he was bringing our waters. The food at the grill was delicious, and cost about $30 for both of us. We ate breakfast there for the remainder of our trip.
I have several female friends that worked hard in school and then got prestigious jobs. But the thing about prestigious jobs is that they’re usually a lot of long hours of tough work. They made fairly good money but after a long, frustrating day at work they would sometimes joke “ugh, I need to find a rich husband so I can be a house wife.”
And then some of did. One of them moved to another country where traditional gender roles are more prevalent and she found herself a really rich husband. Then a few of the other girls moved too and, I kid you not, they also found rich husbands.
I’ve met a lot of girls that have jumped up the socioeconomic ladder through marriage. But guys? I haven’t met a single one. Generally speaking, girls still expect guys to make at least as much as them.
So what sucks about being a guy? The immense pressure to be financially successful. As much as we try to deny it, society is obsessed with financial status and will measure a man’s worth based on his wealth.
The current economic system is full of perverse incentives.
Ever heard of the phrase “identifying your customer’s needs”?
The thing is, creating or maintaining needs so that you know what people need is more profitable than trying to identify new needs every time.
Problems cause need, and so problems are encouraged.
Imagine there is a pothole in the street.
That’s a problem. It’s going to cause issues.
If you identify it, then you could set up a company to fix roads, and try to get paid to fix it.
But what would be even more profitable would be to lobby so that it doesn’t get fixed, and then open a shop next to it to fix people’s suspensions after they break, or to offer towing services.
Because then you have a repeated source of income.
And then anyone trying to fix the pothole becomes a threat to your bottom line.
People benefit from the existence of problems, because then they can be paid to provide a temporary solution.
And this impacts many areas of our lives.
The legal system currently is bloated, and overly complicated. But the lawyers have a job thanks to that, so they don’t want it to change.
Government officials are corrupted by bribes and lobbying, and their perverse incentive is to take the money instead of working for the good of people.
Planned obsolescence leads to people making items that don’t last a long time but break fast, and have to be replaced, because that’s an opportunity for profits.
We are scared of human labor being replaced by machines. A weird incentive to be against progress and automation, because our access to resources depends on our labor being needed.
Health insurance is a business that tries to deny as many claims as possible to increase profits.
The owners and workers of the factories producing bombs and munition rely on constant wars for their income.
Creating emotionally laden clickbait attracts more attention than rational discourse.
If you identify a problem somewhere, fixing it is not the most profitable thing you can do; letting it happen, and then swooping in is.
If you want maximum profits, and know that the housing market will crash, you don’t want to try and avoid that, you want to short the market and make billions. And then use the billions to buy up the low price property from the desperate people in need who just lost their life savings.
There are perverse incentives all around us.
The perverse incentive is to do the easy thing, for short term profits.
Doing the right thing, even when it’s hard, to reap the long term benefits? That’s what we should be aiming for.
I arrived for an interview and was asked to wait a few minutes as the interviewer was held up. A few minutes later he came out, apologised said he’d been called to an urgent problem. He explained that some of the stuff I’d be working on would highly commercially sensitive and while he finished up could I read through the pre-interview contract and sign it.
I read through it and though I’m no lawyer it read like they could sue for everything I owned from my house down to my underwear if I so much as said I’d been within a mile of the building. The I interviewer came back a few minutes later and asked if I was happy and had signed the paperwork.
I replied that I hadn’t signed coz it looked a bit iffy on the conditions and he replied
‘congratulations, you’re the first person out of 8 people who passed the first stage test’.
Apparently everyone else had skimmed through and signed and not bothered really looking at what they were signing off on.
A kid walked in late to my English class in 8th grade.
My teacher was really weird, and would go on these rants about how space doesn’t exist, reality is a figment of our imagination, and one person at google is taking over the world by deciding what search results google gives you.
This kid walks in and says “I’m not late because time doesn’t exist.”
He wasn’t marked late.
FIRST TIME HEARING Simple Minds – Alive & Kicking REACTION
I’m a retired cop, and most people think we are very conservative. My law enforcement friends think I’m a hippie.
I am for the legalization of recreational marijuana. I have never tried it, probably wouldn’t even if it was legalized, but it’s time for us all to grow up and see that Reefer Madness isn’t helping anyone.
I am opposed to the death penalty. I don’t like pedophiles or murderers, I just don’t think our government should be in the business of killing people. And I know first hand how flawed our criminal justice system is.
I support peaceful protests, even if I disagree with their views.
I think we (law enforcement) need to work with the media. Many of my colleagues think I’m nuts. It’s win-win when we do.
I think abortion should be legal. But I wish the last one performed was the last one ever performed.
). We need to put ourselves in each other’s shoes, and the best way to do that is to be around each other.
My grandfather’s first sight of America was the Statue of Liberty. I believe that monument is still relevant.
I vote for democrats. I vote for republicans. I vote for independents and green party and libertarians. I just think we need some good people in charge, and it makes me crazy when people vote straight party tickets.
I am a straight white male, married for 37 years. (Hi, honey.) But I am glad same sex couples can get married. I have 4 grandchildren. If they grow up with different preferences than most, I still want them to find love and happiness.
Trump is a disaster, and I’m going to wear out my rosary beads because of him.
I believe in the Second Amendment (actually am quite fond of them all), but I think it has gotten out of hand. Maybe we are not as self controlled as the Founding Fathers had hoped we would be. I am for reasonable restrictions on gun ownership.
I think everyone should have health insurance (at least as good as what members of congress give themselves), whether they can pay for it or not. Life is an inalienable right. Pretty sure health is too.
Not sure if that makes me liberal or not. I don’t like breaking rules or laws, but there are times when that is necessary. As long as you understand the consequences.
As that great philosopher Popeye once said, “I yam what I yam.”
Psychologist Explains Why MEN CARE about a WOMAN’S SEXUAL HISTORY: what women don’t understand
This is very interesting. I never looked at things this way.
“Paying twice as much for getting something ½ the value.”
…
“Well as a man, it doesn’t matter to me whether they have “grown” or got more wisdom, they still did the deeds, and as rude as it may sound to a woman, a good man will hold you accountable for your actions and your past. No high value man, as they put it, wants to pay new car prices for a used car.”
Management didn’t know what to do with Steven and it was their fault. Steven was a 28-year-old coworker and assistant project manager. We worked at a corporate construction company and project managers were our most important personnel.
Steven was smart and had stellar reviews, but when prompted about promoting to PM, he said, “No, no, I’m good.” It perplexed our CFO and COO, who didn’t know why a good employee wouldn’t want more money and responsibility.
I knew why. I was the budget manager at his division and sat in on many of their meetings. I saw the grueling pressure put on project managers and saw them yelled at on occasion. It wasn’t an easy job. Steven figured, he was young and enjoying his life and didn’t want that kind of pressure. And perhaps he thought he’d be bad at the job — which is wiser than most realize.
The Peter Principle was first proposed by psychologist Laurence J. Peters and was intended as satire. It proposed that competent employees will be continually promoted until they are incompetent in their new role. Then, they remain in that position for the remainder of their career. Consequently, every role is eventually held by an incompetent employee. His concept was unexpectedly hailed by researchers as having relevance and truth. Many firms now actively work to combat it.
I would wager any person reading this, who has been in corporate long enough, can think of at least one manager who was shockingly bad at their job. Yet they seemed untouchable.
It makes intuitive sense that as the demands and competition go up, your shine can easily lose its luster. For example, I was a good swimmer and the captain of my high school team. I felt like a god when I swam in local meets against kids who only swam a few months a year. But as I went up to districts, states, and then regionals, I felt increasingly less special.
Today, I’m a writer who sits on the other side of the corporate fence, living mostly free of hierarchal structures and constantly worrying about mistakes slipping through. I see my own partner, and friends, all angling for promotions and raises. This isn’t bad on its own as I admire ambition. But I’ve watched many of them take a hit to their life satisfaction.
The data reflects this: Employees are the unhappiest they’ve been in years, due to a lack of control, unreasonable workloads and not enough time off. You’d wonder why anyone would want to take on more if they are already drowning, but they do — by the millions.
It seems paradoxical. You work to be good at your job and gain respect, only to be promoted to a position that jeopardizes those perceptions. Being highly competent risks making you incompetent.
If you succeed enough, your high flying incompetence may introduce the Peter Principle’s brother, dubbed Peter’s Pinnacle, where you make a huge mistake and are paid to go away. It happened with the president of Disney, Michael Ovitz, who was fired after 16 months but made off with a $38 million severance.
The art of balancing
A few programmers I’ve known are good at dodging this responsibility paradox. My buddy Brian is a high flying coder, who is stiff-arming attempts by management to bring them into their fold and start managing people. He insists his goal is to be a skilled programmer and contribute to the company.
But beware of letting this mindset drag you to stagnancy. Don’t become the middle aged employee who has been in the same role for 10–20 years, just going through the motion and replying blandly to questions about their day with, “Living the dream.” The difference with Brian is that he is continually refining his programming, and is passionate about coding. There’s still a fire in him.
I’ve seen many falls from grace over the years, employees who were five star performers and thought highly of. Then, months after the company gleefully announced their promotion, the whispers started, “I heard he’s been struggling in his new role.” And, “He’s slipping.”
At a former employer, there was a corner room we called “The Death Trap.” The role for that office fell under a difficult manager and had sky-high expectations. They went through four people in 18 months. The company fired three managers who’d had great reviews in prior roles. One was saved by the skin of his neck by transferring to another department. It was the Peter Principle on full display.
Companies can do better too
Per a study by Dr. Ed Lazear at Stanford University, companies should account for the Peter Principle in any promotion decision because it’s an inevitable consequence. One solution is to inflate the original promotion requirements to smooth the transition. Put another way, ensure the candidate is an absolute star in their current role before leading them to deep waters.
Sometimes, you shouldn’t promote great employees at all. For example, in school, they often took our “Teachers of the Year” and offered them jobs in the administration. It’s tragic because it removed the teacher from working with students and making an impact where they thrived. Why not pay the teacher more to keep being an awesome teacher? To the managers seeing this, think long before hard-capping salaries by job title.
Parting thoughts
Think about your job well beyond compensation. Your motivation and job satisfaction are driven by feelings of competence, relatedness (feeling connected to coworkers), and autonomy. Every move up the ladder impacts those three things in unpredictable ways. If you do take a promotion, use that job to supplement your skills. Hire and surround yourself with smart people, and listen to what they have to say. That alone would save many from the clutches of the Peter Principle.
Everything is a tradeoff. I was keenly aware of that when I quit finance to be a writer. It was a conscious but difficult decision. I resolved I would probably never get wealthy. Upward mobility, outside of me writing a fluke hit book, would be limited. My health benefits would vanish. But I’d be doing something creative and that I loved doing, with minimal oversight and flexibility. Four years out, I’m still happy with this decision, but I am constantly doing status checks. Things can change on a dime.
My point is: Take a long view. Protecting your reputation and integrity gets harder as you carry more responsibility and teams to manage. Make sure the new role aligns well with your skillset, lifestyle, and has the support in place for you to thrive. If you make the decision solely for money, you may fall into an old and dangerous career trap.
For most of my life, my best friend was my sister. Then one day she called me and said that she didn’t want me to be part of her life anymore. I can’t tell you why because she didn’t say. That was five years ago and I haven’t heard from her since.
About two years ago I found out that she had moved to another state without even letting me know. I had some kind of emotional breakdown. Tears streamed down my cheeks for four straight days. I couldn’t sleep. My heart was broken.
The hardest thing about it is not knowing why. I’ve run dozens of scenarios through my mind but nothing seems to make sense. We have completely different political views but had made a pact years before that we just simply would never discuss politics. I had just been diagnosed with cancer for the second time just days before the phone call. She refuses to deal with anything “sad”; so maybe that was it.
After about four years of losing sleep and wondering what had happened, I realized that I don’t care so much about it any more. I guess that was the day that I cancelled our friendship. I consider her to be my ex-sister, now. I have lots of friends who do want me to be a part of their lives. They are my true brothers and sisters.
Blue Bayou Bananas Foster Shortcake
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
Biscuits
2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) brie cheese, diced
2 1/2 cups Bisquick
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
Sauce
1 tablespoon butter
4 large bananas, cut into 1/2 inch slices
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons dark rum
2 tablespoons banana liqueur
Garnish
Whipped cream
Fresh mint sprigs
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Biscuits
Add together the diced cheese, Bisquick and sugar, mix well. Add the water and mix thoroughly to make a wet batter. Drop the batter in 4 mounds onto a greased cookie sheet and bake on the top rack for 20 minutes or until cooked through (when wooden pick inserted in middle comes out clean).
Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.
Sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan and sauté the bananas for about 3 minutes. Add the sugars and stir until melted. Add the cream and, stirring constantly, cook over high heat until it reaches a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Add the rum and banana liqueur.
To serve, cut the cooled biscuits from the top two thirds of the way down, open it up and pour the sauce into the center of the biscuit.
Garnish
Serve with whipped cream and mint sprig.
Promiscuous Women Have The LOWEST Standards | Pearl Daily
This is super interesting.
“My first experience with a woman in a typically male job, was in a campground at age 16. We worked as general labor, building things, cutting trails, planting trees and so on. Once or twice a week we would rotate an “easy day” while we rode the riding lawn mower, basically just sitting on our ass all day long. That ended when a girl started. She did nothing but ride the mower all day, every day. Somehow what was previously 1-2 easy days of work, became a full time job for her. And the rest of us no longer got any “easy days”. She never held a shovel, or a hammer, or an axe. But she got paid the same.”
“Hector, I retired before you were born,” he laughed.
Confused, I asked again, “Be honest, Dad, I mean, when will you stop working?”
His response was simple, “Working? What’s work? I don’t know what work is.”
“OK, Dad, forget about it,” I said as I assumed he wasn’t willing to talk about this.
“Hector,” he said, “what you know as my job is not work for me. I enjoy architecture so much that I could do this 24/7. This is who I am. Architecture is my life.”
So, to answer your question, why do rich people work even after they become rich? Why don’t they play?
My father lived to be 91 and worked until his body gave up on him. He was a passionate architect who found joy in his work. That’s what kept him active and full of joy every day. His passion for architecture was infectious, and it taught me this valuable lesson about work as a lifestyle.
So, if you ask me about retirement or work-life balance, I’d say it’s better to find what you love and make it a part of your life. When you find that, you’ll stop working and start living. We achieve a balance not by separating work from life but by integrating what you love into your lifestyle.
Today, this is how I see it: It’s not about working less; it’s about loving more what you do.
That’s the secret to a fulfilling life. As my father always said, “The day you find what you love is when you will stop working.”
So, go out there and find your passion. Make it your lifestyle.
And remember, it’s not work when you love what you do.
“Open marriage” appears to be an (American) acceptable way to turn a marriage into a fuck-fest. Sheech! I’m way too old for this bullshit.
I mention further down that there are races in China, where “open relationships” are the norm. But in the West, it turns out that an “Open Relationship” is but a code phrase to allow the female in a relationship to have multiple sexual partners, while the male sits at home watching the kids, the pets, and earns money.
Nine times out of ten, he never has an “outside relationship” even though officially he can.
…
The videos about “open relationships” are interesting and disturbing at the same time.
Sigh.
I find them very disturbing. After all, a “marriage” (prior to it being twisted into something different) meant a single monogamous family with shared emotions, shared sex, and shared responsibilities.
A core family unit.
Now, in the USA it is a freeway toward complete social discord and a breakdown at all levels of society.
Anyways…
As I get older my body changes.
I get shorter. No shit. My height gets smaller and smaller over time. Though, I will admit that my feet seem to get larger as a consequence of that.
Shorter in height, but bigger feet.
Not only that, but my hands seem to get slightly bigger, and my fingers are getting longer.
Big hands. Long fingers. Big feet.
Lordy!
…
Ugh. Why don’t women find big hands and long fingers attractive?
And a bald head… and a bot belly?
Not all of us can look like Adonis, don’t you know?
…
Balding, and fighting against a pot belly. Oh, the pain of aging!
But at least I have big hands and long fingers. LOL!
…
I don’t think that these body changes are attractive, but it is the price you pay to live to an old age. Perhaps, when I break 90, I’ll be a squat short man with big, big hand and feet and a bald head. Yucky!
Looking a little like Yoda.
I’d get a nice haircut, and some nice outfits if it mattered. But in my case, those are low on the priority scale right now. Smile.
Just smile. Accept yourself as it is, and as you change.
Americans foolishly screamed and shout that they are the leader of the free world without ever questioning if it is even remotely true or not! Please don’t be angry or upset if I help you guys since I understand you can pretend to be free or even dare says you are ordained by god to spread democracy and freedom but you Americans are one of the least free country on earth.
Let me help you good American. So first I like to explain how unfree you guys are.
35% of you cannot get health care when you fall sick! The most basic of freedom is the freedom to see a doctor and get cure when you fall sick. At least 100 million Americans don’t have this basic of basics of freedom.
Next 1 million Americans are homeless and don’t have another basic of basics of freedom. The freedom to have a roof over their head.! They have to live in makeshift tents on the streets.
20% of Americans don’t have 500 dollars to their name and don’t know where their next meal is coming from! Surely everyone must have the freedom to have a hot meal to stay alive!
USA with about 4% of world population has 25% of the worlds prisoners population! Think about this my American friends, prisoners are certainly. Not free. Many of them coloured people thrown into jail for the slightest reason. How on earth can you keep a straight face to say U.S. is the leader of the free world. No one know!
In many cities in the U.S. one cannot go to certain parts of the inner city like the Queens in New York. As crimes are rampant. So normal innocent and good Americans like you have to avoid that part of America! Surely freedom means you can go to anywhere or any part of America.
Kids and parents suffers the mental turmoils daily for just going to school. Many got shot to death in schools, public places, cinemas and even in Capitol Hill! Is that freedom? Even your kids are not free to go to school without a random mass shooter lurking with military grade weapons to murder them! Is this freedom?
If you are not fortunate to have a white skin you could be necked to death in the bright daylight of even driving a good car may be be shot to death just for suspected of stealing the car! Everyday you live in fear of a white policeman! Is that freedom to live? Freedom to avoid death at the racist inclination of the white racist? Surely not.
Freedom means you can choose who you really want to be your leader. Only 30% choose Biden. Or 35% choose Trump! Why are they your president? Your system allowed 0.8% of the richest and most influential people to choose your candidates! Surely this U.S. not freedom. This is far from democracy. How on earth can you call yourself the “beacon of democracy” who in a sane mind can claim that?
Oh today you country stop the Americans from having access to best 5G technology, Smartphone, best EV’s, drones and others for some geopolitical nonsense! Is this freedom? Freedom to be deprived? Let me help you understand. You can buy a 10 thousand EV. And need to be charged once a week but you are not allowed to! You can but your Tesla like for half the price but you are not allowed.
But to me EVs and Drones are just the top of the iceberg of your draconian policies that takes away the freedom of Americans like you. Think about Jullien Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden! Freedom?
Chinese minority races
I love this short video.
Look what China is doing
According to a scientific research paper by the mainland military, the People’s Liberation Army has established the world’s first “Close Air Combat Command Force” (Near Air Command) equipped with professional hypersonic weapons and directly taking orders from the highest level of the People’s Liberation Army. It is responsible for executing “precise and ruthless operations” during wartime. ” attack mission. In addition, solar-powered drones and spy balloons are also possible intelligence-gathering devices.
Note: this answer only applies to the American Mafia as the Italian Mafias have repeatedly killed public officials of all persuasions and badges.
Because killing cops, judges or any form of law and order official invites heat and exposure.
A ‘secret society’
Despite the movies, the books, the podcasts, youtube channels and press stories, at its core, La Cosa Nostra (LCN) is supposed to be a secret society. A money-making secret society.
It is meant to operate in the shadows, a ‘brotherhood’ using codes of silence and modes of discretion to conduct legal and illegal activities that bring it great wealth.
It seeks to evade law and order and allow its members to not only profit from illicit means, but, more importantly, enjoy the fruits of their dishonest labour.
A whole load of pain
Law enforcement communities are also brotherhoods (and now sisterhoods too). Kill one of their own, and they want revenge. They go ‘all in’ to catch and make an example of the ‘cop killer’.
Killing law and order officials has even proven to be ‘game changer’ for some organized crime groups. For example:
In 1985, the Guadalajara drug cartel kidnapped, tortured and murdered US DEA agent Kiki Camarena. The DEA was enraged and flooded Mexico and the border regions; playing a major role in breaking said cartel apart (clearly others appeared to replace it)
In 1992, the Sicilian Mafia killed Judges Falcone and Borsellino in two separate car bombs. These attacks created a ‘sea change’ in the political and societal will to go after the Mafia, with the late ’90s being an era of significant prosecutorial success against the Sicilians
In short, killing a cop or any other law enforcement official places a target on your head – and indeed that of your organisation. The resulting attention inhibits your ability to earn, to operate, and even places your freedom or life at risk … far better to just not do it and keep on living your illicit life.
Forbidden Archaeology, Human Origins, and UFOs… Michael Cremo
Just once, but that was enough for the rest of my life.
It was 1993 or 94. Things started off just fine. He smiled at me from the window seat as I took my place on the flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt, Germany.
Our ages must have been close. We shot the shit about sports and music and all those other harmless topics popular with early-30-something unmarried males.
He was impressed that Lufthansa (long ago) served him Johnny Walker red in his whiskey cola. He sure did like those whiskey colas…
Everything was amiable until just after the after-dinner drinks trolley finished serving.
He commented that he hated queers and he was pretty sure the male server was one.
I stared him in the eyes and said calmly and slowly, “nearly half of my best friends are gay … I think you need to rethink your attitude, the world is changing.”
Never have I seen someone transform so quickly from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. “You’re an effin’ homo lover! … I ain’t sittin’ next to no effin’ homo! Eff! Disgusting I even talked to you…”
Standing up he yelled at the stewardess, “This guy is queer. I don’t sit next to queers.”
The looks on the faces of the other passengers ranged from amused, to angry, to sympathetic. Most just pretended not to notice.
I got up and went to the back of the plane and waited for the crew to sort things out. They reseated me about 15 minutes later in a business class seat.
I have no idea what happened to him, but I think we can be sure he didn’t get any more whiskey colas…
Business class served Johnny Walker black.
The Male Loneliness Epidemic – Is It Women’s Fault?
This is a MUST watch.
Western society is DOOMED.
The Eviction Notice Is Being Written, and Will Come in Four Languages
The Eviction Notice is being written. And it will come in four languages. Russian. Farsi. Mandarin. And last but not least, English.
A much-cherished pleasure of professional writing is to always be enriched by informed readers. This “eviction” insight – worth a thousand geopolitical treatises – was offered by one of my sharpest readers commenting on a column.
Concisely, what we have here expresses a deeply felt consensus across the spectrum not only in West Asia but also in most latitudes across the Global South/Global Majority.
The Unthinkable, in the form of a genocide conducted live, in real time on every smartphone in the third decade of the millennium – which I called the Raging Twenties in a previous book – has acted like a particle accelerator, concentrating hearts and minds.
Those that chose to set West Asia on fire are already confronting nasty blowback. And that goes way beyond diplomacy exercised by Global South leaders.
For the first time in ages, via President Xi Jinping, China has been more than explicit geopolitically (a true Sovereign cannot hedge when it comes to genocide). China’s unmistaken position on Palestine goes way beyond the geoeconomics routine of promoting BRI’s trade and transportation corridors.
All that while President Putin defined sending humanitarian aid to Gaza as a “sacred duty”, which in Russian code includes, crucially, the military spectrum.
For all the maneuvering and occasional posturing, for all practical purposes everyone knows the current UN arrangement is rotten beyond repair, totally impotent when it comes to imposing meaningful peace negotiations, sanctions or investigations of serial war crimes.
The new UN in the making is BRICS 11 – actually BRICS 10, considering new Trojan Horse Argentina in practice may be relegated to a marginal role, assuming it joins on January 1st, 2024.
BRICS 10, led by Russia-China, both regulated by a strong moral compass, keep their ear on the ground and listen to the Arab street and the lands of Islam. Especially their people, much more than their elites. This will be an essential element in 2024 during the Russian presidency of BRICS.
Even with no check out, you will have to leave
The current order of business in the New Great Game is to organize the expulsion of the Hegemon from West Asia – as much a technical challenge as a civilizational challenge.
As it stands, the Washington-Tel Aviv continuum are already prisoners of their own device. This ain’t no Hotel California; you may not check out any time you like, but you will be forced to leave.
That may happen in a relatively gentle manner – think Kabul as a Saigon remix – or if push comes to shove may involve a naval Apocalypse Now, complete with expensive iron bathtubs turned into sub-ocean coral reefs and the demise of CENTCOM and its AFRICOM projection.
The crucial vector all along is how Iran – and Russia – have played, year after year, with infinite patience, the master strategy devised by Gen. Soleimani, whose assassination actually started the Raging Twenties.
A de-weaponized Hegemon cannot defeat the “new axis of evil”, Russia-Iran-China, not only in West Asia but also anywhere in Eurasia, Asia-Pacific, and pan-Africa. Direct participation/normalization of the genocide only worked to accelerate the progressive, inevitable exclusion of the Hegemon from most of the Global South.
All that while Russia meticulously crafts the integration of the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Baltic Sea (Finnish hysteria notwithstanding), the Arctic and the Northwestern Pacific Sea and China turbo-charges the integration of the South China Sea.
Xi and Putin are gifted players of chess and go – and profit from stellar advisers of the caliber of Patrushev and Wang Yi. China playing geopolitical go is an exercise in non-confrontation: all you need to do is to block your opponent’s ability to move.
Chess and go, in a diplomatic tandem, represent a game where you don’t interrupt your opponent when it is repeatedly shooting itself on the knees. As an extra bonus, you get your opponent antagonizing over 90% of the world’s population.
All that will lead to the Hegemon’s economy eventually collapsing. And then it can be beaten by default.
Western “values” buried under the rubble
As Russia, especially via Lavrov’s efforts, offers the Global South/Global Majority a civilizational project, focused on mutually respectful multipolarity, China via Xi Jinping offers the notion of “community with a shared future” and a set of initiatives, discussed in lengthy detail at the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) Forum in Beijing in October, where Russia, not by accident, was the guest of honor.
A group of Chinese scholars concisely frame the approach as China “creating/facilitating global nodes for relating/communicating and platforms for concrete collaboration/practical exchanges. The participants remains Sovereign, contribute to the common endeavor (or simply specific projects) and receive benefits making them willing to keep on.”
It’s as if Beijing was acting as a sort of shining star and guiding light.
In sharp contrast, what remains of Western civilization – certainly with not much to do with Montaigne,
Pico della Mirandola or Schopenhauer – increasingly plunges into a self-constructed Heart of Darkness (without Conrad’s literary greatness), confronting the true, irredeemably horrifying face of conformist, subservient individualism.
Welcome to the New Medievalism, precipitated by the “kill apps” of Western racism, as argued in a brilliant book, Chinese Cosmopolitanism, by scholar Shuchen Xiang, professor of Philosophy at Xidan University.
The “kill apps” of Western racism, writes Prof. Xiang, are fear of change; the ontology of bivalent dualism; the invention of the ‘barbarian’ as the racial Other; the metaphysics of colonialism; and the insatiable nature of this racist psychology. All these “apps” are now exploding, in real time, in West Asia. The key consequence is that the Western “values” construct has already perished, buried under the Gaza rubble.
Now to a ray of light: a case can be made – and we’ll be back to it – that orthodox Christianity, moderate Islam and several strands of Taoism/Confucianism may embrace the future as the three main civilizations of a cleansed Mankind.
Yes, they do. Forget the so-called “combat footage” you see on TV or YouTube.
It’s important to spot your enemies before they see you. This will give you a big advantage over them because you can better fight them or you can use this info to plan your next moves:
You already have a good hunch where your enemy is located before any fighting starts. Where and when you move will depend on the (often assumed) location of your enemy.
While you are moving, you are always on the lookout. It is usually the side that spots the enemy first that will have the upper hand in a firefight.
It’s one of the most important qualities in an infantry squad leader to have “a good eye”, meaning to anticipate the enemy’s whereabouts and to spot the exact location of enemy forces, especially under fire. You want to know from where you get shot at!
Sometimes, you will see the enemy, but they are still out of range of your weapons. You may want to relate their location to combat support troops that will then execute an artillery attack or an airstrike.
If you have no artillery or air support, as is often the case for guerrillas or special forces, you can approach the enemy until they come into range of your weapons or you set up an ambush.
In combat, you have to see your enemies to be able to kill them. Shooting around without anything in your sights is a waste of ammunition.
On the lookout: A Kosovo Liberation Army soldier observing enemy territory
There are exceptions:
Suppressive or covering fire where you shoot to hinder the enemy from exposing themselves to your fire keeps them out of sight. Still, even when shooting covering fire, you usually have a very good idea where your enemy is located.
In a combat situation, targets often disappear quickly after the first shots are fired. Your enemy will take cover. It’s not a mistake to send a few bursts of automatic fire to the place where you saw your enemy drop down, but after that, it’s time for indirect fire options, like hand grenades or Multiple Grenade Launchers (MGL). You won’t see your enemy, but as you use fragmentation weapons, there is a good chance to cause some damage as long as your grenades hit close enough.
It’s not always necessary (and possible) to see the enemy, but:
The sooner and the more precise you are able to pinpoint the enemy’s location, the better.
One word about “firefights” we see on TV: Most of the shootings on those clips is simply a waste of ammunition.
On the other hand, you won’t have a GoPro or any other camera switched on for twenty-four hours a day. When you spot the enemy (or they spot you), you’ll first shoot them (or jump for cover) before you start thinking about filming. As visible targets disappear quickly in the first moments of a firefight, the chances of getting an enemy live on camera are very slim.
Television crews rarely film on locations where the real action happens, but are often sent to less active parts of the frontline. The mere presence of a TV camera often prompts soldiers to start shooting. This is why our news shows are full of soldiers firing away at an empty landscape.
I was headed in for a job interview several years back. As I’m walking in, two other men are approaching the door from different angles. One of them speeds up to cut off the other and get in the door first, and the other walks in, shaking his head in disbelief. As I walk in behind them, the first guy runs to the elevator and presses the button, not holding the elevator for the other guy and me. Again, the second guy just shakes his head and we wait for the next elevator. I say “Can you believe some people?” And we both chuckle a little bit.
As it turns out, we are headed to the same floor, so we get off the elevator together. As we walk into an office, there is guy #1 Mr Impatient, standing at the desk tapping his foot as the receptionist is finishing up a phone call. The receptionist asks him “can I help you?” And he says “I’m here to see Mr Smith for an interview at 3:30.” (it’s currently 2:50).
I think to myself “Great, this guy is interviewing for the same position I am and he will act like the sweetest guy during the interview.” I lean over and tell the receptionist “I am Mr Smith’s 3 o’clock interview.” Mr Impatient GLARES at me.
The other guy I walked in with (the one Mr Impatient cut off) then says “Hey gentlemen, I’m Mr Smith.” And turns to Mr Impatient and says “you don’t need to wait around. I’ve already determined you are not a good fit for our company. “
I don’t know if you’d count this as a “benefit,” but my first job was at Wendy’s, when I was 16 in 1994. When they hired me, the manager said “minimum wage is $4.25, but we like to start people at $4.26 to give you a little extra and show we care.” He was dead serious, no irony. That has occupied part of my brain for 30 years now.
I knew something strange was going on when a candidate with X-men hair was elected president.
Buenos Aires has always had one of the world’s highest number of psychoanalysts. Now the psychological issues have made their way out of the bedroom into national politics.
Cheesecake Factory Louisiana Chicken Pasta
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
Cajun Sauce
1 tablespoon butter
1 small yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
3/4 small red onion, chopped
3 whole garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 1/4 pints whipping cream
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
4 tablespoons fresh basil, thinly sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Chicken
6 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
3/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
Pasta
1 package bow-tie pasta
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
salt and pepper
Instructions
Cajun Sauce
Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add yellow and red bell peppers, mushrooms and onion to same skillet and saute until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes.
Add minced garlic and crushed red pepper to skillet and sauté 2 or 3 minutes.
Add whipping cream and chicken stock. Simmer until sauce reheats and thickens slightly, about 5 minutes.
Add basil and 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese to sauce, stirring to incorporate. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, simmer. Sauce will reduce and thicken.
Chicken
Wash and drain chicken breasts. Pound until very thin, as thin or thinner then 1/4-inch thick (the thinner the chicken breasts the better).
Mix breadcrumbs, flour, and Parmesan cheese together. Place milk in dish for dipping.
Dip chicken into breadcrumb mixture and then into milk and then back into breadcrumbs.
Heat oil in skillet and fry at medium high temperature until golden, crisp, and cooked through. Add more oil as needed. Remove and drain chicken. Keep warm.
Pasta
Meanwhile, cook bow-tie pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite. Drain and return to pot. Add sauce and toss to coat.
Place pasta with sauce on plate, and top with chicken breast.
Hello Allen, thank you for the question. Honestly, there were quite a few times I had the hell scared out of me. I’ve written at length about a few of them. I will provide a rerun of one of them now.
I was a in an FCI, a medium high prison with walls about 20’ high and rolls of razor wire 3 rolls deep at the base of the walls. There had been a lot of tension on the yard for weeks.
One morning as I was preparing for a Saturday, I noticed a group of 5–6 guys walk up to a bunk in a cell down a way. There seemed to be a bit of chatter and movement, sort of the thing a group might do if your team won a game. Talking, a bit of laughter, movement.
I walked by and went to breakfast, saw a couple guys I knew and we took a walk and discussed some important topic like that night’s dinner. A couple hours later I went back to my cell.
There were a couple CO’s and another guy in the cell where the group had been. They were standing over the bunk of the inmate.
there was something sticking out of his chest and the blood trails were in several areas.
It turned out this guy owed something to someone and wasn’t paying so the crew was sent to make an example.
The story was the weapon was a pencil, there were 9 wounds and the vic was rushed to medical and when he healed a bit was sent to a different prison.
The near murder right there was horrifying enough but the way the guys carried out the hit was nearly professional. It just seemed like a bunch of guys hanging out. All the while covering the scuffle, takedown and gigging.
In a flash you understand that if you cross an uncrossable line, even by mistake, it easily could be over before you realized what was happening.
It was a long time before I was comfortable in my cell, alone during open times or movements. Walking in a hall and coming across 4–5 guys of another race, you couldn’t show fear, but more than once I walked by waiting for a shank!
There is always a stress when you are inside. It is exponential when a high level yard is on edge.
On a summer’s day, as my wife Dorothy and I sat down to dinner, we thought we heard the sound of water being hosed onto a car. The front entrance was secured only by a screen door and we could readily hear neighborhood sounds.
Then Cocoa, our Seal Point Siamese, asked to be let in. When I opened the door, she fell over. And that noise was louder. I looked out; no car, no one hosing anything. And the noise was right below me, just off the porch. I looked down. A huge, very pissed off rattlesnake!
I called to Ralph, who had just stepped out of his kitchen, next door. “Rattlesnake!” I yelled. “Bring a rake!”
He did. And as Ralph pinned the snake with the rake, I tossed a large stone onto it, killing the serpent.
My wife took Cocoa to the vet, and while she was gone I decided to skin the snake, eviscerate it, and pan fry it. Rattlesnake meat was tasty, I heard, and the beast was as easily gutted as a bass.
But what do I do with the head? The fangs, the venom sacs?
Toilet.
I was unprepared for the surviving impulses of the snakes nervous system. Beheaded (and betailed, for the rattles) and completely stripped of the hide, I had in hand what appeared to be a section of a thick light grey garden hose, split down the middle. And when I ran this corpse under cold water, the spinal cord delivered one last discharge, causing the thing to writhe in my hands. It was alive! I threw the twisting monster into the freezer and slammed the door.
Dorothy and Cocoa came into the kitchen; the cat was recovering but Dorothy said I looked like I had just seen a ghost.
I explained. After a few minutes, I took the frozen snake from the freezer and let it thaw as I prepared a frying pan with melted butter and some salt and pepper. I cut the snake into sections as one might cut a sausage, and added the sections to the gently crackling pan.
In 5 minutes, the flesh had turned white and flaky. I removed all, divided onto 2 plates, and Dorothy and I sat down to eat.
And we tried. We chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed. But the meat had turned into some kind of weird plastic strands that refused to be swallowed.
I took all and tossed into a pressure cooker with some white wine, set all to max pressure and gave it a full 30 minutes. After decanting the vessel, there appeared the most perfect, delicate flakes, like carefully separated crab meat.
And we chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed. Next stop; snake to trash, hot dogs to grill.
I had this experience once. There was a Shawarma/Pizza place on the same block as a place I had newly moved into. So I (single mom) went in with my young kids to order a pizza.
They didn’t have a menu, the ’employees’ were a bunch of guys in expensive tracksuits, jewelry, and all looked like buff gym rats, with the perfectly lined up and gel thick hair – they looked initially very confused that I was actually ordering food there, and there was a bunch of arguing in (I think) Arabic. They insisted that I order a pizza there, it would just be a bit of a wait. One guy left, and came back with a bag of groceries. It took over an hour. I offered a few times to go elsewhere “You’re busy, so sorry..” but they insisted I wait. I chatted with the guy who was at the front counter a bit- he was pleasant enough, but it seemed like he was deciding whether or not my entering of the restaurant was going to be a problem for them. While my kids and I waited on the pizza, a few times some tracksuit guys came in, went to the back, then left with stuffed brown paper bags. His whole demeanor changed when I mentioned that my kids and I had left an abusive situation, and that’s why we’d moved into the area. He wanted to see a picture of my ex, and insisted I show the other tracksuit guys too.
The pizza was ok I guess, a little undercooked. I don’t think the pizza oven had ever been used before- I could see the pizza oven from the front counter, and they had a huddle around it to figure out how it turned on.
The guy at the front didn’t know how to work the register, so he told me it was on the house.
Before I left, the front counter guy told me I was part of the neighborhood now, and to let him know if anyone bothered me or my kids, and he’d “take care of it”.
Anytime I walked past that store after that I was greeted warmly by the tracksuit guys, and they always asked if anyone was “giving me trouble”. Never tried to order food there ever again though!
He surprised me. We were in our early 30’s and newly married. My husband said “ oh my , the freezer defrosted you better go look to see what can be saved”. I went to the kitchen and opened the freezer. Inside was a little box that said “ ice”. He had bought me a pair of diamond earrings. They weren’t the biggest and most expensive but they were beautiful. we are still married and I have worn them for the last 41 years.
I worked late one day so I talked to my boss and we agreed that I would come in late the following day. I had a funny feeling about this, as if she might try something. Thus, even though she agreed I should come in at 8:30 the next morning, I arrived on time and sat in the parking lot. She called me at 8:15 and asked me where I was. I reminded her that we agreed I could come in at 8:30, “but,” I said, “I’m parked right outside the office. Do you want me to come in earlier than we discussed yesterday?” She said no. That was in May.
In June, I got called in to her office and she wrote me up for being late that day a month prior as well as walking in 2 minutes late one morning. The write up skipped the initial verbal warning and first write up and stated it was a final warning.I was on notice that I could be fired for anything at any time.
One day in September she called me into her office and fired me for excessive tardiness. I filed for unemployment and won. The Judge laughed at her and told her “This lady was late by 2 minutes and you found that soooo agregious that you fired her for it, yet you waited 3 months to do it? You’re gonna pay on this one.” I ended up with 4k in back payments.
Several months ago I went to a hospital fearing that I was having a heart attack. I wasn’t, as it turned out, but I was admitted for what was really wrong: pneumonia.
I was in the hospital three days before being discharged, and during that time I questioned every single medication they brought for me. An antibiotic IV about to be hooked up? I’d ask the nurse to confirm what specific one it was. A couple of pills they want me to take? “Which pill is which specific medication?”
I did this partly to be sure they weren’t giving me a wrong medication, and also to be aware of every medication they actually administered and could thus bill me for. Good thing, too.
When I was discharged they gave me a stack of paperwork. Some it was warnings about what I should or shouldn’t do going forward; some outlined the tests they had conducted and the results of them; and one page was supposed to be a pair of new medications one of the doctors had told me he was prescribing for me to fill after discharge. That page was missing, so I had to wait a few more hours while they got hold of that doctor and got him to enter the order.
Turns out one of the drugs he prescribed was atorvastatin for the high cholesterol that came up on one of the tests. The thing is, I am allergic to all statins, a fact that was all over the medical records they got from my primary care doctor, and which I had told them on at least three occasions as well when they asked me to confirm any and all allergies. Obviously I didn’t fill that prescription.
Then I got the bill, charging me $1145 for atorvastatin administered during my inpatient stay.
Now I of course knew full well they had never given me that drug, not only because I had been checking all the meds they did give me, but because I never had the severe reaction to it that would have resulted if they had. So I called their billing department, explained the matter, and requested they amend the bill. They refused.
I called my doctor, and she suggested I write the request out and send it to them via certified mail. That would have been a pain in my ass, as my big truck would not fit in the parking lot of the kinds of places one can do that, and I was over 1000 miles from home.
So I instead called hospital administration and told them I wanted to report a dangerous medication error by that doctor. That got their attention.
I again related the whole matter, which they verified from the notes right there in my records as I went along through the narrative. They clearly saw the multiple notes about the allergy, they clearly saw that no such medication was administered during my stay, and they clearly saw that the doctor had only prescribed it hours after I had been discharged.
They apologized profusely and promised that they would attend to the matter using the legally prescribed procedures, which they did not explain. I pleasantly accepted their apology, then asked if that process would include striking this billing item for administering that drug they had just admitted I never received.
They refused again.
I said that was fine, then asked how I should go about reporting them for malpractice for administering a drug my chart clearly said I was allergic to? Response: but we didn’t administer that drug!
My reply, as long as they insisted on billing me for it, I could only assume that meant they really had administered it. So it could only be one of two things: malpractice for giving me the drug, or fraud for charging me for it after not giving me the drug. I said I would leave it for them to sort out while I called my insurance company and briefed them on the matter… which I then did.
Two weeks later a new billing statement arrived with not only that charge removed, but charges for two tests they had charged me for but apparently not actually done. I called the insurance company again, and they informed me that those tests had been ordered but never actually done, and they themselves had been the ones to uncover that after my earlier call to them. They had requested an audit of my treatment, which had then exposed the other errors.
The most absurd thing to my mind was their insistence on billing me for a drug after they knew that doing so was documented evidence of malpractice.
30 years ago a mate and I were heading off to the range to hit some golf balls.
It was his idea and he wanted to drive. I was saved by one thing and that was he didn’t have his wallet, so he went upstairs to get it and while he did that I thought I would take a quick look in the glove compartment in case it was in there.
It wasn’t but I found an exploding golf ball, still in it’s box, so I quickly swapped it with a real golf ball leaving the box exactly where I found it.
On the range we are smacking golf balls to oblivion trying to hit it further than the other can. After about 5 minutes my mate says, “Would you mind if we swap sides?”
Funny thing is, that was exactly what I was going to say in order to make him hit the exploding ball. Exploding golf balls don’t look or feel real so teeing it up for the victim is the only way for it to work.
So I said, “Sure. Just let me hit this one.” which I did and then while he watched it I quickly teed up the exploding one, which was loose in my pocket.
We then swapped sides where he then challenged me to a longest hit competition with our next shots. Of course I agreed and smacked mine as hard as I could and looked straight at him not where the ball went.
He was expecting my ball to explode but it didn’t and he looked quite confused about it. Then he had his turn. The whole thing just turned to dust in an instant. One huge dust cloud!
He spun around and looked guiltily at the range office like he had done something wrong and would get in trouble. If he was confused with my shot he was now flabbergasted with his own. His facial expression was priceless.
I’m laughing my head off as I can tell he can’t work out how any of this has happened. He told me later that in that moment he could not understand how it went wrong. He couldn’t figure out how the golf ball he took out the box and teed up for me got to the other tee.
I think there is nothing more satisfying in life than getting someone with their own practical joke.
My Wife Asked For An Open Marriage So I Hooked Up That Night And Dumped Her The Next Day
Stopped caring or giving a Fck about people who doesn’t care for me.
Their benifit, opinions and even existence. Caring is mutual, if you can’t. Sorry. I won’t take a minute to forget you. My family and people who love me is everything for me.
Stopped taking stress and overthinking.
Because which I can control, I can control. What I can’t. I can’t. Me taking unnecessary stress not gonna give me control on things I can’t.
Stopped crying.
Most importantly, doesn’t gonna change the situation. If something happened, it happened. Crying will not change reality. Move on. Think calmly and search for a solution.
Stopped giving Explanation.
If you are asking proper explanation and proofs every time ( once or twice is okay ), he doesn’t believes you and he won’t, no matter how many times you prove yourself. Just don’t waste your time.
Stopped seeking for outer beauty.
When it comes to relationship, I am so deeply wounded by people who looked attractive only from outside, my preference changed. I now seeks for behavior and personality more than skin colour aur figure. But yeah, they matter too but isn’t a vital deal-breaker. But, if I get it, I won’t mind.
Stopped seeking for people’s company.
I don’t know, the day I took drop, my outside life is cut short, and all I have is my books, and my computer screen, and a small cozy bedroom-cum-studyroom.Now, it’s more than half a year, and now I prefer not to interact with outside world and stay in my cave.I can stay like that, alone whole day, even I want to live like this in hostel in single room.
Stopped being in people’s life, where no body want me too.
“When to leave” is most important thing. Not everyone who care for you really care for you, maybe one is just intrested in you, but when they lose interest, they won’t. It’s better to leave these people’s life, before they kick you out.If you feel things aren’t same like it was before, but you aren’t the reason, don’t stay there to heal, it will just reduce your self respect. Just leave it. Hurting yourself is better than hurting your self esteem.
Stopped reducing my respect for someone’s ego satisfaction.
You first feel that it’s just small stuff, it doesn’t matter. Let’s do this or that, to cheer up. Naah, my self respect isn’t worthed to become someone’s entertainment.You will ignore once or twice, but then it will become a habit, and will end when you completely become someone’s hand puppet.
I stopped keeping expectations.
Expectations are the reason of being hurt. Just remove expectations, you will be satisfied and happy.If you keep absolutely no expectations from people, even their most basic gesture will make you happy, because it was more than what you expected and you will feel blessed.
As a youngster of 17, I worked for what was then (1965) known as the Maryland Department of Game and Inland Fish. (Today, the Department Natural Resources — DNR). My job was taking the census of the fish in Deep Creek Lake, located in Garrett County, the westernmost in Maryland, below Pittsburgh PA.
No, I did not knock on the surface of the water and then interview fish who answered the knock.
But what I DID do was interview anglers, fishing from docks or boats, asking them to pull up their stringers and show me their catch. And I asked what fish they had returned to the water and if those fish were dead or alive when returned. All of this went onto a data sheet. The data sheet itself was organized sectionally as to areas on the Lake, designated by name (such as Harvey’s Peninsula) and by a mark on a map.
Thus on any given day I would follow what appeared to be a a random walk from place to place, chatting up the fishermen, taking notes. I was the ideal employee because I lived on the lake during the summer and I knew every little inlet, peninsula, and tributary.
Now here are the parts that made the job especially interesting, occasionally hilarious, and sometimes mildly dangerous.
Illegal Anglers: The ones without a fishing license. My john-boat had state of Maryland Decals just aft of the bow, port and starboard, so as to identify me as “official.” And some of those who saw me approach assumed I was with “enforcement,” which I was NOT. Thus I heard all kinds of stories, ranging from the license being accidentally dropped overboard, to “I was just practicing fishing, I’ll buy the license tomorrow.” Some people actually untethered their stringer, to let the catch swim away. And one guy threw all his tackle overboard. Then there were those who had fish that measured less than legal for keeping; so full of apologies were they. I did my best to assure that I was with the State Biologist, NOT the enforcement division.
But one good thing…I learned where all the best fishing was and yes, I sure DID drop my line or trawl those areas.
Babe Watch: The Deep Creek Lake State Park has a sandy beach area.
When my lunch break had me near the park, I would beach the boat and sit on the grass munching my sandwich. And if I was lucky, I would make the acquaintance of some lovely lasses who might be receptive to a return visit from me when I was “off the clock.”
The Big Kill: In addition to the data I collected, the State biologist would stretch a net across an isolated inlet, and poison the water from the net to the shoreline. Hundreds; no THOUSANDS of fish floated to the surface, belly up. And some were trophy size walleye, pike and large mouth. I was in heaven. I was going to scarf up a basket or two, and have the ultimate fish-fry.
But no, said the biologist. Those fish would kill you.
Damn.
(You might wonder why all the fish outside the net weren’t killed. Some were. But the target inlet was NOT fed by a creek, so the water was fairly still —no current. Plus, the poison was short-acting.)
The Thermocline: There comes a point at which the water at the top half of the lake exchanges place with the water in the bottom half. Or, at least the temperature gradient does a flip-flop. I’m not sure why that mattered, but it was my job to transport the guy with the sample container to an area over the deepest place in the lake, where he would toss a brass container overboard, then jerk a cable to open the cylinder and let the bottom water flood the vessel. When he pulled on the cable again, that trapped the water inside, and he pulled the sample up to the boat.
There, we had various Erlenmeyer flasks arrayed in a wooden rack, into which flasks he drained enough bottom water to reach an index line on the flask. Then, he dropped in some power and watched the color. When he smiled, I knew it was time to take him and his chemistry set back to the dock.
Personal Use? You bet! The State’s boat had only an 18 HP outboard motor, so I wasn’t pulling any skiers. But yeah, when off duty I could use it as my personal ride, or to go fishing.
He was a teacher and in his school the principal made the rule that all teachers must have their lesson plans for each week on the principal’s desk by 8am Monday morning, and he’d read them, sign them and have them back to the teachers by the time school started at 9am. This was. of course, a hassle for teachers and my friend worked out that there was no way that the principal could read every lesson plan in that time, let alone understand them. So he decided to run a horticulture unit with his class of about 9 year old children, the project being to plant trees up the middle of the school assembly hall. Now obviously this was a ridiculous project and was never going to happen, but the plans came back each week duly signed by the principal.
The teacher taught and had the children research what sort of trees would be suitable, measuring temperatures, light, heights and widths of trees, and researching the best species, all of which was clearly documented in the lesson plans and came back duly signed and approved by the principal. Finally the day came when the locations for the trees were to be marked on the hall floor in preparation for cutting the holes, importing the soil and planting the trees. The teacher carefully chose a day when he knew the school inspectors would be arriving. Sure enough, the inspectors had a meeting with the principal after morning assembly and part way through this meeting, as specified in the signed lesson plan, the teacher politely knocked on the principal’s door and asked where did he want them?
“Where do I want what?” the principal asked.
“The trees in the assembly hall,” replied the teacher.
“Trees? In the assembly hall? What do you mean?”
“Well,” replied the teacher, waving the sheaf of lesson plans, all carefully signed by the principal, “As you know, I have been running a unit on horticulture in preparation for planting trees up the middle of the assembly hall, and today’s the day we mark out where to put them. So we need you to show us where you want them, as I specified in the lesson plans which you read and signed.” He waved the sheaf of plans once again.
Needless to say, no trees were ever planted up the middle of the hall, and the principal never again wanted lesson plans submitted for approval.
A few months ago, I noticed that my daughter smiled to herself a lot. I decided to “confront” her: “You have a crush. Haven’t you?”. She blushed and exclaimed: “How do you know that?!?!”. I played my cool poker face 😎 “Been there, done that. Tell me!”. Then she told me about the boy.
A couple days later, she asked me: “I noticed that during lunchtime, he finishes his lunch real fast then goes to the library to play chess. Should I go talk to him? I play chess too!”
I told her: “Why the rush? I think, you might want to practice playing chess a little bit better first, then ask him to play a match with you. You might win, or at the very least, not lose badly. And I tell you a secret: you can learn a lot about a person when they lose a game!”
For about 2 weeks, she played chess with me every evening.
One day, she came home and told me: “I un-crushed him. We played 2 games today. He won the first, I won the 2nd. But when he lost, he curse and stomped out. Not cool!”
That was the moment I felt like a warm hug. The feeling of being able to share with my daughter her stories, her feelings always warms me up.
My Fiancée Asked For An Open Relationship 3 MONTHS Before Our Wedding So I Kicked Her A** Out!
When I was being recruited by Nike in 1997 I was a little concerned about cultural issues, especially institutional sexism — I had heard that the place was something of a boys’ club.
I couldn’t travel for a few weeks so I was having a series of conversations with the general counsel in advance. We were arranging the logistics for my interview day. I’d basically see a different interviewer each hour from 9 am till 6 pm, including lunch with him and my predecessor in the job.
As we were discussing the plans I asked him if he could please include a woman who had been with the company for a long time.
I held my breath briefly for his reaction. Some male executives would have been offended. But he exclaimed, “What a good idea! I should have thought of it!” and immediately agreed to make it happen.
He was good for his word — my first interview that day was with Nike’s corporate treasurer, who was at least a 20 year veteran of the Swoosh.
I think it’s reasonable to state openly that you are eager to get a sense of the company culture, and ask the interviewer how they would describe it.
The Chinese YiChe race
China is home to many races, while Han is dominant, the other races are very interesting. This is a very interesting race. They have “open marriages”, wear miniskirts, and have a graduated system of Bride Prices.
Many, many years ago I received a letter in the post. It was a recorded delivery and I had to sign for it to confirm delivery. I was intrigued and opened it immediately. It was a summons to appear in our local small claims court. I was being sued for £6,000. There were no details about the charges or any explanation of what the case was about other than the name and address of the complainant. I was mystified as I didn’t recognise the name. Lets call him Mr Smith.
In the three weeks before the stated date I convinced myself that one of my sons was playing an involved joke on me. I quizzed them all mercilessly but nobody would admit to knowing anything about it. As the date drew closer I determined to go to court just to find out which of my boys was the perpetrator of this rather involved joke.
Court day arrived and I went into the court building and presented my summons to an attendant, still expecting to be told it was a forgery. I was wrong. I was politely directed to a small waiting room and told my case would be called in 10 minutes. I was stunned.
When I was escorted into the courtroom the Sheriff (a lay judge in Scotland) asked me if I had a legal representative. I explained how I thought that the summons was a joke and I had no lawyer. He said that I could ask for a deferment to get legal advice if I choose but he didn’t think that was necessary. I sat down still stunned and confused but by now rather scared.
The Sheriff now asked the other side to outline their case. I listened in stunned amazement as the story unfolded.
Apparently some 6 months previously I had sold Mr Smith a tenpin bowling ball and drilled the ball to suit his hand. I had explained to him the need to keep the ball clean of lane oil on a regular basis. Mr Smith had taken me at my word and had left his bowling ball soaking in a bathtub of hot soapy water overnight. Feeling that the finger and thumb holes were wet when he fished the ball out of the bath in the morning he had decided to dry out the ball. Fifteen or twenty minutes in the microwave should dry it out nicely.
Some time later the ball had exploded. The force of the explosion was enough to destroy the microwave and send the door of the microwave flying upward with enough energy to punch through the ceiling and the floor of the room above his kitchen. Unfortunately the room above his kitchen was his neighbours bathroom. The microwave door not only punched through the floor but punched through the actual bath. Really unfortunately the poor woman was taking a bath at the time.
She was suing Mr Smith for the damage to her bathroom from the flying microwave door as well as the water damage to her carpets from the bath full of water. She wasn’t suing for the shock of a microwave door suddenly puncturing her bath although it must have been a terrific shock.
Mr Smith was suing me for the same amount on the basis that I had sold him a bowling ball without specifically telling him not to put it in the microwave.
By this stage several people in the gallery were laughing and the sheriff was definitely smiling. I was still worried but feeling considerably less scared. We all sat politely until Mr Smith’s lawyer had finished. The Sheriff then drew himself very straight and without a trace of a smile said that he was here to apply the law of the land and not to educate idiots. Case dismissed.
It’s early morning, the sun is just barely visible in the edges of the sky.
The date is August 5th, 2001 and Richard Ankrom and several friends are preparing to commit a crime that is several years in the making.
Twenty years prior, Ankrom was driving north on the 110 freeway. He got ready to merge onto Interstate 5 North, another freeway but missed the exit.
A few years later, he officially moved to LA and found himself driving on the same stretch of road as before.
He glanced up at the sign and realized the I-5 exit wasn’t marked at all.
That was why he had missed the turn ages ago.
And on that day, he swore to himself he would never let another person suffer the same fate.
He began studying freeway signs, their exact color, size and make up. He balanced on the edges of bridges to get precise measurements.
He copied the existing signs to a T, even consulting the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices to make sure he got the width and height perfect. He even sprayed the sign to make it look more worn down.
From there, he disguised himself, cutting his hair and buying a hard hat and vest.
And on August 5th, 2001 he positioned his ladder and climbed thirty feet to reach the sign.
He and his friends rushed away, afraid of getting caught in the act.
Nine months later, one of his friends confessed, leaking the crime to a local newspaper.
However, instead of being taken down, it passed inspection and remained there for another 8 years and even then, they put up a new sign in its place.
I was 12 years old, and back then thought you teased girls you liked. I was infatuated with a girl in my neighborhood and would tease her on the school bus.
One day I meant to say “I’ve seen better, but I haven’t seen worse!”
It came out as “I’ve seen worse, but I haven’t seen better!”
I said this in front of all the kids on the bus. I stammered a minute, not believing what came out of my mouth! I never would have had the confidence to say something like that! She immediately smiled and hugged me. Suddenly I had my first girlfriend. I just went with it.
I had suspected my wife was cheating, so put a tracker in her car. When she claimed she was going to a friend’s house to watch his dog, I watched on the tracker monitor as she in fact drove in the exact opposite direction to a hotel to meet one of what I would later find out were several lovers. So, I grabbed her spare keys, took a Lyft to the hotel she was actually at, got in her car and drove it to the friend’s house she was supposed to be at, then took a Lyft home. When she called the next day, claiming her car was stolen, I asked her to use the friend’s Ring camera to see the culprit. Cornered, she confessed, and found her own way home, then shortly thereafter, her own home.
You’ve all seen this formation right? It’s rather famous.
Well, would you be surprised to find out it was not that commonly used? We have some records of it from Dio and a few other historians but it was not that common.
Typically this formation would be used during a siege where the infantry needed to close in on some high walls under missile fire. Otherwise, it was never really used that often.
The problem is that this formation makes units less maneuverable and less flexible and it makes hand-to-hand combat almost impossible. So in every battle, the Romans would just be in normal lines ready to fight.
2: The Romans had poor cavalry
Now the Romans truly did not produce great cavalry from their own ranks. However, the Romans most certainly used talent wherever they found it.
When they conquered a people that were great on horseback they would employ them as Auxiliaries to assist the legions.
This means the Romans had
Numidian Cavalry (ranked among the best on earth at the time)
Macedonian Cavalry
Gallic Cavalry
These were without a doubt the best horsemen on planet earth and they all fought for the Romans.
In fact, during the late Imperial period, the Roman military became very calvary-centric and did end up boasting some of the best trained and equipped cavalry on earth.
One thing to remember is that cavalry at this time was not all that great. Stirrups were not yet invented and this meant that cavalry were basically expensive scouts minus a few exceptions. Infantry won wars in the ancient world far more often than cavalry.
3: The Romans were brutal conquerers
Now the Romans could be brutal and there were many times where they were brutal. However, in terms of being conquered, you could do worse than Rome.
If you snuggled up the Romans as an ally and played the role of submissive ally Rome would defend you to the death and be extremely hands-off. You’d keep your rulers and laws and merely pay a small tax to Rome. You also got the benefit of protection from the legions which meant total safety for centuries.
Rome viewed every relationship (diplomatic or otherwise) as having the dominant patron and the submissive client. The role of the patron was to support, elevate, and protect while the role of the client was to submit, admire, and support. If a tribe submitted itself as the client, Rome was often a great patron.
The Romans were also extremely tolerant of others. There was some racism and xenophobia as there is in all peoples but Rome accepted all religions and cultures as valuable. The Romans often adopted cultural elements or even gods from conquered peoples.
Now if you betrayed the Romans or worse yet attack them, they could be extremely brutal. Any slight paid to Rome would be returned ten-fold.
Being conquered by Rome was not the worse fate in the world, but being an enemy to Rome was certainly a death sentence.
Copeland’s of New Orleans Stuffed Strawberry French Toast
Ingredients
1 cup milk
3 cups heavy cream, divided
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 French baguette, sliced diagonally
1 cup strawberries, freshly cut
Powdered sugar for dusting
1/2 pound cream cheese
Instructions
Combine milk, eggs, vanilla extract, sugar and 2 cups heavy cream; mix well, then set aside.
Whip remaining 1 cup heavy cream until peaks form. Beat in cream cheese until smooth.
Heat skillet over medium-high heat; add butter.
Dip bread slices into batter, making sure to leave them long enough to absorb some of the batter without making them soggy. Place bread in skillet; brown on both sides.
Remove bread from skillet and place on a plate.
Scoop cream cheese mixture on top of each piece.
Top with another piece of toast to form a sandwich.
Top with fresh strawberries, dust with powdered sugar, and serve immediately.
For context: I’m 37. Married since 2017. One kid. Flat broke. Heavily indebted. Diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disorder in 2016. Recently embarked upon a spiritually rewarding career as a helicopter pilot.
(Neither this nor what follows is an indictment of capitalism or Western society, as I hope you know. I’m flat broke because I have a toddler and am starting over from scratch career-wise, and I’m indebted because I borrowed heavily in order to attend flight school. It was my choices that got me here, nothing else.)
At this point in life, what excites me the most is:
1. Affording steak.
My wife and I usually have anywhere from $20 to $150 between paydays. My wife just got a job at a daycare center, so that’ll take some of the pressure off. But our debt is such that every spare penny should be spent paying it down. Frivolities like steak, good booze, fancy dinners out, and even trips to the zoo and aquarium with our daughter have gone out the window. My folks had to float us $1100 for snow tires earlier this month, and I’m having a hard time dealing with the shame of it. What excites me the most right now is making enough money to pay down debt and still have enough disposable income left over to treat myself and my family.
2. Supporting my girls on a single income.
In a year’s time, if I play my cards right, I could be the assistant chief flight instructor at my flight school. Or I’ll move on to a job in the helicopter tour or utility industries. Either way, I’ll be getting a fat raise. This has amazing ramifications for my little family. It could mean that my wife and I will be able to pay off a significant chunk of our debts, and we’ll have more disposable income. Far from merely being able to afford steak, I might be able to buy itregularly—and grill it on a grill I could then afford to purchase, while drinking beer I could afford to homebrew. It might also mean that my wife and I could afford to have a second child, accrue some savings and an emergency fund, and even scrape together a down payment for a goddamn house. (I’ve never bought or owned a home in my life, and I’m tired of renting.) But whatever the consequences of my pay raise, I’ll just be happy and proud to be providing for my family at long last. And not dependent on my folks.
3. Enjoying a proper autumn.
November up here in the Northland has been unseasonably warm, the locals tell me. Normally there’s a few inches of snow on the ground by now, and the temperature is below freezing every day. It was 50 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. The leaves have already fallen, but the abundant sunlight and mild temperatures are making me feel like we’re getting an actual autumn instead of leaping straight from summer to winter. And I’ve been taking full advantage of it. I hiked to the top of Ely’s Peak in my shirtsleeves last Wednesday, and today I took my daughter to Hawk Ridge and Hartley Park.
4. Getting checked out in a turbine helicopter.
Speaking of shame, I have over 500 hours in rotorcraft and all of them are in Robinsons. Not that there’s anything wrong with Robinsons, but you can think of them as the tricycles of the helicopter world. Some people ride them for fun, and very few for work, but they mostly use them for training. Getting checked out in a different helicopter, especially a turbine-powered one, would be like learning to ride a motorcycle by comparison. I’d feel like a real helicopter pilot then. My school just happens to have an old Bell 206B that it uses to provide turbine transition training to students. I missed my chance to get checked out in it this fall—too low on the seniority list—but I’ll almost certainly get into it next summer. I’m stoked.
5. My daughter’s 2nd birthday.
I can scarcely believe that my girl is almost 18 months old, let alone that she’ll be two in June. Being able to say “she’s two” instead of “she’s XX months” excites me for some odd reason.
6. Reading, as usual.
Having a kid and becoming a flight instructor put a major crimp in my reading schedule. I’m currently 13 books behind, according to the tracker I use on Goodreads. Granted, I picked some doozies to read this year. It’s been a long, hard slog, reading Lewis and Clark’s journals and The Brothers Karamazov simultaneously. But I’m almost done, and I have a couple of new books waiting in the wings—a much-anticipated travelogue by Anton Chekhov (Sakhalin Island), and a horror novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (The Relic), which I’d intended to read in October. That, and the rest of the books on my reading list (sketched out until the year 2031), have me excited. As they always do.
7. Making soup every weekend.
Classic dad move, right? I enjoy soups and stews immensely. And winter, of course, is soup season. To take full advantage of it, I made out a list of soups that I want to make this season and have been checking them off one by one, starting the weekend of my birthday in late September. I’ve done beef stew, French onion soup, pumpkin soup, fish-head soup, and chicken stew with dumplings. Tonight it’s beer cheese soup. I am super pumped.
8. Date night with the wife.
Due to various factors—lack of funds, a dearth of trustworthy babysitters, scheduling issues, the realities of having children, and general stress levels—my wife and I haven’t been dating each other like we should. In fact, we’ve gone on exactly three dates this year: in January, June, and October respectively. We’re trying to fix that. I’m securing a sitter for the night of Friday the 24th. My wife and I have plans to slip across the river into Wisconsin for burgers and brews at a much-beloved taphouse. I am beyond excited about this. It’ll be nice to sit across a table from my spouse, sip local brews, and discuss something other than poop and money.
Once upon a time I put in average speed cameras on a section of the A31 in UK. They were dropping the speed limit from 60 mph to 50 mph on this stretch. For those that don’t know these monitor your speed over a set distance and if you are 10% + 3 miles per hour over the speed limit you will get a fine, (or occasionally offered a Driver Awareness Course, based on the speed and if you have done one in the last 3 months).
Anyway, cameras go in, we do the testing phase and final commissioning.
2 weeks after they are commissioned, I went to a meeting to close the final account for putting these in, drove passed them on the way home at 62 mph, (as I had always done), and forgot they were now live and got a £60 fine and 3 points on my licence. All from safety cameras that I put in.
Four thousand and seven years ago, my father, who was a great man, one of the greatest men in history, he was born in Germany; he went into the real estate business. You have to be really, really smart to get into the real estate business. I inherited his smarts, and I got into the real estate business too. I have the best real estate. Everyone loves my real estate. But now we are engaged in a great civil war. The greatest civil war. Why are we engaged in it? Because my predecessor, President Bookananin, was a bad deal maker. If I had been President then, we wouldn’t have had a war because I would have made a deal, the best deal. I am the best deal maker ever. It’s true. If I had been President, I’d have made such a good deal that the North would be happy, the South would have been happy, the slaves would have been very happy; they would have been the happiest slaves you have ever seen. Just smiling and singing and picking cotton. Such happy slaves. But now we are here to bury the dead. But what we say here cannot honor them. Because they don’t deserve to be honored! I like soldiers who are so good that they don’t get shot. What good is a dead soldier? Dead soldiers can’t soldier any more because they are dead. All soldiers who die are just losers. If I had been a soldier, I would have survived, I guarantee it. Now let’s go play some golf!
I arrived for an interview and was asked to wait a few minutes as the interviewer was held up. A few minutes later he came out, apologised said he’d been called to an urgent problem. He explained that some of the stuff I’d be working on would highly commercially sensitive and while he finished up could I read through the pre-interview contract and sign it.
I read through it and though I’m no lawyer it read like they could sue for everything I owned from my house down to my underwear if I so much as said I’d been within a mile of the building. The I interviewer came back a few minutes later and asked if I was happy and had signed the paperwork.
I replied that I hadn’t signed coz it looked a bit iffy on the conditions and he replied
‘congratulations, you’re the first person out of 8 people who passed the first stage test’.
Apparently everyone else had skimmed through and signed and not bothered really looking at what they were signing off on.
For the same reason it takes three minutes to trace a phone call, firewalls have a progress bar on them, and all handguns regardless of caliber and design always make the same sound (unless they’re silenced, in which case they go “thwip thwip”):
Because Hollywood isn’t real.
In the real world, a phone call can be traced the instant the phone rings; you don’t even need to pick it up. In the real world, firewalls either block some bit of traffic or they don’t. In the real world, different firearms all make different sounds, and they’re heckin’ loud, even if “silenced.” Like loud enough you won’t be exchanging witty quips with anyone during a shootout.
And in the real world, antipersonnel mines detonate instantly, except some old bouncing mines that detonate about a second after they’re activated.
I woke up one morning after having a bizarre nightmare. I dreamt that called my boss and told him my youngest son was going to die. My son was only 10 days old at the time. A perfectly healthy beautiful little baby boy. When I woke up I felt nauseous from the dream and experienced the worst anxiety I have ever had. I knew intuitively that something was wrong with my son. He didn’t show any rare signs or specific symptoms, the only thing that was odd was that he slept a bit heavier than usual that night. I couldn’t ignore my anxiety and checked his temperature and was shocked when it showed 35,1 degrees Celsius. I immediately took him to the ER and soon found out that an entero virus (a normal winter season virus that gives you a cold) had affected his heart and the room was soon filled with doctors and me and my husband were asked to leave. 12 hours later the doctors informed us that the virus had caused our healthy baby a serious heart failure (dilated cardiomyopathy and myocarditis ) and that he probably wouldn’t make it. They called a priest and the rest is black for me. Our baby was put into coma in a respirator and was going to be put on an ECMO machine. We were transferred to the ICU for infants. After 2 months at the ICU he suddenly improved. The doctors told us that almost no children survive this virus on the heart – because there are no obvious clear signs so the parents don’t understand that something is wrong. They also said that what he survived is in theory impossible to survive (considering how ill he was). They asked me what caused us to seek help and I told them about my dream. I will never forget the doctors answer “there are somethings between heaven and earth that medicine can’t explain – your boy is a living miracle”.
He turns 5 next year and has almost recovered 100% from the heart failure expect for 1/8 of his heart that is permanently damaged.
They are not trying. They are. You are out of business due to you guys looking down and under estimating China. And all the shit about intellectual property theft and copying while in truth China overtook the U.S. and the world in EV technology. Global warming is caused by the U.S. and the west China resolved it.
Yes you guys are caught off guard but it is your fault. Today there are still many especially white Caucasian westerners who thinks the Chinese as no technology, no can only do T-Shirts and Cheap plastic toys. To me it is racism and served you guys right. China will out compete you in every sector including jet planes, rockets, quantum computers and AI.
Even this question is a racist and underestimating China nonsense. Even the great Tesla used Chinese engines and batteries. China makes 9/10 EVs on earth. And they are catching up! What a foolish statement.
When i was about 9 years old we lived acoss the street from a little store that had a paper machine out front. My mother would send me over with a quarter each morning and 3 on sundays to get a newspaper. One day an old timer was walking up and said, watch this. He put 4 pennies in the machine and much to my surprise, it opened right up just as if he had put a quarter in it and sure enough on Sunday, 12 pennies did the same thing. Not sure if the machines worked by weight or what, but this went on for a few years until we eventually just got it delivered. This was a time when 20 cent would buy 4 fireballs or lots of other smaller candies. I truly believe karma caught up with me as i had more than my fair share of cavities growing up.
My sister died 5 weeks ago. We’ve just got back from her funeral in the UK. She’d been in poor health for several years so it was no great shock, but sad as she was only 69. This (slightly edited tale) was read out by the celebrant plus several of her other exploits over the years. She was a force of nature. Don’t rest in peace Lynn, create all the mayhem you did when you were here.
My sister is extremely feisty. She was in hospital giving birth to her first child, who was a large baby and my sister is tiny, she weighed about 35kg. Anyway she needed an episiotomy for her son to be born. Anyway after the birth the midwife said the cut was so long it would need stitching. The doctor came in, agreed and gave her a local anesthetic into the area. Then he disappeared for 3 hours, by which time the pain relief had totally worn off and he began to stitch. When she cried out in pain he told her not to be such a baby and to quit whining.
He had a tray of instruments by the bed so she picked up a scalpel and rammed it into the back of his hand. While he was screaming she told him not to be such a baby and quit whining. They administered more local to finish her procedure, and found another doctor.
When I was in high school in New York, rumor was that my friend’s tough looking father was in the Mafia. One day, he hired a bunch of his son’s friends to attend an auction in the Bronx. He gave us an address and told us to be there at 8am.
The auction, selling off the assets of a bankrupt business, was going to begin an hour later. By the time the real bidders arrived, they were denied entrance by a bribed fire marshal because the room was already filled to its legal capacity by dozens of hired bodies like myself.
Clueless, we sat there and watched as my friend’s father and his buddies won every lot without competition.
A man and his wife are awakened at 3 o’clock in the morning by a loud pounding on the door.
The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
“Not a chance” says the husband, “it is 3 o’clock in the morning!”
He slams the door and returns to bed.
“Who was that?” asked his wife.
“Just some drunk guy asking for a push,” he answers.
“Did you help him?” she asks.
“No, I did not, it is 3 o’clock in the morning and it is pouring rain out there!”
“Well, you have a short memory,” says his wife. “Don’t you remember about three months ago when our car broke down and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself !”
The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain.
He calls out into the dark, “Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes” comes back the answer.
“Do you still need a push?” calls out the husband.
My daughter had married a guy I really liked. One fall we were discussing hunting and he mentioned an unusual shotgun he learned to hunt with. He really liked it, but had never seen another like it. It was a bolt action 20-gauge shotgun.
As he described the finger grooves in the plastic trigger guard, I realized he was describing a Mossberg Model 185K. I collected Mossberg firearms and had a decent specimen sitting unused in the back of my safe.
Over the next couple of months I refurbished the gun, rubbed the stock down with tung oil and restored as much of its 1950 beauty as I could. Having found a box for it, I took it by on Christmas day.
When he unwrapped it, his mouth fell open. Literally.
“Oh migod. THAT’S THE ONE! That is EXACTLY the gun I grew up with! How did you find this???”
My 6′7″ son-in-law picked me up and hugged me – with tears in his eyes.
Yes, China and India have border disputes, and border conflicts broke out in the 1960s and 1970s. There have also been conflicts in the Galwan region in the past few years.
But the relationship between China and India is not as bad as Western media renders it, nor is it as terrible as some Indian media render it.
If we look at a world map, especially one with altitude. It can be seen that China and India are separated by the Himalayas. Although the two countries are neighboring countries, they are naturally separated.
Therefore, in the past thousands of years, the two countries developed independently without interfering with each other, and even little trade was carried out. The current China and India were only established after World War II. The contradiction between them originated from the division of territories by the British colonists, rather than the natural contradiction between the two nations. In the words of the Chinese, China and India “have no historical debt.” After all, the Chinese view history in terms of 100 years as the smallest unit.
If you ask a Chinese: Who do you think China’s enemy is?
The vast majority of Chinese people will answer: Japan. Maybe someone mentioned the United States, and maybe South Korea.
, some may even say Russia. But I have hardly ever heard the Chinese label India as their enemy. Even if I emphasize that “China and India had a war,” they will still think: “India is not an enemy” and regard the Sino-Indian conflict as “a quarrel between neighbors.”
In the eyes of Chinese people, couples also quarrel, let alone two neighboring countries. As long as the scope of cooperation is far greater than the scope of differences, then both parties are partners.
Of course, the results of this survey in India may be completely different, mainly due to the influence of Western and Indian media. After all, the media is very good at seizing on a certain local hot spot and then telling the audience that this is all.
The point I’m trying to make, though, is this. The two sides are not really hostile. The similarities between China and India outweigh the differences. They are all developing countries with huge populations and face problems such as poverty alleviation, public education and environmental pollution. Both countries are developing rapidly and are gradually coming into conflict with developed countries. The two sides have consistent interests on many issues, especially international trade, carbon emissions, human rights and other issues, and they jointly resist the squeeze of developed countries. On the issues of the Russia-Ukraine war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, China and India basically have the same attitude.
China and India do not have much competition in business. China is developing high-end manufacturing and competing with developed countries. India is developing mid- to low-end manufacturing industries and can take over the production capacity transferred from China. India is a major agricultural exporter, while China is a major agricultural importer. There is a lot of room for cooperation between the two parties.
When the Sino-Indian border conflict occurred, there were already serious deaths of soldiers. No shots were fired. This shows that the agreement between the two sides outweighs the differences. The border dispute is not the mainstay of Sino-Indian relations. This point has a clear consensus among the elites of both sides. So the soldiers were severely restricted. The foundation of the relationship between the two countries will not change because of the advocacy of the Western media. There will be no war as the West expects.
After all, neither Chinese leaders nor Indian leaders are fools.
The Chinese build so much that they are used to such collapses and have extremely specialized rescue teams
Like in the Turkey earthquake recently
Their ability to use small drones to slip through the small holes, use positioning of living objects under vast structures and their ability to vertically drill and horizontally drill makes them the world’s best experts in rescue operations
This team rescued 319 people given up for dead in Turkey
They were HEROES
The victims were given up for dead
Plus the Chinese Tunnel building through Mountains makes Indian tunnels look like School Project work
This Tunnel in India is a straight cut
Chinese Guoliang Tunnel is at a 36 degree upward incline through mountain surface. They are masters at tunneling
The Chinese teams drilled 368 meters deep vertically against an EXPLODED SHAFT in a gold mine with fissure methane gas and still rescued 11 workers from certain death in 11 days
That was an explosion plus collapse plus methane pockets not just a collapse like in UK
Compared to that, this rescue is horizontal and can be done in their sleep
So why aren’t we calling the Chinese?
Simple
Ego and nothing else
Calling the Chinese would be a blow to our ego and would cause our politicians to lose face
I was patient for a few days but now it appears the NDRF team are morons and the Aussie in charge is a bigger moron
The Auger has been damaged four times now
The men have been stuck for 15 days with no hope as yet
Time to pick up the phone and call Beijing for help and rescue these men and send them home
Enough of this worthless ego
Enough of the learning curve
It’s clear the team members are dunderheads because the augers have been broken four times in four days
Today it was so likely that the men would be out and yet again the Auger broke
Last night my kids flooded the whole living room with slimy water.
“BEEEEEEEEN!” my wife hollered. “COME SEE THIS!”
I knew this was trouble because my wife is one of those people who never raise their voice.
When I stepped onto the scene, I saw my three kids plus a friend of my oldest son’s all belly-sliding from wall to wall with nothing on but underwear.
The sight was so perplexing, surreal, and unexpected, that I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off.
It was like the first time I ever got stoned as a teenager and every time a friend threw an M&M on me I giggled uncontrollably.
Every kid scooting across the gooey floor, his arms flailing, letting out screams of glee, had me laughing until my belly hurt.
They were like cute gremlins swimming through space.
Never mind that I was terrified of slipping because I just had my ACL operated on. Or that my youngest one started bawling after two of the others crashed into him at the same time. Or that my wife and I had to use all the towels in the house to soak up the gunky liquid later.
I hadn’t had such a good laugh in ages.
I’ve been punched in the balls. I’ve cleaned neon-yellow runny poo from across the floors of multiple rooms—why would you crawl across the whole house while pooing?! I’ve made elaborate date plans with my wife just for two of us to realize we fell asleep while reading to the kids.
And somewhere along the way, instead of getting angry every time, I discovered the humor in all of it.
Something of the maddening nature of having kids taught me to stop taking myself so seriously. Showed me that sometimes, life is so damn absurd that all you can do is laugh. That every single plan and intention can come boomeranging back to you and whack you in the face.
And before you feel the pain—or clean the slimy floor or the runny poo or make a new plan—you can take a moment, laugh it off, and then get to it.
I’m in Ghana and was invited to a Thanksgiving party, what the H3LL?
My neurologist asked me to wear an oximeter/heart rate monitor overnight. I told him it would be useless, as I was not sleeping much, but he had me do it. I got a call a few days later asking me how I coped on such little sleep. We never mentioned it again.
Then I got a bill for $14. For what?
I was being billed for the “use of the monitor.” Not by my neurologist’s office, by some 3rd party.
I called my neurologist’s office, they said that they don’t own the equipment, they rent it from the service that sends them the test results, which was not this company. They were like, fine, don’t pay, we don’t know who this company is. I called insurance – they said they had never heard of FBN Rental.
I called FlyByNight Rentals and told them to bill my insurance. They said they had. I said I had proof they never had. I told them I would not pay as they had no grounds to bill me.
I kept getting bills, which I ignored.
Finally I got a phone call from them. “You owe us $14.” “No. I don’t. Bill my insurance.” “We did.” No you didn’t. You’re a scam.” Rinse, repeat.
I had looked them up in the meantime. They apparently buy marketing lists of people who used pulse oximetry equipment and insert a minor charge. Something small and inconsequential that people will just pay to clear. But – and here is the key point – they don’t actually have any relationship to the test.
I kept getting calls threatening me with collections. Finally I picked one up. A lady confirmed that I was seconds away from going to collections. I had had it. I had already called and written to them to tell them to fuck off, multiple times.
I said, 1) that they were a scam, 2) I’d already reported them to my doctor, the insurance, the BBB and 3) if I ever heard from them again, they would hear from my lawyer with a bill for the time *I* had had to spend figuring out they were a scam and dealing with their bullshit.
I never heard from them again.
What a brilliantly awful idea. Make a teeny, inconsequential charge, something so small no one would care and collect on some or most of those charges. Multiply $14 by tens of thousands and presto, you have medical fraud that no one will ever notice.
A woman responds to “an open marriage”
A man suggests that instead of a open marriage, he gets a second wife.
I am out of the hospital, and I am feeling much better. I can’t wait to get back to business with the start of the new year. The world seemed to be passing me by. Just excited and ready, but my engine is purring. All is good.
…
STORY 1
When I was 16 years old, I went horseback riding with a girl-friend (not a girlfriend) and we were riding in the woods. Well, there were some low hanging vines, and sure as shit, one caught my neck and rubbed it raw. I mean, it was brutal. All my skin was removed.
To everyone at work… it looked like a big “hicky”; a huge sucker bite.
That wasn’t the case, of course, but the razzlin’ and all was really excessive, don’t you know. It took me months to get out from the hasslin’, but you know it was the early 1970’s and that kind of stuff was common in the work-place.
I was still “sweet 16” and never been kissed. That ended shortly afterwards when two of my “girl-friends” fought to become my girlfriend. Which resulted in a sidewalk kiss, that I will never forget.
STORY 2
We were leaving a “sweet 16” birthday party of a classmate. She, a girl named Robin, invited me to it, and I as clueless as ever didn’t know what to do. When we left, and we were on the sidewalk… walking home she stopped turned to me and and “Kiss me”. And so we did.
That was my first kiss.
Robin went off to college, got married, and last I heard was doing well. I’m happy for her.
People, as cherished as those memories are, there is no way that I want to relive similar events in another life. I am tired, and have no desire for another reincarnation. I’ll tell you what.
The star of the whole show, in my opinion, is the turnout of Big Business.
No, not what President Xi said, but the audience composition. Namedrop a household corporate name and the CEO was probably in attendence, Tim Cook and Elon Musk included.
The movers and shakers of Wall Street paid handsomely for the privilege of WELCOMING President Xi. In fact, the visiting Head of State may have gathered THE star-studded corporate audience in recent years, bigger than any Democrat or Republican convention. Even King Charles and the Pope will struggle to demonstrate the star appeal lighting up San Francisco this November WEEKEND.
It was a dinner worth trillions upon trillions in market cap. One need only imagine the private jets lining up to pay hangar premiums for parking rights.
America NEEDS China, economically.
That is why Janet, the top-ranking finance official in America, welcomed President Xi on the tarmac personally.
Note that both Janet and Gavin visited Beijing PERSONALLY to arrange the visit.
Both the tarmac welcome and dinner highlighted the conspicuous absence of the State Department. No more James Cook Hotel browbeating and public attempts at humiliating the Chinese contingent.
What’s the key here?
American corporations are suffering in the downturn and the captains of industry want guarantees from Joe that the situation with China will not deteriorate further. The chips they have on the table? 20–30 billion in election funding for 2024.
We can expect a freeze on escalation of the new cold war, but not a ceasefire. The militaries will resume direct communications, which is nothing more than “we’re continuing with the harassment, but we’ll inform you first, with your acknowledgement”. However, we can expect cabinet officials to either be gagged top-down or bottom-up, or instructed to be cordial and tone down on provocation. In other words, Gina et al. morphing back to friendly beaver mode rather than “feet to the fire” wolf warrior incarnation.
That’s the tone for 2024. I don’t believe Joe will repeat the “genocide determination” stunt next year, having committed to extravagant molly-coddling in San Francisco, amidst the sea of bipartisan support for playing the China card the corporate-sanctioned way.
Lobbying works, both ways.
This is why President Xi appeared relaxed throughout, almost as if he was on holiday, totally unlike the tense atmosphere in Anchorage, Alaska, back in 2021. People have short memories.
President Xi was being feted and courted, and he was only here after two years of intense US diplomatic efforts to re-establish ties torn down by the State Department, no less.
Crazy world, isn’t it?
Note: The welcome dinner also reassured the Chinese, and gave them the confidence to negotiate deals with the Fed. Corporate America’s turnout is the real deal, in a fiery red vs. blue battle to the death.
I’ll probably never be as successful as my dad and I’m perfectly OK with that.
If anything I’m proud of him. At one point he was overseeing a $50 billion annual budget as Undersecretary of Defense. The dude earned his Wikipedia page.
My father is also an excellent case study. He is certainly very smart. But it wasn’t like he was always the smartest guy in the room. In fact, he was keenly aware when he wasn’t. Yet many of my dad’s peers, who were smarter on paper, fell way short of his success.
Why? It’s mainly because of his people skills and his diligence. He is an excellent listener. He knows how to dial in and pick up on what is important. He is also conscientious and very ethical. He treats people equally regardless of their position.
I’d say if anything, my dad’s superpower is the ability to size people up quickly and judge their character.
He has a special distaste for self-serving people, which is probably because of his career with SEAL teams, where teamwork is a religion.
This is where many highly intelligent people fail. They lack the soft skills, the ability to relate with many types of people.
Cliche as it sounds, many gifted people also have an underlying arrogance they mask. Business textbooks are filled with case studies of executives’ careers being destroyed by pride. My girlfriend is a college professor and complains constantly about the incessant egos at academic conferences.
And to be fair, I can’t totally blame them. When a person is told from birth that they are brilliant, and their test scores affirm that praise, and they live in a world that prizes intelligence — it is probably hard to stay 100% humble.
No matter how talented you are, remember you are dealing with human beings in your career. Success isn’t a MENSA test. Soft skills matter—bigtime.
The U.S. should but it won’t and it can’t. The U.S. thinks like a racist, xenophobic superior white Caucasian nation that their neighbours should be kept as savage, poor, undeveloped nations that it can invade anytime it feels like doing. So they won’t help these nations. It is beyond them. People like Donald Trump can term them robbers and rapist so that he feels very good as the Aryan Superior. So the U.S. abused them instead of helping them.
Of course now that the Chinese decide to help them the U.S. will term it “Debt Trap” China will help to make these former Spanish and Portuguese stolen nations rich and successful.
Anyway they can’t help them. The spent all its money and resources in forever wars, war mongering, war financing, war orchestrating, chaos and coup tormenting. And barely have enough to help US homeless and poor. The U.S. own infrastructure were also 20 century relics and dilapidated beyond repair in the U.S. so they cannot help. Even if the wanted to they will set a thousand conditions including signing over their sovereignty to Uncle Sam.
She Can’t Answer This Simple Question About Marriage
My cat goes on a rampage when he wants to wake me up, knocking every conceivable item off of every flat surface until I finally give up on sleep.
He did it to me the other night. I’d fallen asleep on the couch and woke up to the familiar sound of the TV remote control hitting the floor, then the Roku remote.
I could just make out the little guy’s form on the coffee table through blurry eyes without my glasses. My smartphone was the next thing to hit the hardwood (I have a military grade case precisely for this reason), then he violently smacked a bottle of pills so hard they ricocheted off an end table and went spinning across the room.
Next he hopped onto the end table, upending a bag of restaurant tortillas and swiping my keys off. A water bottle went flying. I heard my vapor pen skidding in the opposite direction.
The little f—er is relentless.
(“Does it look like I’m judging you, human? Because I am.”)
If that doesn’t work — and sometimes it doesn’t, because I know giving in just emboldens him — and he runs out of things to smack and wreck, he’ll pad over to his litter box and start punching the cover flap with his paw because he knows it squeaks and it pisses me off.
He’s a super vocal cat too, so all this is accompanied by high-pitched trills like “RRRRRRRUUUUPPPP!” and “BRRRRRUUUU!”
And you know what the most ridiculous part is?
He’s not asking for food because he always gets a bowl of dry food before bed. He wants to hang out and snuggle and be buddies. I can’t be mad at him.
So yes, it’s pretty common for cats to wake their people up for no other reason than they want us awake, acknowledging them, or giving them scritches and affection.
It’s not always tied to more concrete requests like food, although sometimes it is.
You’ll also notice that cats have no regard for your sleep, but they’ll give you the feline death stare if you rudely interrupt their naps. Such is the pecking order in feline-ruled households.
It is possible to train them out of waking you, especially if they’re young. If your cat is a kitten then she’ll adjust to your schedule. If she’s an adult, well, good luck with that. You can break the habit, but you’re going to make sure you never give in or you’re just hitting the reset button by proving to her that if she makes enough noise, you’re going to get up eventually.
In that case, grab a package of earplugs off Amazon for a few bucks. Your brain will thank you for wearing them.
(“I am a sweet little kitty cat and none of these vile lies are true.”)
We were at an airport in Mexico, going through customs and immigration. Once your bag is xrayed you pick it up, and walk to this green button and push it. If the light above flashes green, which it almost always does, you proceed on. If the light flashes red, and the buzzer, buzzes, you get pulled into a side room and they go through your luggage thoroughly.
There was a huge line up. We had waited an hour to get to the X-ray machine. We were up next. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone from a culture that doesn’t believe in queuing, walking alongside the line, right up to the front, I actually stepped in front of him, so he couldn’t get past me, and his wife took the luggage and threw it on the X-ray conveyor belt. At this point I admitted defeat, and let them go.
They get through the x-ray, and push the button, in my place. It flashed red, and they were led off to a little side room, It would have been me, if they hadn’t barged into the line.
I waved to them as they were being led into the little room.
He is the manager of my neighborhood gym, a very rinky-dink gym.
He makes ~$35K per year. It isn’t terrible money. You can certainly live on that, but it isn’t great money in the US. His salary isn’t specifically why I have so much respect for him. It’s the context:
He was a big-time lawyer here in Tampa. He had a fancy degree and a job making huge money. He did it for 15 years. He had the respect of his peers, the fear of his opposition.
He was fully capable of continuing his relentless march as a litigator.
But he realized, “Nah – this isn’t the right life.”
He walked away – chose a low-stress job, managing this local gym.
When the end of the day rolls around, he goes home and work doesn’t chase him. He is free to indulge the rest of his life.
I see him 3-4 times a week while I sign into my gym. He is always in good spirits. Relaxed. Not troubled by some unseen threat that looms on his calendar.
We grow up. The people around us tell us they just want us to “be happy,” but at the same time, they are pushing this maximization mindset: maximize grades, maximize salary, maximize reputation, go, go, go.
You see plenty of people that maximize. You see plenty of people who don’t.
But how often do you see people who maximize and then walk away? Who goes from introducing himself as “Senior Counsel at XYZ” to answering calls, “Hello, ABC Fitness! How can I help you?”
It’s surprisingly rare. It’s hard to kiss the ring of ambition for so long and then drop it.
He’s a bit of a novelty in my life. On my bad days, I envision what it would be like to be him — that one guy who stepped through the paradox of happiness and ambition.
And although I suspect I don’t have the guts to do what he did, walk away, I have a surprising amount of respect for a guy who is capable of so much, yet aspires to so little.
He did it his way. And he’s happy. Does anything else really matter?
A girl I quite fancied took me to meet her parents for dinner – which turned out to be lasagne. The only prior experience I’d had with lasagne had been at school, many years before – about a millimeter thick, cooked in trays half a mile wide, with about 50p’s worth of ingredients and left to dry out under a heat lamp for a year. 🙁
But I had to be polite.
“I’m not very hungry,” I said. “just give me a little.”
Turns out that lasagne cooked by an Italian mother was rather different to the filth churned out at St. Mary’s. So I asked for seconds
In the 1980s, state law in Florida required that all public high school students take a one-semester class called Americanism vs Communism, or AVC.
The State-approved AVC textbook can be summed up this way:
“Rah rah rah! We’re #1! America, fuck yeah! We won WWII and saved Europe and Russia! America is the best at everything! Woohoo! Look at how amazing we are! America, go us!”
Like, seriously, it was embarrassingly bad. We’re talking Soviet-Union-textbook bad. If George Orwell included a page from the AVC textbook in Nineteen Eighty-Four, critics would be all “nah, bro, too unrealistic.” You wouldn’t think it’s possible to fit so much cringe into one book.
I cannot fathom the degree of insecurity that went into passing the law that required teaching this class in schools.
Fortunately, I lucked out. My high school teacher, a WWII vet and survivor of the Bataan Death March, hated and loathed the class requirement and textbook with every fiber of his being, and made that very clear on the first day of class.
He refused to teach from the book at all. He told us point-blank “The state requirement for this class is complete propaganda bullshit. As far as I’m concerned, this is a class in Russian history, and that’s how I intend to teach it.”
He made his own teaching materials for the class and it rocked.
China has already stopped investing in U.S. Treasuries.
Since the beginning of the Ukraine War, China has been selling its Treasury holdings. As of October 2023, it continues to hold about $820 billion of U.S. Treasuries. This is a reduction of about 18% in one year.
Russia previously sold all its U.S. Treasury holdings, after the United States began to sanction it in connection withe Ukraine War. In about 2017, Russia encouraged the world to do the same.
At the same time, the Federal Reserve is selling the U.S. Treasury Bonds that it purchased during covid.
The combined actions of Russia, China and the Federal Reserve are driving down the value of U.S. Treasury Bonds. In the past six months, the value of 30 year bonds has fallen by about 50%. This raises interest rates in the United States, because the U.S. government must pay more to borrow.
The higher interest rates have greatly limited America’s options, financially. Housing prices are poised to fall, due to higher interest rates. Even worse, interest payments on the U.S. national debt have doubled. Interest payments will soon exceed what the United States spends on national defense. Thus, as you can see, the tactics of Russia and China have limited America’s ability to fight wars. We are seeing just the beginning of the cycle.
Your question is — will the United States face a financial crisis?
The answer is yes. If the United States (a) continues printing dollars, and (b) continues supporting a violent response to conflicts in the world, two things will happen:
The planet will refuse to work with the United States during America’s foreseeable crisis; and
The U.S. dollar will collapse, due to continued printing and the planet’s rejection of the dollar.
The collapse of the dollar will be devastating in the United States, because American society is dependent upon cheap gasoline and cheap imports, which will no longer exist in the United States.
The United States imports 28% of its crude oil. This leaves the United States vulnerable to a falling dollar. Contrary to popular belief, the United States is not “energy independent,” and remains vulnerable. The United States imports 5 million barrels of crude oil per day more than it exports. That is a lot of oil that won’t be coming into the United States when the dollar falls. In addition, President Biden foolishly sold decades of oil stored up by the WWII generation in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. America is not ready for the foreseeable crisis coming to its shores.
Expect riots and shortages in the United States. If Biden continues to pursue violent solutions to global conflict, those wars will return to the United States when the dollar comes down. The American people will be fighting over limited resources. There won’t be any jobs in America, when the shopping malls close.
Normally the work product belongs to the company, not the worker. In the early days of solid state circuitry, my BIL developed much of it. Although his name is on the patents, the company owned them.
I was an independent contractor managing HOAs. ( Also a lawyer). I started by managing my own while my kids were preschoolers. It ran very smoothly so no one ever wanted to be on the Board until crazy ass lady and her group of idiots came on. True nut cases. One insisted on judging the Holiday decorating contest, then picked her own house as winner. One shot my dog. Board meetings were like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.
The Board was 3/3, three humans, three horses asses. When one human was on vacation, the three asses called a special meeting and “ terminated “ me. Now they knew I would just sue them on my 2 year contract so they made paying me for another 18 months conditional on me delivering all the Assn documents and computer data on fees, violations etc on discs within five days. This belonged to them.
I was happy to get out of the nut house. The Assn owned the file cabinets. I just put them on a dolly and walked them to a Board member’s house and left them. I downloaded all the data in computer language and gave them the disks.
Problem was, I used a program I bought that was made by a company that had gone bankrupt. It was a great program. Totally unavailable for purchase anywhere. But I had no duty to give them my program. The computer disks were useless. The finances were also kept on a very old edition of an accounting program. I had no duty to provide them with my copy. The financial disks very useless to them without paying a few thousand for the program. It was a very specialized program used by CPAs
They spent a fortune going through old files and bank statements and quarterly financials to recreate payment records etc. And, I had fulfilled my duties. I got the next 18 months of my contract paid. They also received a cease and desist letter from me. The Assn ‘s original documents had a problem and no lender would loan on a house without a document called a Subordination agreement. Only a lawyer can write one. I always wrote them. No cost. It was my own HOA. But the first time they copied one on a new sale, I hit them with a cease and desist letter and reported them to the Bar for the unlicensed practice of law. So then they had to pay a lawyer for the next 150 or so documents. Lawyers are not free.
So, what the employer owns and what the employee owns is a mixed bag.
I was in an elevator on a cruise ship. Some wiseacre saw my polka-dot suspenders.
He smirked, “Nice suspenders. You from Wisconsin?”
I replied, “No. Ever since my cancer surgery, I can’t wear a belt.”
His smirk instantly evaporated. The elevator doors opened on my floor, and I got out.
Soft tissue sarcoma caused by Agent Orange in Vietnam, They took out 1–3/4 pounds of me from my groin to my beltline. It left a notch where a belt would sit, so I can’t wear a belt comfortably.
Two years back, I was on a road trip on my bike to Meghalaya. While returning, as I was tired I was riding slowly. I was still some 70 miles away from home, and it was already dark. On the highway, I saw a car parked and some people arguing. I rode past them, however before passing them I caught the sight of two women crying and eagerly looking through the front window.
I took a turn and came back to the spot. I saw four boys, around my age, were arguing and pushing a man of around 50 years old. Turns out, the family was returning from some function and lived in another town which was about 90 miles from mine. They were stopped by these four boys on bikes and asked them for some money. They started misbehaving when the old guy refused to pay. He asked his wife and daughter to stay in the car and got down to reason with them.
I heard the story from the old guy, while the boys asked me mind my own business and get the f**k off. I simply turned and started walking towards my bike. The man begged at me to stay and help him, and looked at the women in the back seat and felt their eyes pleading me to stay. But, I kept walking!
Here comes the twist! Now, during my rides I always keep a hockey stick on my bike. Bad luck for the guys who never knew this. They laughed at me, calling me names. One even said, “Yeah, keep walking you p***say.”
I took the hockey stick and came back running. The boys didn’t get time to react and I started beating them. The blows landed everywhere and I think two or more of them bled as well. I didn’t show them any mercy. Someone threw some punches and kicks at me too, but I had a more formidable weapon than them. Seeing me in action, the man also jumped in; his wife and daughter also got down and helped in whatever way they could. All beaten up and even not being able to stand properly, two boys somehow managed to run off on their bikes while the other two ran after them.
I told the man to start the car and keep driving, while I rode in front of him in case the boys decided to get help and chase us. When we entered the man’s town, we went to the police station and lodged a report. The daughter was smart enough to note down the bikes’ number plates. As it was very late, the man requested me to spend the night at their place. Once reaching home, the family thanked me for helping them. He wouldn’t even allow me to leave early next day, saying that he can’t send me off without a proper meal. Family, friends and relatives came to thank me for my heroism. I stayed for lunch and returned home.
To this day the gentleman calls me occasionally. He even invited me to his daughter’s wedding.
Now, let me tell you something. I’m not the brave person they take me to be. I was equally scared that night. I was terrified. It took me a lot of courage to do what I did. After this whole thing was over, I was so proud of it!
Companies Are Ditching Hiring Fresh Female Graduates
My grandparents were too poor to afford a private jet or a private helicopter, they had to rely on government programs like public roads to get by.
They couldn’t afford to hire private tutors for my parents, and so had to send them to public schools to learn to read and write.
As one might expect, this cycle of dependency continued: My parents also didn’t have a private jet or helicopter, and they also had to rely on government programs like public roads to get by. They also sent their kids to learn to read and write in public schools.
And here I am: made lazy by all this generational welfare, I’m not pulling on my bootstraps nearly hard enough to afford my own private airport. Like my parents before me, and my grandparents before them, I depend entirely on government programs like public roads (or worse, public transit!!) to get to work.
There is no means testing in place for using public roads, which leads to rampant abuse. I’ve seen people use them to go for a stroll, even though they could have afforded a treadmill. Not only that, but these type of government handouts kill any incentive for most people to get a private helicopter, they’d rather stay dependent upon the government provided public roads.
It’s truly a modern tragedy, with no end in sight.
Years and years ago, when I quit smoking, I found my temper would often flare up during the first few weeks of abstinence.
I worked at a remote branch office with a staff of six. One morning when I came to work early, something went “wrong” and I was so angry that I impulsively gut-punched my office door.
The door was hollow core wood; I punched right through it.
I admitted my foolish outrage to my office mates when they entered an hour later.
And little was said about it; I believe they were sympathetic with my situation, and supportive of my effort to quit smoking.
There matters laid at rest; nothing more said.
Until the office Christmas party, when staff from all branches and the headquarters office (over 100 souls) gathered at some central location for a cocktail party and most sumptuous feast. Everything paid for by the company as a treat to us. This was followed by after-dinner drinks, and the “awards ceremony.”
The awards ceremony was a production of the employees and was in the nature of a good-humored “roast,” drawing upon such amusing things as had happened involving any of them over the past year. Some of the recognition was by actual funny trophies which were passed from one recipient to another; others were unlikely objects constructed of broom sticks, hub-caps, old radios, or heaven knows what.
Because I and my cohorts were from the remotest branch, none of us received, or ever expected to receive, recognition at this ceremony. We had our OWN Christmas party, for that.
Thus it was quite a surprise, to me, when I saw that my associate, Greg, was called upon by the master of ceremonies to announce the grand prize winner. He briefly described in very general terms the struggle of one individual to overcome a serious addiction. I was as curious as everyone else to know who, and to know the story. The room became very quiet, as the subject appeared to deviate from the laughable to the serious. The recipient was as yet unnamed.
Then a cloaked object was carried onto the dais, looking for all the world like a draped coffin.
With the words, “And the winner is, John Scott Geare,” the black drape was pulled away to reveal my actual office door, with a precise halo painted around its wound. Somehow, the damned thing had been spirited from our office, and carried the 60 miles to the party, unbeknownst to me.
And it became the stuff of legend.
You owe me half
Chick was only going out for a free meal. And he says…
Cajun Style Tip Roast
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
1 (4 pound) tip roast
1/4 cup finely chopped onions
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup finely chopped green bell peppers
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Instructions
Heat oven to 300 degrees F.
Combine vegetables, spices and oil.
With a sharp knife make 8 to 12 deep V-shape slit pockets, stopping an inch from the bottom of roast. Fill the pockets with the vegetable mixture, reserving some to rub on top of roast.
Bake uncovered for 2 1/2 hours or until thermometer reads 140 degrees F for medium rare beef.
Serve with pan juices.
Nutrition
Per serving: Calories 391; fiber 1g; carbohydrates 2g, Protein 61g, Cholesterol 160mg; Sodium 509mg; Fat 14g (32% of calories from fat)
A number of years ago I worked for a large US company. My role was in sales (industrial product). In my third year, I was selected for management. As such, I was trained in recruiting and helped district managers hire talent.
I visited one district and held a recruiting fair and ultimately recommended 10 applicants to the manager. The manager had his own candidate and asked me to interview him. In my opinion, his choice was terrible. He did not have any of the qualities successful people in our business had. I told him this.
Jump ahead six months. I become the manager for that district. My predecessor had hired the guy I did not recommend and did not even call any of the 10 I recommended.
Within three months i had hired five new sales reps. Four did very well and stayed for years. One failed within six months. The one that I did not recommend? I had to let him go due to poor performance and poor attitude. When I told him I had to let him go, he held onto my desk and told me he really did not want to be fired and would not leave the office. He would continue to come to work. It took several hours to convince him that he was not a good match for our industry. I continued to pay him for one month as he searched for another job.
Please don’t tell me I am mean and unfeeling. In my 30+ years of managing, I have supported many people in many different ways. The bottom line, if someone is not doing well in a job, it is usually because they are not trying or they are just in the wrong job. The latter is almost always the case. If you have a good, hard working person, try to find a different position in your company for him/her. That’s the mark of a good manager.
I first noticed this phenomenon with a guy named Dr.Layne Norton. Layne has a PhD in biochemistry. This man has forgotten more about the human body than I’ve ever learned, and I’ll have my Masters degree next month.
He’s an elite level powerlifter.
And a pro bodybuilder,
He also runs a youtube channel where he shares some advice on bodybuilding and powerlifting. I began to notice that the comment section was particularly toxic.
People were insulting this man’s intelligence, his personality, and his family.
I didn’t understand why. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Until I stumbled upon the answer.
One commenter said, “I’m sure you know what you’re talking about, you just seem arrogant though.” The comment had 100s of likes.
Scientists tend to speak in very absolute terms. Why? Because they’ve studied the shit out of whatever it is they’re discussing. And because they speak so unequivocally, people get turned off.
For example, I wrote an answer in which I said working out in the afternoon is best for muscle building and performance. The hormones and body temperature are in a better position to support a workout in the afternoon.
How do I know? I wrote a 20 page paper on this topic for school (supported by 30 peer reviewed studies).
Some guy told me that I was a liar. Why? According to him, testosterone is obviously highest in the morning… because men get morning wood…..
Like many have said, scientists have spent years studying a topic, and they’ve forgotten more about said topic than most will ever even hear. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve EARNED the right to be a little arrogant when it comes to their subject.
I was adopted at birth. From the time I was able to understand anything, my parents called me their Chosen Child and gave me a poem with that name. I was raised to feel special. When I was in 3rd grade, one of the spoiled little rich girls tried to make fun of me, saying mean things, like, my mother hated me and got rid of me so that I had to be taken in by strangers out of pity – really wicked thing for an 8-year-old to say. When she finally took a breath, I responded by saying that I KNEW my parents wanted me, they CHOSE me. Then I said “I bet you were an ax-i-dent!” and walked away. When I got home from school, my mother said she had gotten a call from that girl’s mother, wanted to know what happened, and asked me how in the world I knew what an “accident” was, laughing all the time! I was only 8, had no clue, but I had heard her talking on the phone when she mentioned a girl getting pregnant by accident. Obviously, she didn’t know I heard her or that I understood the gist of the conversation. She was laughing when she told daddy – and that was when I began hearing her say to her friends that “little pitchers have big ears” as she changed the conversation. I don’t know what a little pitcher is, and that may not be what she said, but that’s all that I heard before they started a new conversation!
If they said they would be home at a certain time and didn’t call to ASK if it was ok that they stayed out later, I would call the police. I give them 1/2 hour past designated time to call and if they didn’t answer 2 calls and 2 texts all done within 1/2 hour time frame, the police would be informed of how worried I am about their safety because it’s now an hour late with them not calling or answering multiple calls and texts. Let them deal with the cops questioning them about not contacting you or answering you. The cops will let them know you only concerned about their well being and they will also rip them a new one for informing you and also for leaving their child alone with a babysitter who is now upset that something had happened to them. Trust me, they will never do it again to any babysitter. I say any babysitter because after that, I would NEVER babysit for them again, even at 4x’s the amount of money.
This Creole pork sausage is an old local favorite dating back to the 19th Century, but Chaurice isn’t as easy to find as it once was. It would seem to have come to Louisiana with the Spanish, and was adapted to local custom and ingredients; the term is similar to the Spanish chorizo. It’s great with white or red beans, and good for breakfast too, with eggs.
Ingredients
4 pounds lean fresh pork, butt or shoulder
2 pounds fresh pork fat
2 cups onion, finely minced
1 1/2 tablespoons garlic, finely minced
1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
8 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground red pepper
2 teaspoons dried thyme leaves, crushed
5 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
3 bay leaves, finely crushed
1/2 teaspoon allspice
3 yards small sausage casing (optional)
Instructions
Cut the pork at fatback into small pieces. Mix together and run once through the coarse disc of a meat grinder into a large bowl.
Add the seasonings and mix thoroughly until the stuffing is very smooth and well blended.
Make into patties, and use within three days or freeze.
Notes
You can also put chaurice into casings; make each sausage about six inches in length.
The MWI is real, and it is valid. However, the idea in the movie that consciousness is equally shared between the world-lines is a tad distorted. Instead the centering of consciousness on a given world-line is the actual REALITY within this universe.
At a tense meeting with IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre, Waymond's body is taken over by Alpha-Waymond, a version of Waymond from the "Alphaverse."
Alpha-Waymond explains to Evelyn that many parallel universes exist because every life choice creates a new alternative universe.
In the Alphaverse, the late Alpha-Evelyn developed "verse-jumping" technology, which enables people to access the skills, memories, and bodies of their parallel selves by performing bizarre actions that are statistically unlikely.
The multiverse is threatened by Jobu Tupaki (Alpha-Joy), whose mind was splintered after Alpha-Evelyn pushed her to verse-jump beyond her endurance; Jobu experiences all universes at once and can verse-jump and manipulate matter at will.
She has created a black hole-like "Everything Bagel" topped with everything,[18] which appears as a toroidsingularity[19] that could destroy the multiverse.
Evelyn is given verse-jumping technology to fight Jobu's minions, who converge on the IRS building.
She discovers other universes in which she made different choices and flourished, such as becoming a kung fu master and film star; she also learns of Waymond's plans with the divorce papers.
Alpha-Waymond believes that Evelyn, as the greatest "failure" of all Evelyns in the multiverse, has the untapped potential to defeat Jobu.
Gong Gong is taken over by Alpha-Gong Gong, who instructs Evelyn to kill Joy to stop Jobu from using her to enter Evelyn's universe.
Evelyn refuses and decides to face Jobu by gaining powers through repeated verse-jumping.
Alpha-Gong Gong, convinced that Evelyn's mind has been compromised like Jobu's, sends soldiers after Evelyn.
While they fight, Jobu locates and kills Alpha-Waymond in the Alphaverse.
As Jobu confronts Evelyn in her universe, Evelyn's mind splinters, and she collapses.
Evelyn uncontrollably verse-jumps alongside Jobu across bizarre and diverse universes.
Jobu reveals she does not want to fight at all, but that instead, she has been searching for an Evelyn who can see, as she does, that nothing matters, while killing the Evelyns that do not agree with her.
She brings Evelyn to the Everything Bagel, explaining that she wants to use it to allow herself and Evelyn to truly die.
Upon looking into the Bagel, Evelyn is initially persuaded, and behaves cruelly and nihilistically in her other universes, hurting those around her.
As Evelyn is about to enter the Bagel with Jobu, she pauses to listen to Waymond's pleas in her universe for everybody to stop fighting and to instead be kind, even when life does not make sense.
Evelyn has an existentialist epiphany and decides to follow Waymond's absurdist[20] and humanist[21] advice, using her multiverse powers to fight with empathy[22] and bring happiness to those around her; in doing so, she repairs her damage in the other universes and neutralizes Alpha-Gong Gong and Jobu's fighters.
In her home universe, Evelyn reconciles with Waymond, accepts Joy and Becky's relationship and tells Gong Gong of it, and talks with Deirdre after Waymond convinces Deirdre to let them redo their taxes.
Jobu decides to enter the Bagel alone while, simultaneously in Evelyn's universe, Joy begs Evelyn to let her go.
Evelyn tells Joy that even when nothing makes sense and even though she could be anywhere else in the multiverse, she would always want to be with Joy.
Evelyn and the others save Jobu from the Bagel, and Evelyn and Joy embrace.
It is a fantasy. Which is still a fun illustration.
So that is OK, don’t you know.
But what does the audience get from this movie?
That there is a multi-verse; and MWI.
That you can travel between different world-lines.
That the traveling consciousness can absorb simultaneous experiences that color the actions in the reality.
I personally view this movie as an entry bridge towards enlightenment of the true and really pertinent reality that we all experience.
World-line slides… shown in the movie.
The three key points above are all in alignment with MM’s MWI narrative.
Edward. We called him Crazy Ed. At 12 years of age during a family reunion he grabbed his dad’s shotgun and started shooting. He got mad at his parents over some little crap. Shot his ma, pa, aunt and was chasing his uncle but ran out of shells. In a juvenile prison, this was the 1960s, he tried to poison a few people. And beat another thug with a broom half to death before they hauled him off. He was a polite, fairly polished, soft spoken youth. Looked like a mousy little accountant, glasses and all. He told people when he got he wanted to be a hit man for the mob. He enjoyed killing. I have no doubt that’s what really became of him.
I was an IT director for a company that had been acquired by a much larger company. When I declined to move to their IT location half a continent away, I was laid off. by phone. (my whole group was effectively laid off because they moved my group’s functions to the parent companies group much larger group and they all refused the move).
This was not unexpected, but the knowledge transfer had not taken place yet between the groups. (it was just beginning)
I accepted the severance package and told them we needed to call my counterpart in the corporate group to make sure the transfer was done securely.
When they asked why, I said that as an IT directory I have all the adminstrator passwords and could literally shut down the business if I was upset about the termination. I want to make sure that any issues that come up will not be pointed back at me or my team.
They agreed to conference call with my counterpart so he could take the necessary steps to secure the system.
The call went like this:
Me: Hey! You need to change all the administrator passwords on our unix servers and close out some accounts:
Him: Why?
Me: My group and I just got terminated and you need to secure these servers to make sure everything stays copacetic. You need to terminate my accounts, all access, and those of my team laid off effective immediately to protect corporate and customer assets.
Him: <explodes>What Assh*t did that? We haven’t got anyone to manage those systems, There has been no knowledge transfer on what the systems are used for, <folornly>I’m screwed!
Big Boss: That would be me. Just do it.
Him: OK, OK. I am logging on to the servers. What is the command? Oh Sh*t, I can’t ask you can I….
Big Boss (to me): This is a surprise. Would you be willing to stick around for a couple of weeks….
Me: Sorry- Even though I don’t particularly have an issue about being laid off, Corporate Security Rules identify me now as disgruntled employee and I am not allowed access to secure systems or even the building spaces.
When I was about 17 years old, my dad walked in on me and my then-boyfriend having sex.
The house I lived in at the time was located directly across from my high school. I was enrolled in a lot of sports, as was my boyfriend. Our practices often didn’t start until a half an hour or so after school ended, so most days we had a little bit of time to, um, kill. This particular day, I thought my dad would be at work. We raced to my house, went to my bedroom, and went at it. A few minutes later, without warning, my dad did the thing he always did – knock, then immediately open the door. Seriously? What was the point of knocking? I’ll never understand.
So there I was. His precious baby, naked with a boy. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to do a little *roll* off the bed, and then a second *roll* to hide myself underneath my bed. Leaving my bare-bummed boyfriend to the nightmare above me.
The only words my dad said was, “get dressed.”
I did not go to practice that day. Instead, I had to have dinner with my dad, alone. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I was mortified.
We tried to have small talk???? “How was your day?” “Fine, yours?”
Worst. Day. Of. My. Life.
Cajun Style Cube Steaks
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
4 (4 ounce) beef cube steaks
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 (15 ounce) can no salt added tomato sauce
1 tablespoon of Cajun seasoning
2 cups hot cooked brown rice
Instructions
Place foil grilling bag on cookie sheet. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour in bag.
Arrange steaks in single layer on top of flour; top with pepper and onion.
In a small bowl stir together tomato sauce, Cajun seasonings, and remaining 2 tablespoons flour. Spread evenly over steaks and vegetables. Seal bag by double folding open end, leaving room for expansion.
Coat grill rack with nonstick cooking spray. Heat grill to medium indirect heat.
Slide bag from cookie sheet onto grill rack. Cover and grill for 35 minutes.
Remove bag from grill. Use kitchen shears to carefully cut open bag.
We had a a couple of very dear and long- time friends coming over to watch a DVD a few evenings ago. I went into the living room to make sure the sofas were clear of books, newspapers, knitting etc, but there was still some clutter around. The odd grandkids’s toys sitting in a corner. A laptop my husband was fixing for someone In bits on the coffee table. I said to my husband “ Oh, it looks OK. It’s only Angela and Colin coming.” Then I thought that’s a horrible thing to say! But then it occurred to me – it was, in fact, a great compliment. They were like family. I don’t do a big tidy up, making it pristine, if my daughter is coming with her children. Like them, Angela and Colin are part of our lives. It’s clean and comfortable, but it doesn’t have to be “ visitor ready.” When they arrived I told them what has gone through my mind, and they agreed – they would feel the same about us.
Newlywed Has MELTDOWN After Husband Gathers Proof Of Her Cheating For Their “At Fault” Divorce State
All these stories are so sad. But this one seems to be really authentic. The human situation sucks. Ugh. I am sorry for all three people.
USA and Australia are clearly stolen nations or stolen continents after barbaric and phenomenally cruel slaughter of natives living in their land for centuries. These lands don’t belong to the present inhabitants and it must remind all humans in earth of what savagery and imperialism occurred during the 1600–1900 where rampant European colonialism and aggression happened throughout the world.
Australia and the Americas have to be seen as naked aggression and raped of land and destruction and real genocide whatever culture is a 200–300 years old remnants of these atrocities.
China and Japan has long history spanning thousands of years. It possesses history and philosophy of life and both nations were helped by Confucianism and its ethics of discipline, hardworking, respect for the elders and authorities and constant learning and meritocracy. Both are highly educated and very successful societies. For a while Japan was infatuated with western style colonialism. Not the Chinese as it sees that is wrong to steal other people land.
Nations that grew out of stealing land that belong to others naturally sees themselves entitled. Dominate its regions. The U.S. Latin America and Caribbean while Australia the Islanders and thinks they have a right to command South China Sea too. That to me is clearly wrong and high handed with a tinge of colonialism.
Both Australia and the U.S. benefits from the so called international rules based order that favours the west at the expense of the developing world. But that privilege is being stripped away bit by bit. And truly free competition is beyond them. Hence the huffs and puffs.
Only one word RESPECT. Without respect US will always think their way is always the right way. China is not trying to change the U.S. liberal democracy. That is the U.S. way the U.S. sees fit for the U.S. it is the U.S. that insist China must not practice Socialism with Chinese characteristics! There lies the problem.
As long as one thinks and believed that they and only they knows best no relationship can work. The U.S. must know that to each it’s own. And one man’s meat is another man’s poison. I dare say the problem in the entire 100 years passed us that the U.S. wanted every nation on earth to be submissive and subservient to them!
China is very mature. China wants a rich and prosperous USA to sell to and to go for holidays. It doesn’t want to change a thing. The U.S. wants to weaken China. It wants China to be split into a 100 bite size nation for the U.S. to chew on it! It sees itself as the standard, the authority and the god ordained nation to rule the world.
That disrespect cannot go on. It gets no where. A 5000 years responsible civilisation cannot accept a 247 years old rogue stolen nation of cowboys telling them what to do.
This is HOW MUCH My Vending Machines Made in 365 Days!
I have taken a while to collect my thoughts. Some things need to be said.
This will be a disturbing post. So let’s cling precariously to reason. Please.
Two things are obvious here. The first is that the actions by Hamas rip a new gash in the face of humanity. No thinking person can deny this. Generally reliable news agencies like Reuters [1] report:
“We’ve seen dismembered bodies with their arms and feet chopped off, people that were beheaded, a child that was beheaded,” a reserve warrant officer identified only by her first name of Avigayil told reporters.
She said multiple cases of rape were found by forensic examination of the bodies, which have been stored in refrigerated containers.
A large number of international journalists have viewed graphic footage [2] that documents these atrocities:
Other sequences showed a militant with an agricultural tool hacking at the head of a man lying on the ground, gunmen killing wounded female Israeli soldiers and a jubilant Hamas fighter calling his family: “I killed 10 Jews with my own hands. I’m using the dead Jewish woman’s phone to call you now.”
Only a really crazy conspiracy theorist with his underpants on his head would doubt that these terrible things are absolutely, shockingly real.∗
But there is one more thing …
The other obvious thing
Hamas planned this attack meticulously over months—almost certainly with Iranian support.
[3] Israeli intelligence failed comprehensively. But no, these are not that obvious, other thing. The second thing is the answer to the question “Why?”
One answer is “Because Hamas hate Israel, hate Jewish people, and want to erase Israel from the face of the Earth, as they have often declared”. This is almost certainly true, but it is too glib. It is not the answer. If you follow this reasoning, then Hamas are like a fox in a henhouse—ripping away until no living thing is left alive.
The problem with this glib answer is that it doesn’t make complete sense. Yes, of course those who killed 1400 Israelis and kidnapped many more did so with almost indescribable savagery. Yes, of course they went out of their way to document the bloodshed and atrocities. And yes, of course, this is a new low—by even the lowest imaginable standard.
But this is far less than half the story. Those who set up this atrocity surely knew how Israel would respond. They could predict that Israel would pummel Gaza. They invited a blockade, and an invasion by the Israeli army. So the correct answer to that “Why?” question is …
This is all going according to script
Hamas knew that this would result in a huge number of deaths of their own people in Gaza.
Hamas are hoping that thousands—or even tens of thousands—of their own people will die. They have planned for a bloody fight in Gaza, with civilians all around. They want this. They want large numbers of children to die in Gaza. This is part of the plan.
At least thirty Israeli children died. By 24 October 2023, two thousand three hundred and sixty children had died and over five thousand had been injured in Gaza. [4] This is precisely what Hamas want. It is part of their plan. It is surely what they predicted. They are malevolent—but they are not stupid. So then, why did they do this?
Why?
They knew that Benjamin Netanyahu would have no choice but to retaliate not just in kind, but on a vast scale. They knew that had he said something like:
We will not descend to their level. We will hunt down every single one of these terrorists, but we will do this in our own time. Not one will escape. We will move mountains to preserve international law, and protect innocent civilians …
… then he would have been labelled ‘weak’. He would have been out on his arse. The atrocities were so bad that people would have demanded an immediate military response from his successor. This is the main reason why the atrocities were quite deliberately so atrocious.
So thousands of children are dead, and thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians of all ages will still die. Quite according to the script that Hamas has laid out. They don’t care. In fact, it’s precisely part of the plan.
Now you asked:
Will people forget the massacre of innocent Jews by Hamas after seeing the Gaza attack?
No, of course not
That day will live in infamy. But it won’t matter.
Because the countries around Israel will also never, ever forget the vastly greater number of children who died. They will never forget Israel’s response. And here’s the truly terrible thing.
For every one who died, several more will spring up, their heart filled with hate for Israel. There are about two million people [5] packed into the Gaza strip. It’s like a vast kindergarten—and from this kindergarten, hundreds of thousands of people will emerge, and none of them will forget Israel’s actions.
Israel is running things entirely according to Hamas’ script. And when they deviate, they do so in the wrong direction …
A bonus for Hamas
Israel has even provided a few unanticipated bonuses that make things worse. For example, Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan has accused the Secretary General of the UN as follows:
[6] The UN Secretary-General, who shows understanding for the campaign of mass murder of children, women, and the elderly, is not fit to lead the UN. I call on him to resign immediately. There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people. There are simply no words.
This was in response to his speech on 24 October, [7] that went as follows:
I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel.
Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.
All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions. I respectfully note the presence among us of members of their families.
Excellencies,
It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.
The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.
They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.
But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
Another perhaps unexpected bonus for Hamas is how Israel has cut off supplies…
Fuel
By far the most important supply Israel has cut off is fuel. No, not water. Not food. Fuel. [8]
This is because the hospitals with their thousands of bomb-injured and crushed people need fuel to run. And water cannot be pumped (or even desalinated) without fuel. Oh yes. The Israelis also supply one third of the water to Gaza. And this has been cut off, too.
They are allowing a few percent of the supplies needed. This will result in multiple deaths, particularly of vulnerable people—the elderly, and children, and the sick.
The most disturbing bit
In the video clip associated with this post, the Israeli defence minister describes Palestinians as ‘human animals’—and says that this justifies cutting off food, fuel and water.
This is from the international playbook [9] of dehumanisation:
During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals.
In summary
So this is the way I see it. Israel has provided a knee-jerk response.
In consequence, their entire state may not survive. This will likely take a few decades to play out—but I think Israel has just signed its own death warrant in the blood of thousands upon thousands of the sick, the elderly, and children.
This is precisely what Hamas scripted. Israel has simply followed the script.
I find this all tragic beyond words.
My 2c, Dr Jo.
∗
It’s sad we even need to say this. But already the conspiracy nutters are out there in force.
Image was generated by Poe/StableDiffusion in response to the prompt “a fox in a henhouse with lots of feathers and blood”.
Based on my observations after having lived in most of the Anglosphere and in West Europe, I feel that many of the people from said countries would not consider Singaporeans “Native English Speakers”.
Which is pure snobbery, in my opinion. I guess they see themselves as the gatekeepers of who can or cannot be a native English speaker.
I have been to Singapore several times, and in the early part of my career, I was even seconded there.
While it’s true that there are many Singaporeans who grew up in a Chinese-speaking (or Malay-speaking, Tamil-speaking) household and might not have reached the level one would expect from a native English speaker, I also came across many Singaporeans (admittedly, I only worked with Chinese Singaporeans during my time there), the young ones, especially, who could only speak English.
Sure, they’re ethnically Chinese, but their Chinese is…. below even the rudimentary level. Like, if you ask them something very simple and basic like “Can you state the four cardinal directions in Mandarin?”… they can’t.
If they can’t even do something as simple and basic as that in Chinese, and their main language, the one they’ve been using since birth, is English – then how are they not native English speakers?
If you don’t consider them native English speakers – then the question becomes: So, what is their native language?
They can’t, or, to be generous, barely, speak or read Chinese. The only language they know is English.
Shouldn’t that, by definition, make them native English speakers?
Or is it really possible for someone to not be a native speaker of any language?
I would definitely consider this demographic of Singaporeans native English speakers, but, you know, I’m not one of the “gatekeepers” mentioned above, so my opinion might count for nothing.
Taking my morning shower, I felt a twinge of stomach pain. “Man, I’m really hungry!” I thought. “I’ve got to hurry up this shower and get some breakfast.”
Then I started to feel a little light-headed. I put my hand out and braced myself against the shower wall. I felt even more faint. “I could pass out and fall in here,” I thought. “I’d better get out.”
So I did, and as I was toweling off, I started to feel nauseated. I went to the toilet and threw up—blood! Holy shit! I called to my wife, “I’m vomiting blood.” She came and took a look; “You sure are!” It wasn’t a whole lot, about 30 ml of bright red blood and mucus, but it was scary as hell. I was hoping it was only an ulcer or something, but I couldn’t help thinking cancer, especially since a friend of mine had recently died of stomach cancer. It was mid-January and my daughter’s wedding was coming up in April. “I’m not going to make it to Nicole’s wedding,” I said to my wife.
The nausea passed. I finished drying off, laid down in bed, and fell asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up, I threw up more blood.
It turned out that it was in fact cancer. I had a rare type called GIST—gastrointestinal stromal tumor. There was a tumor in my upper stomach exactly the size of a billiard ball. But I’m writing this 7 years later. I lost very little stomach to the surgeon—only an area a little larger than a (U.S.) silver dollar—and I was eating at a fine Italian restaurant in Houston five days after the surgery, everything from red wine to tiramisu. I danced with my daughter at her wedding and I’m a grandfather now. I’ve been fine and very healthy since that surgery. Scared the hell out of me in 2010, though.
I hope never to have another bathroom experience as bad as that one.
Baby Poo
Huawei and Meituan announce collaboration to develop HarmonyOS ecosystem
Huawei and Meituan announced a comprehensive partnership to innovate industries, apply technologies, and develop businesses using HarmonyOS. Huawei will fully back Meituan in launching the development of native applications for HarmonyOS.
The announcement comes on the heels of Huawei’s HarmonyOS Next is expected to ditch Android app support as early as 2024. Several of Huawei’s self-developed OS concept stocks rocketed and hit the daily limit after the news was released, according to ChinaDaily.
Huawei partners with Meituan for HarmonyOS ecosystem
Meituan is a Chinese tech giant that offers a wide range of services, including food delivery, online grocery shopping, and ride-hailing. It is one of the most popular apps in China, with over 600 million active users.
Huawei’s confidence in its alternative ecosystem strategy on the mainland received a boost in late August when the company launched its Mate 60 Pro smartphone, its first 5G handset since the Mate 40 series was released in October 2020.
The Mate 60 Pro was met with strong public support, and Huawei became mainland China’s fastest-growing smartphone vendor in the third quarter of 2023.
Recently, multiple job applications in China have announced the launch of HarmonyOS app development. For example, 同程旅行_旅游_旅游线路_旅行_出国旅游_自驾游_周边游_旅游网站 (formerly known as Tongcheng) announced the launch of HarmonyOS native version App development, with plans to complete core version development by the end of 2023.
In addition, a number of internet giants, including Meituan, have listed several job openings related to HarmonyOS. For instance, Meituan publicized a variety of HarmonyOS-centric roles, such as Senior HarmonyOS Engineer and HarmonyOS Infrastructure Engineer.
According to data, as of August 2023, the HarmonyOS ecosystem boasted over 700 million devices and was supported by more than 2.2 million developers actively contributing to its development. By October 30th, the number of devices upgraded to HarmonyOS 4 had surpassed the hundred million mark.
The connection between “body count” and “cheating while married to a man”
They are still slowly trying to clean it up. The areas that were too dangerous are called Red Zones. Restrictions within the Zone Rouge still exist today. After the war, the French government declared a 460-square-mile area unfit for human habitation or development. It stretches roughly from Nancy through Verdun and onto Lille, with various non-contiguous zones so riddled with unexploded shells (many of them gas shells), grenades, ammunition, and human and animal remains that it was simply too dangerous to enter.
In the 1920s and ’30s, the government oversaw the planting of 36 million trees, mostly pine and spruce, in part of the Zone Rouge. This the Verdun forest.
The Department du Deminage, was created after the war. Over the decades, it has helped to reduce the extent of the Zone Rouge, destroying hundreds of thousands of munitions and chemical shells, and has returned some land to civilian and agricultural use. They calculate that they have 300 years work ahead of them before they have cleared the whole battlefield. French farmers collect a huge amount of unexploded ordnance, barbed wire, shrapnel, and bullets every year. It is called the “Iron Harvest.”
Some areas remain entirely off-limits, the soil so full of arsenic that 99 percent of all plants die. There is still the ever-present threat of unexploded shells. There are many ghost villages that were left abandoned after the war, deemed beyond repair. The bodies of roughly 80,000 soldiers whose bodies were never recovered are still there. The bomb depressions are still there.
I mean, that’s the simple, and charitable, way to put it.
The more complex answer is…less charitable.
Most people don’t have moral principles. They have a general set of guidelines they absorb from the society around them without really questioning too much. These guidelines are tribal in nature, and as often as not are more about marking in-groups and out-groups than about a coherent, consistent set of morals.
A great many people want to think of themselves as “good,” but aren’t particularly interested in thinking a lot about it, and particularly aren’t interested in sacrificing comfort or lifestyle for it.
And given that what passes for morality in many folks is actually a set of tribal signifiers, they most definitely aren’t willing to give up social standing for it.
In fact, I’ll wager you that more than a few people who truly consider themselves moral, scrupulous people willing to give up money for morals, will still toss their values aside the moment they involve loss of social standing.
We are social creatures. We need the support and approval of the people around us to survive. Not just in the sense of an income stream to keep ourselves fed and a roof overhead, but in the sense of a social group—without that, we suffer.
So yeah, confronted with social censure for not adopting the opinion of the people around them, most folks absolutely will surrender their values. Confronted with losing money for not adopting the opinion of the people around them, most folks absolutely will surrender their values. If you’re reading this, odds are pretty good you’re one social smear campaign or a few hungry days away from letting go of what you imagine to be your most cherished moral principles.
Originally Answered: What is the best case of “you just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?
Ooh yes this brings back the memories from the early 1980s.
A bunch of us went to the next town for a few drinks and a laugh. I seem to recall one of the lads (not me) was getting married so for reasons that won’t become apparent we trooped off to a bigger town 10 miles away instead of our own little town.
We walked into a quiet little pub, grabbed some drinks and sat down on a round table which perfectly suited our group of seven.
The pub was totally empty apart from us and the barman. It was very early in the evening.
A group of three guys walked in and one of them looked very angry. Big and mean he was too. They walked straight over to us and the angry guy looked directly at me.
Angry – You! You’re a big cunt. Let’s have a fight now. Outside!
Me – No thanks mate. We’re here on a lads’ night out and don’t want any aggro.
The lads – Nah come on mate. We just want a drink. Blah blah blah.
Angry – Come on you cunt. Let’s fucking fight now.
By now he’d walked around to my side of the round table. He was a big and very tough-looking guy and I really didn’t want a punch in the mouth off him. I was probably the biggest in our group at 1.90 metres and 110 kg but even so, I didn’t want to fight this big lummox.
Me – Listen mate…
Angry punched me in the side of the face so hard I thought my head had come off. Blood spurted out but no teeth. It hurt a lot and I just held my face thinking “what the hell do I do now?”
I didn’t have to do anything. Andy, who is a very slender and weedy and very sweet young friend of mine stood up.
Andy – No-one hits my mate. Big mistake.
Angry – Oh yeah. What you going to do about it you strip of piss?
Andy sent him sprawling across the next table with one perfect punch to the face. Angry got up and together with his two mates left the pub without another word being said.
The barman walked over and spoke to Andy.
Barman – Wow. That guy you just floored is the hardest guy in town!
Me – Not any more he isn’t. Cheers Andy.
My face hurt for ages but thankfully no serious damage. Andy was our new top mate of the group.
I was offered a $500/month truck allowance, by my employer, to use my own vehicle on service calls. I bought a used truck, for that purpose. I had to carry a $1 million liability insurance policy, due to some customer’s requirements, in order to drive on their property, too. Then, he changed the number to $250. I told him that wasn’t what he had originally told me. That Friday, he gave me a note, as I left to do service calls, and said to think about it. All it had on it was “$350”. Monday morning, I showed up early, and loaded EVERYTHING that belonged to me into my truck. When he showed up, I gave him my building keys. He wanted to know what was going on, and I said “I’m gone.” When he asked if that was how I negotiated, my reply was “I don’t negotiate with liars.”
I sent postcards to the customers I did work for, telling that I was no longer with that company, but was available to keep their equipment running. I was the ONLY one at that company who knew how the stuff worked, and all the repair business went to me. The company had to down-size, and then sold out to a competitor, so my old boss went from owning his own business, to being just another employee.
Too late! The U.S. allows South Korea to produce chips in China, and China is not doing it!
Too late for South Korea, the China ship has sailed.
On a regular basis? Taking a giant gas guzzling car and lifting it to make it even less fuel efficient.
The trucks you see here in America are so obnoxiously big and with callous disregard for global warming. It’s crazy when you drive around here in Florida: 70% or more of the cars are SUVs or Trucks. Literally, 70% or more.
It’s definitely a cultural thing but I wish it would go away. The guys in these lifted trucks are almost always the hyper aggressive drivers the push up behind you and lay on the horn and then flick you off as they go by.
But then, a few minutes later, I’ll see one of them pulled over by a cop. That’s always the most gratifying feeling.
US Supreme Court Tackles Game-Changing Social Media Censorship Case!
Well that’s exactly the thing. The point of attacking the harbor was so they could take on America. There are two reasons that Japan carried out the attack.
The Paper tiger
The Japanese referred to America as a “paper tiger.” What they meant by this was that their military was all bark and no bite, and if the fleet was destroyed there was no way America could come back. What the Japanese underestimated was America’s production capabilities. America was at the time of 1941 one of the largest and most efficient producers of the world, and while FDR was of the intention to stay out of the war, the factories of the United States were churning out tanks, rifles, planes, and ammo to the Soviets fighting the Wehrmacht in the Europe, and Britain fighting the blitz, the Italians and Germans in North Africa, and the Japanese in Burma, China, and Australia. US Shipyards were just as impressive, with destroyers and merchant marine ships built by the hundreds, sold to Britain to protect against the u boats tearing up the Atlantic trade. Japan made the mistake of underestimating the capabilities of US industry. When the US declared war on Japan in retaliation, production went towards building their own military, including the navy. The US navy numbered in the thousands, from the dozens of capital ships to the hundreds of destroyers and submarines, and all of the auxiliary ships and escorts included. In addition, right after the attack the navy raised most of the sunken ships in the harbor. Of the eight battleships we lost, five were raised and went back into the fight, one of them sunk on refloating, and only two of them remain there, USS Arizona and USS Utah. Pearl Harbor remains one of the greatest tragedies in US history, but because of America’s industrial might, it was not the end.
2. The target
From a tactical perspective, another reason for Japan’s attack was what they believed they would destroy and how it would impact the fleet. The Japanese’ main target was not the many battleships and destroyers that were stationed in Pearl Harbor, not the oil tanks, command, or airfields- These were very significant, and their destruction was all devastating to our efforts in getting in the fight, but the most important targets were but one part of the navy:
The US Carriers
It is often said by historians that Pearl Harbor was the end of the days of mighty battleships and battlecruisers and the dawn of the carrier. The six Japanese carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Zuikaku, and Shokaku, were the most important part of the Japanese fleet, and carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese knew that the US would only have a chance against the Japanese carriers with the carriers of their own. Therefore, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor believing that the US carriers were there. Fortunately for the US, and the Allies as a whole, the carriers were at sea, safe from the carnage. As a matter of fact, the battleship USS Utah was painted to look like a carrier from the sky, to train US dive bombers, and because of this saw some of the heaviest bombardment of all of the ships, being one of the ships unable to be raised from the bottom. The assessment that the US carriers were essential to the US staying in the fight proved correct. The US launched the Doolittle raid the following year, striking Tokyo for the first of many times in the war from the carrier USS Hornet. The Shoho was destroyed in the following battle of Coral Sea at the cost of the carrier Lexington, but where we really see the tide turn in the Pacific is Midway. The carriers USS Hornet, USS Enterprise, and USS Yorktown crippled the Japanese fleet by destroying Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu. This would not have happened if it wasn’t for the stroke of luck we had with our carriers out at sea when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor.
Admiral Yamamoto, the brilliant Japanese commander who was behind the attack, which I should say despite its failure to knock out America was still a well planned and impressive attack, astutely believed that a drawn out war with the United States would end in defeat, and despite his best efforts to prevent a drawn out war, he was correct. In the film portrayal of Yamamoto in Tora! Tora! Tora! He is quoted for saying:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve.”
Yamamoto was killed in April of 1943, and with the carrier might have Japan gone as well, the rising sun was doomed to set.
Men are GIVING UP on Women and their hypergamy
There is such a serious problem with RELATIONSHIPS in the West.
Her department acquired a new department head, a newly promoted V.P.
One of his first actions was to identify all of the highest paid (and most productive) managers and terminate them as a cost cutting measure. At that point managers at my wife’s level were considered “at will” employees and, as such, could be terminated at any time with or without cause.
In any case, the V.P. then proceeded to fill the vacant management positions with much lower paid and less qualified staff. All of this happened within a matter of hours on a Friday afternoon. My wife was understandably quite distressed when she got home that evening.
Over the weekend, though, my wife received a call from the executive V.P. who oversaw her department. He called from his home in Southern France late in the evening so he could speak to my wife in the mid afternoon here in SoCal. He asked her to please report to work as usual on Monday morning.
When she got to work on Monday everything was back to normal and the new department head was gone. Fired for incompetence.
My wife stayed with the company more than a dozen years after that. She was eventually terminated permanently after her department had been sold to a different company. This time, though, she received a rather generous golden handshake — 32 weeks severance pay — as she left for the last time.
This is why men are no longer approaching women; Top 10 reasons WHY
I never experienced unconditional love until I got a dog.
Very likely. Their recent MOU to develop semiconductor lithography, naval shipbuilding, marine nuclear reactors are just another episode in that relationship. The glue that binds them is energy and technology. China needs energy and Russia needs technology. Trade between both countries are growing exponentially, currently at about 40% per year. Russia recently announced it would allow China to build a container port in Vladivostok, another indication China is preparing to use the Arctic belt road via northern Russia.
My opinion: There could be a day when Russia buys warships from China. It has already begun with Russia buying a Chinese frigate. It could also be possible that Russia and China will jointly develop gen 6 and gen 7 fighters and bombers, reducing non-recurring costs. Russia needs ‘China speed.’ China needs Russia’s energy from oil/gas to uranium. It is also likely that Russia and China will standardize military calibers and weapons between them so interchangeability and user knowledge will be compatible between both countries. The SCO makes the case for this standardization to increase to SCO members.
Both are BRICS and SCO members and both organizations are growing which gives them more world influence.
It wasn’t exactly on accident. I worked in the office of a commercial laundry business and they asked me to come in on a Saturday to mail out the monthly bills. During the time I was there the assistant manager came in and started hitting on me. He kept urging me to “go in the back and make out”. I refused and soon one of the drivers came in and he had to go talk to the driver. I finished up with the bills and went home. I told my boyfriend “Well, I don’t think I will be working there very ling”. Sure enough the next Tuesday I was let go for some “bookkeeping errors” that weren’t errors and I had been doing them for months without any problems.
What men and women want
Creole Meatloaf and Macaroni
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 onion, minced
1/2 green bell pepper, minced
2 tablespoons butter
1 (28 ounce) can tomatoes
1 1/4 cups elbow or broken macaroni
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 to 1 1/2 cups meat loaf, cubed*
Seasoned salt and pepper
Instructions
Cook onion and green bell pepper in butter for 2 or 3 minutes.
Add next four ingredients and 1 cup water. Bring to boil and simmer, covered, about 1/2 hour, stirring frequently.
Add meat loaf and seasoned salt and pepper to taste. Heat through.
Notes
* Use leftover meat loaf.
What will these snowflakes do when things get REALLY tough? We haven’t even started yet.
For a serf: It sure beats being a slave. You are treated as a human being, you have your law-encoded rights and responsibilities, your taxes usually were reasonable and your lord had the responsibility to protect you and provide a free access to the castle. He also had the responsibility to provide you work and livelihood, and if he abused you, you had the legal right to flee to a town.
For a freeman (franklin or yeoman): You had the right to your life, body and livelihood, you could freely carry weapons outside a town, you did not pay rent to a lord and you could choose your profession. And should things go sour, you could freely move to a town.
For a town dweller: Towns were semi-independent domains who often were subordinate to the king alone, and while working can give you living, trade will make you wealthy. Townspeople usually were richer than countrypeople, and towns were bastions of freedom.
For a clergyman: You are the subject of the Mother Church and Father Pope alone, and nobody else. You are no more a subject of the lord, the king or the emperor. You will learn how to read and write, and you are free to pursuit your intellectual tendencies. If you join the Cistercian order, there are good chances you become a great engineer.
For a civil servant: You are the subject of the King alone, and nobody else. Same as with the church on intellectual pursuits, but you also may marry and have kids.
For a nobleman: You are first and foremost a soldier. You practice martial arts and train for war, military skills, leadership skills, equestrian skills and anything needed to serve in arms. You are exempt of taxes because upkeeping a military lifestyle is expensive. Your life is likely to be violent, nasty, brutish and mercifully short, but you might become a knight and a lord one day if you avoid that.
For a lord: You are a semi-independent ruler of your domain, and you are the lord and the hidalgo. You owe allegiance to the King alone, and you either pay it in taxes or serve 30 days in his service. Your main profession is to be the supervisor of the peasants who work on your estate, and maintain the balance between overworking them and providing them decent livelihood. Sorry, no ius primae noctis – that is an Age of Enlightment myth.
For a King: Think positively. You do not have the same absolute power as the sultans and czars in despotism, but neither you will face the same chances of getting assassinated or ousted or mutilated as they experience, and you do not need to kill your little brothers to ensure the throne. It is a good idea to run the country as a family enterprise – give important tasks to your younger siblings – and use the most talented of the lords as civil servants. Just maintain the balance between Church, Lords and Commoners, and you will do just fine.
If you are asking me personally, what is my biggest regret, I would have to say that I regret not taking more pictures of things I did when I was younger, and not documenting the adventures I had.
I find that after 50+ years on this earth, I remember bits and pieces of my life, but there are big chunks of my life that I cannot recall, so having more pictures of those events and having a documented record of those activities would be something that would truly bring me joy, being able to remember more of the life I lived.
My international company failed to have routine office supplies at our US location. Entirely. No office supplies.
So one day I needed a new pen. There were, of course, none. But rather than going out and buying my own at a local store, I decided to order one just to be ornery.
So I filled out the formal requisition form for one pen. I justified it (I wrote stuff and my old pen was empty), then used the proper channels to submit the requisition. The form:
Traveled from my California office to the main US branch office in Boston.
Boston routed the form to their home branch office in London.
London sent the form to the main International headquarters in Paris.
Paris approved the req. then…
Cut out one layer of bureaucracy by sending the approved form direct to Boston (the Paris and London offices hated each other)
Boston sent the approved req. back to my office.
I was then able to go out and buy one pen at corporate expense from the local store.
I was tempted to ask for a sheet of paper next, but Boston eventually decided to fund a small office supply in our location.
Oh. The Internet was around, but I should add that the original requisition form was hard copy. A piece of paper. That form physically travelled from California to Boston to London to Paris back to Boston then back to my office before I bought my pen.
This is what the Nile looks like when it goes through Sudan
This is The Sudd. It’s Arabic for “barrier”. It’s also part of the Nile. It’s also much bigger than what you see here. It’s not much better even when it floods. Imagine you’re an explorer in, well, any time really and you come across this. The Ancient Egyptians tried to navigate past it for centuries. They utterly failed. Then the Romans decided to have a go at it. They failed too. Europeans tried in the 19th century. They had no better luck.
And where there’s swamp, there’s malaria. Good luck with that.
Europeans only found the source because they decided to avoid it entirely and attack it from the other direction, exploring into Central Africa. That’s not much easier.
Richard Burton decided to make a go of it. He started in lovely civilized Zanzibar and worked his way overland until he found Lake Tanganyika. “Eureka” he exclaimed, “I have found the source of the Nile”.
However, the guy he brought along with him, John Speke, told him he was nuts. Tanganyika was too low and too small to account for the fact that the Nile never ran dry. Burton told him was an idiot and they returned to England triumph…. no, wait, the scientific community wasn’t convinced.
So Speke got to go on his own expedition. He turned north instead and found the much larger and much bigger Lake Victoria.
He returned to England well, not triumphant, but with enough good data to get funding for another expedition to try to make it to the Sudd and not only did he do that, he found another source of the river that met up in the Sudd, what we now call the “White Nile” as opposed to the larger source flowing out of Lake Victoria, the “Blue Nile”.
So, Speke gets the credit, literally for “connecting the dots”.
Image: Me sitting on my porch at my home in the Central Valley of California.
Well as a disabled person, I am legally blind the cruelest thing, in my opinion, was not said with words.
Deeds speak out loud and clear.
I took a class on a subject of interest to me.
The teacher with a happy smile in her voice told me she had a special place in class for people like me.
It was the back corner, furthest away from all of the others in the class.
Total isolation. I could hear the other members of the class, I could see the shadows o of the other members of the class.
When the class had a pot luck of snacks at the last week of class, somehow I didn’t get the e-mail to ask me to take in something. So I didn’t.
Then no-one actually told me directly that there were snacks available nor did they come over and tell me about the pot-uck offerings.
Though they did make quite a bit of a racket, going back and too to the snacks tables and telling each other who had brought which items.
Another classmate came to the class in about the second week and was sat close by in the same corner. She only attended one week and disappeared. She was profoundly deaf. We could chat okay as she could lip read. But as for interacting with the class it was difficult.
Me being bloody minded as I am, finished the class. I paid good money so I wasn’t going to surrender to unspoken insults.
Biden Angry, Calls Xi ‘Dictator’, US Business Applauds Xi; US Isolated UN SC; Sullivan Sleepless
Very good, and clearly explains the Geo-political situation today.
I was fired on the day I was going to hand in my resignation.
I hated the company: boss played favorites, personnel feedback was nonexistent, and they were very stingy with vacation time, even if you earned the days.
The third point I found out too late. After earning 10 days of personal time, I requested for time off six months ahead. Not only was it declined, I also got a stern talking-to by the same boss who played favorites.
I was so pissed off that I started looking for a job that very same night.
Within two weeks, I got an offer from a company I interviewed the previous year who kept my résumé in the active bin.
I moved my vacation date to the next month, upped the number of days, and got a business class ticket. I printed a resignation letter once I signed the offer at the new job.
The next day, I cared not an iota at work. I was just waiting for 5:00 so that I can hand in my two weeks.
4:30pm came and I got an email from the boss. I was being let go. They didn’t really say why (not that I cared) but they were going to give me a full month’s pay to help me find a new job.
i cleared out my desk, gave a quick thanks to my boss (co-workers have left at this point), and screamed when I got to my car.
I got the final pay the week after, then collected unemployment for a few weeks, and had a bloody fantastic time on vacation.
Growing up in Florida, we used to play at the beach almost every day. At least once or twice a week, we’d be building sandcastles, or kicking the surf when we’d watch a tourist with wide eyes knowing what’s to come…
I’m an empath, and often tried to warn them. As a pudgy six year old however; I wasn’t usually fast enough. By the time I’d be close enough to yell “don’t touch that!!”, the elderly tourist or drunk college kid was already screaming in agonizing pain! The Portuguese man o’ war looks like a shiny blue balloon, or plastic grocery bag. The venom is insanely painful. I watched about a dozen people pee on each other by the time I was 8.
Pretending you are not hungry when going to an expensive restaurant with friends, because you can’t actually afford to order food there.
Acting like you don’t like after-school sports, because you have to bolt to your after-school job, so you have lunch money and bus fares.
Pretending that family commitments prevent you from going on the school trip. You know there’s no way you can pay for it.
Declining invitations to weddings because you don’t have proper clothes to wear and because you have no way of getting there either.
Spending an extra hour in the supermarket so you can make the best choices with the $28 you have for food for a full week.
Listening with horror as co-workers trash the boss who only gave each a $20 gift Visa card. You, on the other hand, are silent and also excited beyond words – you plan to get much needed shoes, a winter coat, and a backpack at the Goodwill store.
Having teeth pulled, which should instead be filled and capped, because it costs one-tenth this way.
Talking to supervisors in chain food stores to find out what they do with damaged food. (Poor people know these stores often have a place where you can go to collect it.)
Adding water to the quart bottle of milk to stretch it.
Taking home unused sugar packets, tea bags and napkins from the fast food place and feeling grateful for them.
These are my memories of being poor. Although I am no longer poor, these memories keep me grateful, and, more importantly, I will always understand the behavior of those whose actions are continually checked by empty pockets.
After Denmark surrendered to the Nazis in April 1940 the status of Iceland was ambiguous. Although Iceland was an independent state, it’s ‘personal union’ with Demark, and dependence on Denmark for its defence and foreign relations, potentially meant it could be occupied by Germany. Its strategic location astride Britain’s Atlantic supply route to the United States made it vital to the United Kingdom’s security.
Britain invited Iceland to join the war as any and, when they rejected this, plans were made to occupy the island. Four Royal Navy ships led by HMS Berwick (above) deposited 745 Royal Marines in Iceland who met no resistance from the Icelandic police force, who were the only permanent armed presence on the island.
Iceland was occupied first by a British Division, then by elements of two Canadian Divisions and then by a brigade of US Marines. The latter arrived in June 1941, a whole six months before the United States officially join the war. This was one of Roosevelt’s most partisan decisions and greatly helped the British war effort as the Canadians could be sent to Britain, where eventually they would take part in the Dieppe raid and the battle for Normandy. Roosevelt sent the Marines as, being part of the US Navy, they were under his direct control, whereas sending the US Army would have required the approval of Congress, which was uncertain. The occupation of Iceland was not always popular with the locals, but one benefit of it was the construction of Rejkjavik airport.
Although planes and ships based in Iceland saw action, the garrison itself saw no action. There were, however, casualties as a result of the Icelandic climate and terrain. A five man patrol of the Kings Own Yorkshire Infantry were lost to the elements, for example. Despite the cold though, there were definitely worse places to spend the Second World.
NOTE
A lot of people have asked why the US Army couldn’t be deployed before war broke out. The answer is complicated, but it’s due to a policy decision rather than an act of the Constitution. Here are the details:
“At the same time, the War Plans Division raised inquiry concerning the effect of the legal restrictions that prohibited the National Guard, members of the Reserve, and men drafted under the Selective Service Act from serving outside the Western Hemisphere and which limited their terms of military service to a period of twelve months. For purposes of naval defense the President had placed the Atlantic frontier of the western world, quite arbitrarily, along the 26th meridian, which excluded the whole of Iceland. [25] The question was one of policy, not geography; and if policy for the moment dictated a course of exclusion, circumstances at any future time might well prescribe a change in policy. Whatever concern was felt during these first days in June seems to have arisen over the time limit rather than the controversial geographical restriction. On this basis it was entirely rational for the Chief of Coast Artillery to observe that selectees would have to be used in constituting the harbor defense regiment proposed as part of the Iceland garrison. In any event the problems posed by the legal restrictions did not seem insuperable as long as the 1st Division was being considered for the nucleus of the force. Although 75 percent of the officers of that division had been drawn from the Reserve, it was presumed that most of them would volunteer for duty in Iceland. The problem, in this respect, was considered to be one of maintaining secrecy. As for enlisted men, only a “small percentage” of them were selectees, and only about 10 percent of the men of the two antiaircraft regiments-the 61st and 68th-were subject to the restrictions written into the Selective Service and National Defense Acts. “
We were once renting a house and saving money towards a down payment to buy, when the owner came and told us he had to sell and had already and we had to be out by the end of the week. We refused since our lease guaranteed us 30 days. The new owner said that lease was void and had our utilities turned off. So as a goodbye gift, we went to the store and bought some old fish and 10 cans of cat food. There was a fireplace in the basement built of brick and had come separated from the back wall. We dropped the fish behind that. The cans of cat food, we opened and placed in crawl spaces throughout both floors of the house.
Well, according to my ex girlfriend of 40 years ago, I am blind, because I didn’t notice that the hostess, had sat down next to me, leaned in close to talk in a loud room, laughed at my jokes (hey, I’m funny) and played with her hair.
My girlfriend said it was so obvious she was about to throw up. Guys are oblivious.
Steve Jobs sold all but one of his stocks in Apple when he left in 1985, when Apple stock was at an all time low. He founded NeXT and was the majority owner when Apple bought the company, though at that point he was almost out of money, on the brink of bankruptcy. He also bought Pixar and it has been rolling out blockbusters every other year for 20 years. He also invested in other companies. Toy Story alone made Steve Jobs a billionaire because Pixar was publicly traded company.
Woz on the other hand gave away a lot of his stock. He financed more than a few huge rock concerts that lost a lot of money. He started a company making remote controls that failed and lost money. He got divorced more than a few times. He helps old Apple employees that are out of luck and deal with sickness. He gives away a lot of his money. But you don’t need to worry about him, he still has a lot and he is according to everyone who actually knows him, a super nice guy. He was never in it to have money, he just wanted a computer that he could fiddle with.
China Warns US “Don’t Try THIS” As Biden Prepares To Hug Xi
Just develop the smart bombs to change the equation from MAD to MGD – i.e., from the “old-fashion-not-so-accurate assured” to the “IoT-satellite-guided guaranteed” way of mass destructure.
These are the AI-enabled hypersonic bombs that cannot be defended against and only a few hundred launched from a control center are needed to completely annihilate the entire country the size of Russia, China or the U.S. Then the 5,000-plus warheads in the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the U.S. would become redundant and useless.
Even the triad security concept of land, air and sea delivery system becomes redundant. No need for those expensive bombers and subsmarines to deliver nuclear warheads as backup when those smart ICBMs can do the job.
The calculus for disarmament becomes very straightforward and simple.
War can be so simple when you know its guaranteed and forever.
And isn’t it why Biden is trying to deny China our advanced chips?
We were in a beautiful relationship for about 3 years. And then suddenly she over texts, broke up with me. No explanation given. Like every other guy, I cried, pleaded for just one reason, and all she said was it’s over, I don’t want to be with you. She has changed her college a month before the break up. And like I suspected she fell out of love with me because there is new guy who approached her. Quite similar to everyone’s love story. Lol
Anyway, I was literally shattered, and broken. I couldn’t believe the girl I thought to be my future left me in such a dire condition.
It’s been three years since she is gone. Yesterday, I got a phone call from her at 2am. Basic points from the calls were:
She was unhappy, crying profusely over the phone. She said she don’t have anyone to trust and talk to, except me. And yes, I talked to her because pretty much I loved her too much.
She said the guy cheated her, and when asked him for a breakup, he said he will going to kill her, he abused and hit her off. And she thought everybody will leave silently like me.
I asked her to do a police complain, she said, she doesn’t want her parents to know, she is stucked.
After few minutes on call, she was laughing, talking to me as if we were never separated, I was wondering how easy the things are for girls.
Then she told me even before her father and brother, I am the person she trust and respect the most. I was flattered but I knew, it’s no more important.
I was again at ground zero, I felt happy talking to her, but the wounds were yet fresh.
I tried not to make her feel bad and bid her bye.
Today I Changed my phone number, and email id!
I do love her a lot, still? Yes. But I cannot give her the power to destroy me again.
One day, I had a woman come into my checkout line and wanted to buy ALL the $1.00 Bic cigarette lighters at the checkout stand.
Between the two sets of lighters, she was purchasing about 35–40 lighters.
I was then ringing up all the rest of the completely full shopping cart of stuff she got in line with. At the end, she then handed me a bunch of coupons.
I was already on guard because buying so many lighters was very unusual. I looked at the coupons and there was a whole stack of them that were for $4.00 off of a $6.00 Lady’s Bic shaver.
She never purchased any shavers, and I told her these coupons could not be used, as she did not have the item.
She said they were for the lighters. I told her, “No, this is for 4 dollars off the shaver, not the lighters.”
She insisted that it would accept, and scan for, the lighters, too. I agreed. I told her I knew it would, but it was because of an error in the coupon codes, and it was not deliberate. We had been made aware of the error and did not accept it. She persisted in telling me that if it scanned, we had to accept it.
“No, Ma’am,” I said. “The coupon has to be for the item the coupon is for, not something else.”
What she was attempting to do was get 4 dollars off a 1 dollar item, giving her a negative 3 dollar balance with every lighter purchased. With about 40 lighters, that would leave her total at -120.00 dollars, which then got balanced out with all the rest of the items in her cart. Had I not paid attention to the actual coupons and just blindly started scanning them, not only would she gotten 40 dollars’ worth of lighters free, she would have gotten over 120 dollars’ worth of other merchandise completely free without paying a single cent.
I told her that what she was attempting was theft. She got irate and claimed it was not theft because she was not trying to take the items out without purchasing them. I told her that was exactly what she was doing by running what she knew to be a scam.
She then did not want to buy any of it, and wanted me to void off all the items.
That is when I got rather devilish myself. I told her quietly that no, she was going to buy everything rung up, as-is, without the scam, or that I would be calling the police for her to be charged with theft of well over 180 dollars’ worth of merchandise.
Either she got charged with theft, or bought what she wanted to buy at the correct total. But, it was not getting voided.
She bought it all.
I never saw her in the store again. Before that, she had been a semi-regular customer, always holding up the checkout as she constantly scammed coupons for far more than what the coupons were supposed to allow.
can’t do the 15th,” John said. “Can we push it back two weeks?” I looked at my calendar, trying to align the dates with our friend Derrick. Then, after finding a great window, John came back with another complication. I rubbed my temples in frustration.
I’m 40 and most of my friends are married and buried in toddlers. They also live in other cities. I try to arrange a trip each year, but coordinating it feels like pushing a boulder up a mountain. Beyond the scheduling conflicts, I’m in competition for their PTO with grandparents and extended family.
As a kid, it was all so simple. The only prerequisite for new friends was the spirit of play. If the other person was down, and nice, they became friends. In college, it was all about who I partied with and saw the most frequently. Everyone was so social. Then, this blur of obligations pulled us all apart.
As social primates, friendships are central to our health and happiness. Yet so many of us are painfully lonely and it isn’t entirely our fault. Since the 1950s, sociologist have asserted that modern life makes it difficult to meet the three conditions for close friendships: proximity, repeated and unplanned interactions, and an environment that encourages people to confide in each other.
Which is why it feels so forced to be planning hangout trips months in advance. It feels like I’m scrambling to keep legacy friendships on life support. I can scarcely plan to meet for dinner with people without complications.
In school and college, it was so easy because there was endless time for socializing, and we were all on top of each other in dorms and classrooms. And, we didn’t have real bills and adult problems. So how can we make more friends as adults?
Converting new friends
Per one study, it takes 40–60 hours within the first six weeks of meeting someone to turn them from an acquaintance into a casual friend. It takes another 80 to 100 hours to elevate them to true friend status. Which feels like a ton of time as a career driven person. But these connections can be built up over longer stretches.
The obvious answer for me was work, back when I had an office job. But the people at my office weren’t necessarily the people I wanted to spend my time with. Sometimes, we just have to work with what is in front of us. It can even boost competency. Researchers found that doctor coworkers who became friends, performed better at their job. A personal connection and trust can boost performance in team environments.
In March of 2020, four teens were stuck on a boat in Cuba. They’d intended to fly back to the Netherlands. Then the pandemic struck and they decided to sail home. The intensity of spending weeks on the boat together, working to navigate as a team, turned them all from strangers into close friends. One friend said, “Being around someone 24 hours a day, you tell them everything. You don’t do that when you are home.”
My friend, who went to prison in his early 20s after being caught up with a bad crowd, said the same thing happened during his five year stint. Today, he is doing fine and in his late 40s, but is still friends with his former cellmates.
The challenge is that we apply more filtering mechanisms with age. We often filter people out by political views, social class, and do so without realizing it. It’s useful to be attuned to what you want in a friend, but beware of letting this turn into snobbish gatekeeping.
Getting a grip on potential friends
One study used Christmas cards in Western society to approximate social networks and estimated each of us have around 121 acquaintances. Other studies have found wide variances from this number. But it is exceedingly rare for anyone to have zero acquaintances.
These acquaintances are potential friends and not to be dismissed. Weak ties, as sociologists call it, are still great for mental wellbeing even if it is just a brief conversation. Today, I found out my beloved gym of seven years is closing. The owner, Joe, let me in for a final workout, even though the lights were off and they were cleaning up. We found time to chat about life and his decision to quit. I’ve always enjoyed talking to him so we exchanged phone numbers to potentially hang out. The other option is to reconnect with older friends you haven’t spoken to in years.
Accept that rekindling friendships is just more work in adulthood. Remember when your buddy got their first girlfriend or boyfriend and stopped hanging out? That’s everyone now. If you have a partner, it’s worth thinking through which potential friend has a partner who would vibe with them.
Also, practicing “self-disclosure”, or opening up about your life, is proven to boost connections with people. One study found three great insights about disclosing. One, people who give more intimate disclosures tend to be more liked than those who don’t. Two, people disclose more to those they like. And three, people like you more after you disclose. This comes with a caveat: don’t make it too personal, too soon. Avoid mud slinging from your divorce and giving play-by-plays from the bedroom.
The importance of maximizing time
My buddy has two kids and said he has one hour of total free time each weekday, and that when he finally gets that hour, he is desperate to decompress and have some time alone. Yet he also wishes we hung out more. This is a common theme around the country. People are lonely and crave more connection. Operate with this assumption, rather than starting from the assumption of someone judging or not liking you.
Remember to think about the places you frequent, and the potential friends you could make and maintain through those interactions. List out a few acquaintances and consider upgrading them. The key with any of these people is to also do things outside the place you regularly see them.
If you don’t see people on a regular basis, consider joining a club or taking up a hobby that involves other people. Then, get to work. Initiating doesn’t have to be heavy. Just something as simple as, “We should hang out some time.”
Lastly, be real and have conversations. Don’t spend 45 minutes talking about the weather. Vulnerability has a mutually boosting likability effect. You’ll both be happier in the end.
Don’t say “I am here if you need anything” when being more specific will truly help. “I am coming over tomorrow to drop off some soup” is way better.
Don’t glance over someone’s shoulder when they are in the middle of a story that matters to them.
Don’t look at your phone at all when you are spending time with someone.
On a plane if your seat is tight don’t recline it. Also, let the person squeezed in the middle seat use both arm rests.
Be extra nice if someone is serving you: giving you a manicure, bringing you food, preparing you a drink. Also please don’t hit on them. They are not charmed. They are serving you.
If anyone says “you hurt my feelings” the only correct response is “I am listening.” Not “I didn’t intend that” or “I was joking” or “wow you are sensitive.”
If you can make someone’s day a bit smoother, please do.
People want to feel heard more than they want advice.
People want to feel seen more than they want to be fixed.
People want to be sincerely complimented more than they want constructive criticism.
Say thank you a lot. Say it all the time. Add why you are saying it. “You always get my coffee just right. Thank you.” “You make my day sunnier. Thank you.” Thank you for reading, sharing and commenting on what I write. It encourages me. It makes my day.
American Couple React “America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much Better”
Sometimes the simple and mundane are the things that we remember, and the memories that we cherish.
The very last ice cream that I shared with my father occurred about two months prior to his death. It was nothing “special”. We were riding in the car together, and he saw a Dairy Cream restaurant and suggested that we get an ice cream cone. They had “orange creamcicle” on sale, so he bought us two and we ate them outside in the warm September sun.
To outsiders, it was just two grown men eating ice cream outside, and really there was nothing overly special about that event.
But for me, it was a memory that I will always treasure.
Enjoy what you experience. because it is all so fleeting….
I was broke and had just received a food stamp card. In the grocery store I picked up about $8 worth of food. Standing in line I took the card out of my wallet, noting the lonely $20 bill that represented my net worth. When my turn came I swiped the card and waited. The clerk said “I’m sorry but there is only $1 available on your card.” I was in shock, because this was my first time using it. Falling back on my fine command of the language, I said nothing. I was confused, embarrassed, and a little sick. Finally I just backed away mumbling that I must have left my money on my yacht. As I was leaving a man stopped me and said, “you just dropped this $20 bill” and handed it to me. I thanked him profusely for his honesty. I also thought what a careless idiot I was. I managed to fumble away the last of my money and only the honesty of a stranger saved me. Well I stopped at another store on the off chance some mistake had been made at the first place, and that turned out to be the case. With tremendous relief I started to put the card and my recovered bill in my wallet. I found to my amazement that my original $20 was still there. I realized that the stranger had given me the bill, while preventing my embarrassment or any refusal of his generosity. This is not meant as a greatest example of kindness, but to mention that a major part of his gift was the lift it gave my spirit to know of such kind and generous people. The last thing you need during hard times is cynicism.
It’s a nice place. I lived there for eight years (2012–2020) and miss it a bit, now that I’m back in Britain. What shocks me so much is the hideous, made up distortion of news reporting about it in the West, But I suppose that the US has to get something for the $400m Congress has voted for anti-China propaganda. It is just humiliating that it gets so much and so few push-backs.
When I was 9 years old, my mom surprised me and my little sister with a trip to Florida. We live in the Midwest, so any spring break trip to somewhere warm is greatly appreciated. I was so exited to have a story to tell my friends when I got back to school. One night, my best friend’s parents came over to talk to mine. They moved to the driveway, and told my sister and I to stay inside. While they were talking I heard my dad’s text notification. He had left his phone inside. Curious, I looked at what the message said. I cant quite remember what that message said, but when I scrolled up, I read a message I should not have seen. It was from my friends dad, who was now standing in the driveway. It read,
“do your girls know ours are coming on the trip, too?” “No, we are going to surprise them”, was the reply from my dad.
I was so shocked! My best friend and her sister were coming to Florida with me! I worked so hard to conceal the fact that I ruined the surprise, up until we were at the airport. We got out of the car, and my friend was there, so excited that she got surprised. I faked a reaction, but I was so mad at myself for ruining what my parents worked so hard to keep hidden. I haven’t told a soul to this day.
You need to seek counseling. Negative people are often happier with negative people. Then you can both talk about the worst case scenario, or see the cup as half empty. I have friends like this, and I try to only hangout with them in a group, so I don’t get to depressed.
Yet my friend is truly happiest when he can complain about something. Even if he has to really reach for the negative. Like I made a ton of money last year and paid off my debts, but when you make that much money, so much of the extra money just goes to taxes. Then a half hour rant on taxes.
I am truly happiest when I am positive. My wife is the most upbeat person I know, next to her, I am a gloomy gus.
Find out if you can be happy, if you have a positive attitude, if so get counseling and save your relationship. If not, cut him loose, and find someone who likes to complain about things.
Returning from a service call in Honolulu, the lady in front of me at the TSA line had serious trouble lifting her (obviously very heavy) carry-on onto the x-ray conveyor. It set off all sorts of alarms when it went through, and the TSA guy did a manual inspection as a result. When he opened it up, the suitcase’s contents were revealed: it was completely full of cans of Spam (the processed meat product). I was absolutely convinced that they actually contained something more nefarious and that she’d likely be arrested, but the TSA guy simply zipped the case back up and sent her on her way.
I was next in line, and, noticing the puzzled look on my face, the TSA guy explained that Spam is considered a gourmet delicacy in Japan, where it sells for around 3–4x what it does in Hawaii. As a result, there is a steady flow of Japanese tourists to the islands, who pretty much pay for their vacations by doing what she did. I was born and raised in the UK, where Spam has a reputation for being gross and disgusting, and something you would only eat if you can’t afford any nicer form of protein.
Management was changed and they appointed new guys ex consultant of the company who pretend know everything – based on the textbook. I am the last two managers that stay in the company when management changed.
So, this new guy did all micro management you can imagine to make most of the people left very nervous and stressful. I managed to stay for another few months until I have felt enough is enough.
Just few days before I intended to put my resignation letter, this new guys and HRD call me to the meeting room and let me go with severance payment – a payment package…
What a wonderful world it was and few friends that knew I am about to gave up congratulate me for being fired…..LOL
This is something I learned very early in my career. I always feel thankful for my former boss who taught me this lesson.
How to ask questions.
The first day I joined the company, after handing me all my personal devices and necessary office items, he led me to my cubicle and told me to self-study the system and come back to him by the end of the working day with questions. So I did. I brought back my two-page-long questionnaire and handed it to him. He read it, then told me to sit down. “Alright, question one, ‘What does (feature) x do?’”, he read my question out loud, “What do you think it does?”, he asked. I answered him with the thoughts I gathered when I studied the system. “Correct!”, he said, “Now, you see, with the way you first asked the question, if I answered it, it would have taken me five minutes to answer, but if you had asked ‘Does x do this’ including what you’ve learned, it would take me just seconds to answer ‘Correct!’ and I also would know that you actually studied and understood it. When you ask questions that you need answers to, make sure it takes the least time for the person you ask to answer. Yes/No is preferred.”
I took that advice seriously.
Instead of asking ‘What does that mean?’, I ask ‘Does that mean [my understanding]?’. Instead of ‘What should we do in this situation?’, I ask ‘In this situation, I propose the solution as below, do you have any directions or adjustments?’. Instead of ‘What time do you want the meeting to be?’, I ask ‘I checked your calendar, you have three open slots x, y, z; which one do you want to set up the meeting with Mr. A?’
This lesson has been a great help in my work, not just with my bosses, but also with other team members/ clients as well.
Cajun Sausage Roast
Ingredients
Roast
1 (3 pound) pork loin roast
1 pound smoked Cajun sausage
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 small green bell pepper, chopped fine
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 cup cold water
2 to 3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet
Seasoning Mix
Granulated garlic
Dried chives
Parsley flakes
Black Pepper
Salt
Instructions
Seasoning Mix
Mix granulated garlic, chives, parsley flakes and black pepper to make seasoning mix. Add salt to mix.
Roast
Cut the whole loin into smaller roasts, about 6 inches long. Cut a hole through the center of each roast, along the center axis of the roasts and insert the sausage. If the cross-section of the roast is big enough, cut two parallel holes. Open the holes to the size of the smoked sausage and pour about 1 tablespoon Seasoning Mix into the long holes and push something through the roasts to distribute the seasoning. Slide the smoked sausage through the longitudinal holes in the roasts until about 1 inch of sausage protrudes from each end.
Dust inside and outside with seasonings and salt. Allow to sit and marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Place the roasts on a rack inside a covered roaster.
Pour the cut-up onion and bell pepper into bottom of roaster and place, uncovered, in a 425 degrees F oven for approximately 30 minutes or until seared lightly on the outside.
Cover roaster and continue to cook with a meat thermometer until done inside, about 160 – 165 degrees F on meat thermometer.
Remove roasts, trim end faces of excess sausage and chop fine.
Add cornstarch dissolved in cold water.
Add soy sauce and thicken sauce over medium heat.
Adjust color of sauce with Kitchen Bouquet and adjust seasonings.
After I left the workforce, my wife continued working. I normally waited to get up until after she left to keep out of the way. This oneorning, I hear the door close as she is leaving. I get up heading in to start the coffee. On stepping into the kitchen the 1st thing I see is her phone on the charger. Run to the window to see her on the road and gone. I run back to the bedroom to grab my phone to call her to come back and get her phone. When her phone rings I compound the idiocy thinking who would be calling her this early? They need to get off the phone so…she…can…answer…my…call. Then to cap it all, as I’m closing my phone cancelling the call, I’m looking around to see if anyone saw me. 2 of the cats were dying laughing and the other 2 shaking their heads as if thinking what an idiot.
I’d been laid off at a position that did not pay well, but the work was easy. I was interviewing with this other company, and the guy (owner? one of the owners?) would not proceed with the interview unless I filled in my salary from my previous job, so I did.
He offered $3K more per year.
BUT… whereas my old job was 37.5 hours per week, this guy was expecting 55–60 hours per week. The benefit was that they were a small company, and their product was going to be big, and I’d be one of the people who benefited when someone big bought out the product.
Calculating the hours, I told him that, on a per-hour basis, he was offering me between 69% and 76% of what I was getting at the previous job, to which he restated his script about getting in on the ground floor.
A few days later, I got another, much better offer. It was an hourly contract, but 84% MORE than the previous job, and about 2–1/2 times (per hour) what he was offering. I took it.
A day or two after that, he called asking if I was still interested, and I told him I took another position “at MUCH higher pay,” I said, and definitely put the weight/emphasis on the word much. I didn’t tell him how much, but again, he tried to sell me on his “Getting in on the ground floor” shtick.
I couldn’t believe he was still trying to sell me on that.
Two juicy 100% U.S. Beef patties with two slices of melted American cheese.
Sandwiched with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and A&W classic sauce all on a lightly toasted bun… it doesn’t get better than this – we believe!! Because our country imported almost everything in the old days. (And still do very much in 2023).
1963 in fact was the year that put American popular food into our collective psyche.
Now here’s a genuine all-American brand serving all-American fare. And Malaysians fell in 💕💕😘 with new food that truly touched the hearts.
1963 was the first time that burgers were sized ‘papa, mama, baby burger’ – 🥰 cute! (Come to think of it, burgers don’t exist before A&W Malaysia.)
It was a year that a drink sensation was introduced — in big frosted glass mugs – the A&W Root Beer and Root Beer Float – the two most lovable, must-drink beverages ever since the country’s independence 1957. (Today there are A&W canned root beer in convenience stores everywhere.)
A&W Root Beer and Coney Dog and Curly Fries are synonymous with A&W and vice versa. To borrow a line, “we’re still loving it, mucho!!”
I’d like to think that the burger in “1950s America” would not vary too much from today’s A&W ‘Papa Burger’.
The bear is back!
New A&W retro outlets in Malaysia give you the charming ‘American diner experience’…
… who says you can’t bring back the good ol’ days?!!!
Do you know which is the laziest nation in Europe, the one that works the fewest hours? Let me give you a little hint, this is their capital:
Berlin
A study by OECD released recently showed in no uncertain terms Germans are the laziest nation in Europe in terms of hours worked. They have the largest economy and one of the largest per capita incomes in EU and worldwide. It gets weirder.
Do you know which nation works the most hours? The most hardworking nation in Europe, clocking in almost 50% hours than Germans in a given year is obvious at this point: Greeks. For every two hour a German works in a year, a Greek works three. For that they’re labeled as the lazy wealth moochers of the south that live easily on their spectacular seaside and glorious history.
Something doesn’t quite add up, does it? It turns out that hours worked is only relevant in a few low added value professions, such as store clercks, recepcionists, call center operators, night guards and the like. Those are professions that are necessary, but they’re low skilled, don’t pay well and don’t add much value to the economy.
What drives a modern economy forward are innovators and engineers who push the boundaries of what is possible. Their productivity is almost inversly proportional to horus worked. You only have that much creative energies to do something new and you need time to recharge. You don’t work as well when you’re tired and simply sitting at work comitting time theft does not equal to productivity. Germans work hard, very hard, during the time they’re at work. But when they clock out, always on time, they leave the job behind and enjoy themselves so their next work day is strong and productive once more.
The same goes for holidays. Germans are notorious for long holiday breaks and this again improves productivity. Your best becomes better if you’re well rested and you’re more willing to give your best to a company that appreciates your effort and talent.
By contrast, Americans often view workers as a nuisance they have to pay for and treat them accordingly. Why would you give your best for a company that only gives you enough not to run away to be treated like a slightly less smelly dropping instead. All of Europe is far ahead of USA on this matter and four weeks of holiday are the statuatory minimum given to all, not some great benefit to droll upon. Five to six weeks are not at all uncommon and you can go well beyond that in certain occupations (i.e. working with radiation, mental hospital employees, etc).
Cat story
A tuxedo cat named Andrew was found in a Bronx park, malnourished and in pain. A local rescuer and Little Wanderers NYC provided medical attention, including tooth extraction, for Andrew’s severe oral infection. After treatment, Andrew became affectionate and was taken into foster care where he enjoyed being indoors and bonded with his caregivers. He developed a close bond with a foster volunteer named Jeff, following him around and showering him with affection. Andrew’s transformation and loving personality have made him a permanent member of Jeff’s family, and the two share a special bond.
Unfortunately, there is this thing called van Loon’s law. It dictates: The level of technological progress in any society is inversely proportional to the number of slaves in the said society.
So you have to first get rid of slavery before any technological advancement will happen. In a slave-owning society, all technology will remain as mere curiosities and gadgets.
Heron’s aeolipili – the first functional steam turbine. It remained as mere clever gadget as there were enough slaves in the Hellenistic world to do all the tasks of slaves.
So first you had to get rid of slavery. The only way to get rid of slavery is a religion which prohibits slavery. There have historically been four of them: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. So the technological revolution could have begun only in those cultural spheres.
Slavery ended in Europe with Christianization – first in the Roman Europe by the Dark Ages and then in the Northern Europe at the end of the Viking era. This dictates the earliest point when technological evolution can begin for good.
Once you get rid of slavery, you need to invent rudimentary technology – i.e. harness the forces of the nature – wind, tide, water etc. You need to develop metallurgy and chemical engineering, and material sciences. Anything which saves human labour, as the price of human labour is now the bottleneck. The Dark Ages were actually a serious period of gadgeteering, and laid the basis for the real technological revolution.
I mean, as fun as it is to whip the woman who is your sex slave in the night, to grind the quern-stones at the day, windmills and watermills are just far more efficient to produce flour.
The thing with science fiction writers is that most of them are engineers, and the heroes have open budgets and do not need to worry about economy. But to develop technology, you need a stable economy. You need to develop Capitalism first. Sorry, no such thing in the bazaar economies. And Capitalism began to evolve in Italy by 1200, and was fully developed by the 17th century. Before that, only gadgeteering.
The third requirement is the rise of sciences. That began with the emergence of universities in the 11th century. To develop sciences, you need a religion which separates between mysticism and philosophy and which recognizes an objective reality, to discover the connection between philosophy and mathematics, to discover the connection between mathematics and engineering, and to develop a system where all these things merge. This happened in the Late Middle Ages.
The Industrial Revolution happened just at the right moment. It could not have happened any earlier. You need to get all the required secondary powers in action first – only then can the real thing happen. The 200 years of Industrial Revolution was preceded by 2000 years of Religious, Philosophical, Technological, Scientific and Economical Evolution.
“We are watching ARMAGEDDON unfolding before our eyes” Col. Douglas MacGregor
Very dangerous prospect for the whole world, not only for US.
I teach teens in France, and I guess many of the particularities of this generation initially confuse or surprise me, I find myself able to roll with it.
I have been especially surprised to hear that, generally speaking, they don’t have any interest in movies, books, TV series, or music. It is surprising to me that even music isn’t of interest to them!
Some like video games, but for the most part, they spend more time on social media than anything else.
The implications of that, and how society will develop with them, leaves a lot to think about.
But as a teacher, I figured I have to deal with that reality. So, for example, I have them do a project where they have to make a tutorial video in English (I teach English). This was something they got excited about, put effort into, and they made great videos! They know how to use their phones, and add special effects, music, off-voice…. they were able to be creative with it. I stopped trying to use current music, films, TV or books. It just wasn’t getting their attention.
The young generation isn’t void of creativity, but they seem to have taken over control of their social conditioning. I mean, they are watching each other create and spread ideas, values, and ethics. I was raised watching cartoons, TV shows, commercials (and reading cereal boxes!) that were carefully geared towards conditioning me to adhere to certain values that my government and the biggest corporations wanted me to integrate.
The kids today have been able to break off from that, and I suppose that scares some older folk. Like it means chaos rules and will lead to destructive movements in society. I’m not so sure. I’m observing with curiosity.
Ex-CIA: Their New Plan is TERRIFYING!
Two Middle East Outlooks
Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor and dimwit, had written a laudation of his own and his bosses foreign policy for the November print edition of Foreign Affairs. The piece was finalized before the war in Palestine had begun.
Indeed, although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is quieter than it has been for decades.
The progress is fragile, to be sure. But it is also not an accident. … [The president’s] approach returns discipline to U.S. policy. It emphasizes deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region through joint infrastructure projects and new partnerships, including between Israel and its Arab neighbors. And it is bearing fruit. … This disciplined approach frees up resources for other global priorities, reduces the risk of new Middle Eastern conflicts, and ensures that U.S. interests are protected on a far more sustainable basis. Challenges remain. The Israeli-Palestinian situation is tense, particularly in the West Bank, but in the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.
—
Alastair Crooke, who has personally negotiated prisoner exchanges between Hamas and Israel, has published a rather bleak outlook.
… It is no coincidence that Netanyahu flourished a map of Israel during his General Assembly address last month in which Israel dominated from the River to the Sea – and Palestine (indeed any Palestinian territory) was non-existent.
Tom Friedman in his NYT reflections may fear that just as NATO’s impaired performance in Ukraine has ruptured ‘the NATO myth’, so too the 7 October Israeli military and intelligence collapse and what happens in its wake in Gaza ‘might explode the entire pro-American alliance structure’ in the Middle East.
The confluence of two such humiliations might break the spine of western primacy. This seems to be the gist to Friedman’s analysis. (He likely is correct).
Hamas has succeeded in smashing the Israel deterrence paradigm: They were not afraid, the IDF proved far from invincible, and the Arab street mobilised as never before (confounding western cynics who laugh at the very notion of there being an ‘Arab Street’).
Well, that is where we are – and the White House is rattled. … This is what worries the White House Team. They are deeply unconfident that an Israeli invasion of Gaza will put ‘Humpty’ together again. Rather, they fear that events may go badly for the IDF, and further, that the images relayed across the Middle East of Israel using overwhelming force in a civilian urban setting will revolt the Islamic sphere.
In spite of western scepticism, there are signs that this insurrection in the Arab sphere is different, and resembles more the 1916 Arab Revolt that overthrew the Ottoman Empire. It is taking on a distinct ‘edge’ as both Shi’a and Sunni religious authorities state the duty of Muslims to stand with Palestinians. In other words, as the Israeli polity becomes plainly ‘Prophetical’, so the Islamic mood is turning eschatological, in its turn.
That the White House should be floating kites about ‘moderate’ Arab leaders pressing ‘moderate’ Palestinians to form an Israeli-friendly government in Gaza that would displace Hamas and impose security and order shows just how severed is the West from reality. Recall that Mahmoud Abbas, General Sisi and the King of Jordan (some of the region’s most pliable leaders) pointedly refused even to meet with Biden after the latter’s Israel trip.
The anger across the region is real and threatens ‘moderate’ Arab leaders, whose room for manoeuvre is now circumscribed.
So hotspots are proliferating, as are attacks on U.S. deployments around the region. Some in Washington claim to perceive an Iranian hand, and are hoping to expand a window for war with Iran. … Should Israel enter Gaza (and Israel may decide it has no choice but to launch a ground operation, given the domestic political dynamics and public sentiment), it is likely that Hizbullah will incrementally be drawn further in, leaving the U.S. with the binary option of seeing Israel defeated, or launching a major war in which all the hotspots become fused ‘as one’.
In a sense, the Israeli-Islamic conflict now may only be resolved in this kinetic way. All efforts since 1947 have seen the divide only deepen. The reality of the necessity of war is permeating widely the consciousness of the Arabic and Islamic world.
Posted by b on October 27, 2023 at 13:44 UTC | Permalink
Chinese Premier Li Qiang came out before assembled media Thursday to say only this:
“China will continue to firmly support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity, and will strongly oppose any external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.”
Analysis
This Israel-Hamas thing is getting worse by the hour.
Ground invasion or not, Israel is. . . fucked.
Just a matter of time before Iran outright attacks, with the support of Russia, China, Syria. Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, etc.
I think they already realize they have the upper hand against Israel AND the US..
The biggest news we have heard in a long time is that China will support Iran in the liberation of Palestine. That’s a big deal. It doesn’t get any bigger.
This is shaping up to be the USA, Israel, and the EU against everyone else. I think we cannot win.
We are watching and documenting the start of WW3 right before our eyes.
Why are people Leaving America?
“Everything you said is truth. Things are getting more and more unaffordable here in the US and inflation and crime is killing many small businesses.”
A bar order changed my life. “14 Bier bitte (14 beers please).”
I was celebrating (with friends) the severance package I had signed a few hours earlier.
After 5 years, my time in Germany was coming to an end. I already had 2 interviews lined up back in the US.
From the barstool to the left came a voice. “Excuse me.” I turned to look in the eyes of a rather scruffy absent-minded-professor type.
He smiled and said, “you seem to have a slight English accent…or maybe American?”
“American,” I confirmed. He continued, “you wouldn’t happen to be looking for a job would you?”
Crazy I thought. “I just signed my severance contract 3 hours ago.”
“Can you write?” he replied.
“I think so. My grandfather was a journalist, my mother taught English.”
I’ll spare you the details. He hired me. I never went back to the US. That special lady I had met 7 months earlier came back from her studies in the UK.
Love developed. Babies arrived. We moved to France. Babies grew into fascinating persons.
Any other bar, any other night and it never would have happened this way.
One employer I had decided to make me redundant…which was a BAAAAAD idea.
Keeping it short ( I hope ). I was managing a Photolab ( in a pharmacy ) in SE London…I literally built it up from where it was originally bringing in ‘maybe’ around 10% to 12 % of the total takings of the shop…to where it was bringing in over 80% of the takings. I did that by making certain that the quality we produced was the best for ( literally ) miles around. We had company reps from the midlands who would bring their films into us…because they couldn’t find anywhere to beat us.
At one stage we had the top boys from Kodak visit us, because they were ‘concerned’ at the amount of photographic paper we were going through…sometimes 20 rolls a week. A roll of paper is 175 Meters long…that’s over 1500 prints per roll, or just over 23,000 prints ( 6 x 4 ) a week. It turned out that there was only one Kodak lab in the whole of southern England that beat us…and that by less than 3 %…and that was at a popular seaside resort…Brighton.
Sorry for the long back story.
Almost the first thing they did was make one of the two guys on the counter redundant. Then not long after that they made my assistant redundant as well. You’ve probably worked out where this is going already. If there’s only one person working the lab or the counter what happens on days off? Or when you go to lunch…or if your ill?
Answer? I haven’t got the foggiest idea…we were never told.
Then shortly after that…I was made redundant.
Not really a surprise…I had figured out which way the wind was blowing well before this. In all fairness when they told me I was being made redundant I did tell them that in my ( exceptionally modest and humble opinion ), the lab would be closed within three months since they had no one to run it properly…they ( of course ) just ignored that.
I had a new job within two weeks…paid almost as well…and without all the hassle.
The big problem they had now was that there was now only one person to run the counter side of things…and the lab. That’s assuming that the ‘last guy’ didn’t bother with inconsequential things…like a trip to the loo, or tea breaks or lunch breaks, day’s off, holidays, emergency’s at home or just being to damn ill to come to work.
Oh, I forgot to mention something else.
He wasn’t trained to operate the lab.
He told them. ‘I’ve got no health and safety training for photolab work…you know…for all that unimportant stuff…like the electrical hazards, hazardous and corrosive chemicals etc.’ He had no first aid certification, no fire hazard training. And nothing else either, like the day to day maintenance of the machinery, let alone the longer term maintenance.
There was also the minor ( but vital to maintain quality ) chore of balancing the master channel on a daily basis, plus ( on an ongoing basis ) all the print and film channels. He had no idea where to even begin with that…absolutely not his fault at all…he was counter staff…not trained lab staff.
And…then he told them something else, he was colour blind…not exactly great for printing colour films.
He was told. ‘Use the scanner, that’ll do the job’.
‘Uhuh…I can’t do that’. ‘HUH? Why NOT’!
‘It’s been disabled in the software and disconnected from the motherboard…I don’t even know what it looks like, I wouldn’t recognise it if it got up and smacked me in the face, and I don’t know how to hook it back up and get it working again…of course there was one person here that could do that…but you got rid of him, and even if I did get the scanner working again the quality and delivery times will nose dive, the two people you made redundant did everything manually…that’s why the quality was so good, and why we were doing so much trade’. ( my assistant and I could print faster and more accurately than the scanner could do the job ).
Then, obviously trying to be ‘helpful’ ( IE sticking the knife in ) he added. ‘We could always get an engineer out from Kodak to reconnect it, but, since it’s not a breakdown…it’ll be chargeable’.
Not done.
How do I know all this ?
I’m at home one evening and I get a phone call from the ‘last guy’. ‘Hey! how’s it going’? ‘Pretty good’ was the answer…’How’s the lab doing’? ( I love this bit ) ‘What lab’?? ‘Umm…THE lab’. ‘Like I said…WHAT lab’?! ‘It’s CLOSED’??? ‘Well…I suppose you ‘could’ put it that way…the whole shop is closed…permanently’. ‘Pardon’?
It turned out that not only had the lab closed because ( surprise surprise ), nobody knew how to operate the printer properly or maintain it…but when the customers found out I’d been laid off they expressed their disgust by voting with their feet. The whole shop became a wasteland…hardly anybody went in there now.
Now that might not have been so bad when I first started there, and the lab brought in maybe 10 to 12 % of the total takings…but by the time I was laid off…the lab was bringing in around 80% of the total takings…of the entire shop.
Remember I said the lab would probably be closed within three months?
I was wrong…it took 6 WEEKS! before it…and the whole SHOP was closed.
The new company thought they were getting their hands on a gold mine, and to be honest it would have been…if they hadn’t messed it all up.
In my mid 20’s I had a job at a recording studio. I was “the girl”. I was completely in charge of all things office.
This place was part of an advertising agency.
We had the whole bottom floor and most of what we did was recording jingles.
So there were the jingle writers And the musicians and the sales people. All in all it was pretty much fun.
One day the pay checks were given to me to hand out and I happened to notice that everyone made more money than I did. I marched upstairs and asked WHY. I knew full well I did more work than anyone else there. I was told that “They were creative and I was not.”
My husband and I had already been doing glass work. I called him, told him to come get me. when he got there I said I am quitting my job. I want you to quit yours,too and we will do glass work full time.
He did and we rented our first studio which was near UWM on Milwaukee’s upper East Side.
We are still doing glass work today, 45 years later. hundreds of projects all over the country.
So thanks for telling me how uncreative I was.
Why Men NEED Sex
This should be taught in schools/colleges, the differences between Men & Women so that people can better go about relationships & know why the opposite gender behaves how they behave instead of thinking that there’s something wrong with them. i.e men have 17 times more testosterone than women hence men will tend to have a higher sex drive!
The Chinese Economy resembles a 48 year old man. Not young anymore but certainly not old or dying
The Japanese Economy resembles a 77 year old man. Prematurely aged 20 years thanks to the Plaza accords or would be a healthy 57 year old
The Indian Economy resembles a 43 year old. Down on his luck and having a last chance at some development and growth.
The US Economy resembles a 75 year old. Having sucked the youth of every Economy to keep from growing old or slowing down his ageing
The Russian Economy represents a 34 year old, reborn after dying as a 88 year old and still unsure of how to go forward but strong enough to fight the world
This was maybe ten years ago, back when I worked in a warehouse.
One fine day when I arrived at work there were no chairs at my workstation. A manager was out there and told me they had removed the chairs because the people who worked the previous shift spent too much time sitting around instead of doing their other tasks, but I could go into the office and bring a chair out to the warehouse every day when I came in.
When the next person on the shift came in I told her what was going on with the chairs, and her response was, “What is this, junior high?” I was more amused than exasperated, and life continued with me bringing out a couple of chairs at the start of work every day.
Soon afterward our senior manager became tired of people losing pens all the time and announced that anyone who needed a pen would have to ask her for one personally. I myself was very methodical about how I used my pen, always putting it down at the same place on the table where I worked and expecting it to be there whenever I needed it. Other people (mostly our regular vendors) were less careful with pens, and it didn’t take long before my pen disappeared, along with most of the others.
Now, these were not expensive pens, so the savings our tightfisted manager gained from controlling their distribution could not have been that much. More importantly, our senior manager’s schedule didn’t overlap with mine very much, and if I had better things to do with my time than ask the senior manager for a pen every time I needed one, surely that was more true for her.
So, I took the matter to Human Resources, mentioning both the chair and pen situations in an email. The next morning an HR person called me up on the phone and got some more details about everything. About five minutes later I heard the rumble of plastic wheels on the concrete floor of the warehouse, and there was the middle manager with an extra chair in one hand and a fistful of pens in the other. Sounding a little contrite, he dumped the pens on my table and said if I needed more to please let him know.
Often when I hear people talk about HR, it’s in the context of how HR is on the side of the employer instead of the employee. So I offer up this one instance where HR came through for the little guy.
The chairs in the warehouse stayed in the warehouse afterward. And, more importantly, I never had to waste anyone’s time by asking my senior manager for a pen.
Years ago I fell off a truck and dislocated my shoulder. I called an ambulance and they turned up. One guy said “I’m trained for resetting that”, so he did, me lying on his trolley bed on the pavement, they then took me to hospital for X-rays to make sure there were no further issues.
I don’t know how much it cost, I didn’t see a bill.
Years later I caught double pneumonia. 15 days in hospital with several courses of strong antibiotics and lots of rest.
I don’t know how much that cost – never saw a bill.
And a couple of years ago my 93 year old father in law was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and fitted with a pacemaker that same day, spend a night in hospital and came home with an internet connected heart monitor so they could check on him from the hospital.
We never knew how much that cost … he never got a bill.
That’s universal health care for you.
We also get low cost and no cost pharmecuticals
I don’t mind the 2.5% levy added to my tax bills at all – it’s good value.
One observation I’ve made is that people from Europe have no concept of the ridiculous expanse that is the US, and to be fair the idea that you could take a day trip to another country when you’re in Europe blows my mind as well. I met a couple from France who thought they were going to go to Maine, New York, DC, and Orlando (Disney) all in one weekend. Just for reference, it would take you nearly 24 full hours of driving to get from Maine to Orlando.
In case you can’t tell, below is the US compared to Australia.
You would not even be in a medieval army if you wanted to be safe. You would have joined a medieval army because you wanted to get rich quick – there was no other way to make easy money.
First of all: avoid all sieges. High risk of dying from dysentery as either besieger or besieged.
A longbow archer was very safe, and paid well, except that archers could not get “first pick” of battlefield booty. It was a trade off. Even so, you might get lucky especially if you got to sack a big town.
You won the lottery by either capturing a nobleman, his horse, or his fine armor. Capturing a common knight was not bad except that, quite often. knights went into deep debt to finance their war service
Even so. knights sometimes had rich relatives (so don’t get mad and kill Sir Deadbeat)
A surgeon would have been pretty safe and, if captured, you would be treated well.
We live about a quarter mile away from the nearest road, back through the woods, so it’s rare for any stray domestic animals to wander back here, but on the evening of May 26 this year, this tortoiseshell came strolling up the porch steps and looked in the window.
“Oh no,” we thought. “I hope it goes away.” We already had two cats and didn’t want a third. That lasted about 20 minutes. Then, “Well, I guess we need to feed her something. We can’t let her starve.” So she got a meal off us. When she was still there the next morning, we named her. That was it. That’s when you can no longer say a cat doesn’t own you.
I already had a jet black longhair named LBK adopted from a colleague who was moving 1,200 miles away and didn’t want to take her from Georgia to the snows of Vermont. My wife has a blue tortoiseshell rescue cat she calls Biscuit. So we named our porch cat Triscuit—not after the cracker but sort of an organic chemistry joke (bis-, tris-, Biscuit, Triscuit). Students of o-chem will get it.
Triscuit was very emaciated when she came to us. She weighed 3.2 lb; the basal half of her tail was almost hairless, like an opossum tail; she had a prolapsed rectum, worms, and diarrhea; she smelled bad. But I’m a sympathetic sap, especially for underdogs (and undercats), and she captured my heart. After several trips to the vet and a special rehab diet, my free cat has so far cost me only about $780 since May. She’s now up to 4.3 lb—just $180/lb. She’s worm-free, and she’s growing some hair on her tail. She just might live.
Cajun Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
1 pound ground meat
1 (16 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup green bell peppers, chopped
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
2 cups cooked rice
6 to 8 bell peppers
Sliced cheese
Instructions
Cook meat, tomatoes, onions, chopped peppers and tomato paste. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes until done.
Cook rice. Mix rice into meat mixture, then simmer for 20 minutes.
Clean peppers. Boil in large pot until peppers turn darker green. Dry peppers on paper towels. Cool.
Anyone can think they are superman! Just that most are smart and humble. China is a very pragmatic and rational nation. It knows no nation has a right to exist and enjoys full sovereignty. China never sees itself as a nation that is strong. It knows very very well that should anyone threaten China, it will fully defend itself completely and hurt the attacking nation. Very very hard.
Me to a new hire, “install this wing flap actuator on that left wing and what ever you do…do not drop it, it’s very expensive.”
New hire, “Yes, sir. No problem”.”
Two minutes later, a loud, crashing thud can be heard from over by the left wing.
Me, “NEW HIRE? Did you just drop that actuator?”
New hire “No sir, I just dropped a tool. It’s alright.”
Me as I go over there to examine the situation. “Then why is there a dent on this mounting lug of the actuator?”
New Hire, “uhh, I don’t know, must’ve come that way. It’ll be alright. It’s fine. It’ll still work.”
Me, “Lives are at stake when we work on these aircraft and when mistakes are made we have to own them and immediately correct them. This actuator will not work and neither will you. Remember this lesson on your next job.”
In college I lived in an apartment building and my next door neighbor was the rudest, most angry and disagreeable person that I had ever met. One day after classes I rode my bicycle home and went to store it in the small storage shed in front of my car. I noticed that someone had clipped the right rear corner of my fairly new car. I looked at the Cadillac next to my car and saw a indentation on the rear quarter panel at the same height as the damage to my car. The color on the damaged quarter panel matched the color of my car exactly.
I approached my mean, nasty and disagreeable neighbor, showed him the damage and he immediately claimed that I must have hit his Cadillac and threatened to sue me, get me evicted and on and on.
He worked in a bank in a troubled part of town. I drove by the bank and noticed a massage parlor in a single wide trailer about 2 blocks away.
I went to an adult book store and purchased an explicit picture magazine titled “Beautiful Black Asses”, went to a card store and bought a very feminine thank you card and an envelope big enough for the magazine. I signed the card “Thanks for everything honey – Candy” and mailed it to his apartment with the massage parlor’s name and address as the return address. I was aware that his wife got home first every day and retrieved the mail every day.
A couple of days later I heard a LOUD screaming exchange between them and the wife took off in his Cadillac, burning rubber all of the way. She and the Cadillac were gone for about a month before she returned but, their relationship seemed chilled until I graduated and moved away a year and 1/2 later.
The Israelis are so sure about the location of the Hamas bunker, however, not because they are trying to score propaganda points, or because it has been repeatedly mentioned in passing by Western reporters—but because they built it. Back in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza, they built a secure underground operating room and tunnel network beneath Shifa hospital—which is one among several reasons why Israeli security sources are so sure that there is a main Hamas command bunker in or around the large cement basement beneath the area of Building 2 of the Hospital, which reporters are obviously prohibited from entering.
I bet 100 to 1 that nothing Hamas is present in the well known bunker beneath the Shifa hospital.
Mom: I couldn’t find my saved money, I need to pay the deliveryman.
Dad: Don’t worry, you’ll find it. How much for the deliveryman?
Mom: 5 thousand rupees. I ordered some groceries and essentials for the house.
Dad paid the deliveryman and we eventually got busy with our daily work.
The next day, Mom, Dad, and I were cleaning the kitchen, when my mom shouted.
Mom: Look, I got my money, it’s in the cupboard. I was so foolish, I searched the whole house for it.
Mom looked so happy because she saved it for her friend’s birthday gift.
But the situation was something else.
Dad got out of the house to smoke a cigarette and I ran behind him.
I said “Why did you do that?’
Father asked: ‘Do what?’
I replied “I swear I have seen you taking the money out of your wallet and putting it in the cupboard.
Dad smirked and replied: “You know she was everything for me! I can’t see her getting sad over the little money she lost yesterday. Because I think we need to care for the person, we love the most!”
Dad takes out a handkerchief and starts putting off his sweat.
I said “Dad, now why are you using mom’s handkerchief? Is it a sign of your care towards Mom too?”
Dad “Nope, because it still has her fragrance”
This was something that changed my whole point of view not only towards life but also towards love too.
Every heroin addict’s go to line. The problem is the drug is too brutal and won’t let you do a little this time.
Heroin messes with your brain big time.
It is an opioid, which means it comes from the same plant as morphine and other painkillers.
But heroin is different because it gets to your brain faster and stronger than other opioids.
It does this by changing into morphine once it’s in your blood, and then attaching to these things called opioid receptors in your brain.
Opioid receptors are like switches that control how you feel pain and pleasure.
When heroin hits them, it turns them on full blast, making you feel a rush of euphoria and relaxation.
It also blocks out any negative feelings like depression or anxiety.
Sounds awesome, right?
Wrong. Because heroin is so good at turning on your opioid receptors, it also tricks your brain into thinking that heroin is the best thing ever.
Your brain starts to associate heroin with happiness, and forgets about other things that make you happy, like food, friends, or hobbies.
Your brain also becomes less sensitive to heroin over time, so you need more and more of it to feel the same effect.
This is how addiction happens.
You become obsessed with getting and using heroin, and you can’t stop even if you want to.
You also start to feel sick when you don’t have heroin, because your brain is used to having it all the time.
This is called withdrawal, and it sucks big time.
Withdrawal can feel like death. It can make you feel like you have the flu, but worse.
You can have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle aches, sweating, chills, anxiety, insomnia, and more.
Withdrawal can also make you crave heroin even more, because you know it will make you feel better.
The white horse is one of the most addictive drugs out there.
It hijacks your brain’s reward system and makes you dependent on it for feeling good.
It also makes you sick when you don’t have it, and makes you want it more than anything else in the world.
Possibly the worst thing is that even being sober for 20 years, you always remember that first high. That first rush. So the urge never really leaves…..
The smartest student in my class used to be nicknamed “Rain Man” in math class because of how fast he was able to make calculations. But he wasn’t just the best in math. He was also the best in the language classes and in history class – any class except physical exercise really. He wasn’t much use there.
Everyone thought he would go on to become a university professor. But he didn’t. He started distancing himself from academic pursuits in high school and instead started reading poetry and wanting to be an artist. When he was evaluated for military service and got a stellar score on the IQ test, the officers asked him what he wanted to do after high-school, and he told them he wanted to study literature or write novels.
Most likely the issue was that he came from an academic family, with both his parents being university professors, which made that career path seem like nothing special to him. He wanted “more”, whatever that was.
At college, he would become increasingly erratic, often not showing up for class and failing to read appointed materials. But he would still pass all exams with high marks by making an effort at the last minute.
The “artist” aspiration hadn’t died out though. He was pursuing writing as well as music, eventually forming a band, but he never really made an impact. He wasn’t even a bad music artist but he also just wasn’t outstanding like he was at school. His commercially unsuccessful “artist” career saw him moonlighting at random shift jobs to get by, including as a night receptionist.
It would be seven years until he realized music and literature weren’t going to get him anywhere. If he had just managed to put his head down and work diligently on a more weighty subject of study, be it mathematics or medicine or political science, I’m sure he would have had a brilliant career and made a splash in his field. As it was, he was already in his 30s without any really useful qualifications while others were getting promotions and buying real estate.
In the following years, he first learned Chinese and went to live in China, then came back again, took up coding with the intention of making AI models but also lost interest in that before really getting there. Nowadays he’s still struggling to even get a decent job – something I think no one would have expected back then at school. And who knows what’s next?
I guess I should know because I am this person. I was the smartest kid in my class. In this game of “professor or suicide”, I’m thus far neither. But being gifted hasn’t served me particularly well. Since everything was easy for me throughout my education (well, except P.E. and crafts), I never learned to really struggle. I learned that I could win without struggling. Therefore, I proceeded to avoid anything that might seriously put me to the test. And at the end of the day, intelligence is really no match for effort.
The silver lining is that I’m more and more beginning to realize that I don’t need a brilliant career, neither in academia nor as an artist. In hindsight, I was pursuing both more out of vanity than anything else. Unusually smart kids have a tendency to accrue lofty expectations from all around; from parents, teachers and classmates alike. Everyone tells you: “you could do this” and “you should do that” and “you’re gonna be a star” and it’s easy to become inebriated with this praise and forget to stop and be honest with yourself about what YOU actually want – not what others want for you or even what you want for your own idea of you. Finally doing so has been quite liberating.
This is an illusion. The Chinese used to think that having a European appearance meant they would be good at teaching English, but they later realized they were wrong.
Professional ability is linked to your salary, not your appearance.
If you can provide an English major certificate or education certificate, you can earn a good salary at English teaching institutions in China, but of course, there will be many people competing with you. Education requires teaching experience, not just talking to oneself in the classroom. Engaging in the teaching profession requires mastering teaching methods that students can understand. You must first be able to communicate with students in Chinese. Not everyone is suitable for the teaching profession, and whether to stay or not ultimately depends on the graduation rate data of students. People who lack a competitive advantage cannot enter higher education schools and can only teach their children some simple English conversations in kindergartens. Of course, the salary will be much lower than that of school teachers.
China’s second language ~ third language education is civilian education, not aristocratic education.
Generally speaking, the China government requires Chinese students to master at least 1~2 foreign languages. Because English-speaking countries dominate the world, China has popularized English education in the compulsory education stage.
There are many foreigners engaged in English education in China because it is easy to find substitutes, and the competitive pressure of practitioners is also the biggest among all language education. Meanwhile, due to the popularization of English education in China, the job of English teacher is also the easiest to find.
Language teachers such as Russian, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic are relatively lacking.
As far as I know, some teachers of small languages have already earned salaries of $1000~$5000 per hour. (一万到五万一堂课)
Some infrastructure contractors, in order to make their employees understand the local language, offer considerable salaries to language teachers who attend classes during training.
In fact, in recent years, the salaries of Arabic language teachers and French teachers have been very good. Because there are many Arab countries and African countries (French speaking area) along the the Belt and Road. Since there is a demand for business, of course, relevant language education talents are needed.
We hired a lady to organize our archives before they were digitized. This was in 2000. She was just required to work 8 hours a day, and only needed to interact with coworkers for about an hour a day. So she decided to work 3:00–12:00 and our Mom and Pop small company saw no reason why she couldn’t do her job at night.
She was doing a decent job, and nobody had a problem. But we reached a point, where she had to start working days, so she could tell people what was going on.
She had stored all of her rolls of fim in garbage cans, and paper records in recycling boxes.
The first day she wasn’t there when the cleaners came to clean her office, they emptied all of her film and paper into shredders, and hauled it away.
Not one person in the office could figure out why she not only used her garbage can for storage, but brought in extra garbage cans and filled them.
She was livid and blamed the cleaning staff for emptying the garbage and recycling as they were required to do by contract.
They didn’t exactly fire her. They laid her off, and said that now that there was no data to archive, they didn’t have a job for her.
Sara Anne Wood was just 12 years old when she was abducted within view of her home on Aug 18, 1993. I was friends(from camp) with her brother Dusty and it hit everyone so very hard. This was an incredibly nice family from Central New York in a very small town. Back then, kids had heard ghost stories about kids being snatched but very few took it seriously. Sara’s case changed that for many and the resulting publicity made sure that new tools for the public and law enforcement would save more missing kids since.
The man who admitted to abducting and killing her also confessed to another murder- a 12 year old boy, Jimmy Bernardo. He confessed to another murder(Jamie Lusher) but like Sara, the body has never been found. The killer has given incorrect information for the recovery of Sara Anne Wood and Jamie Lusher many times. FBI psychologists are unsure what is keeping the killer from revealing the information since he seems willing to put it behind him. He will serve every day of his pitiful existence behind bars but it isn’t enough for the pain he has brought to so many in this world.
I have not named the killer out of respect for my childhood friend’s family who feel the killer has garnered too much fame already. It’s easy to search, but do me a favor if you choose to look it up. Please also learn about all of the positive changes brought about by Sara Anne Wood’s case. Those changes have saved/found many thousands of children since.
Note to Dusty & the Wood family: I hope you find peace and closure. We have not forgotten Sara and will never stop looking.
I am so so so SO very glad that I no longer live in the USA.
When I was 16 I developed a kidney abscess. It was treated over several weeks and dissipated. First off, I had to sit in a room with a bunch of 70 year old men waiting for my Urologist. Then, the Dr was flummoxed how a teenage girl could get this, so proceeded with different types of tests. One was testing my Ureters. In the hospital, I was naked from the waist down with a paper drape, filled my bladder with something and iodine and literally put a stopper in so that I couldn’t pee. Then, they left the room. It was just me and a male tech who was in front of some machines with screens. The room had swinging double doors. Every once in awhile someone would come in, and my nether regions were on full view to anyone coming in, and anyone passing by. When I was done, I had to wrap the paper drape around me and sprint to the bathroom across the hall to piss like a Russian race horse! I’m pretty sure I leaked that liquid all across that room and the hallway. Yes, this was very embarrassing.
One of my girls had been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, developmental delays and schizo affective disorder.
She attends a day program for adults that provides socialization along with life skills training. They also take the clients out into the community to do contract jobs supported by staff. She came home beaming and said she was working in a local grocery store. I assumed stocking shelves, sweeping, etc.
About her third day she came home excited as usual got a snack and went to the bathroom.
I cleaned up the table, put away leftovers, and generally spent a fair amount of time puttering around.
Then I realized she was still in the bathroom and it was very quiet.
I called her name.
No answer.
I checked the door.
It was locked.
I banged on the door, yelled her full name and demanded she open the door immediately!
NO! I’M NOT DONE!
What are you doing?
It’s a surprise. Go away!
Now I’ve had pretty awful bathroom surprises from kids. Things like blood all over from an accident doing something I’d warned them about, to diarrhea, to bathing the dog in the tub with the associated water and mud sprayed around.
I said I was counting to 10 and the door had better be open or I’d pick the lock. Yeah, I’ve had to do that on more than one occasion.
At 9 she opened the door beaming and sweaty. See mom! I cleaned it all by myself! The floor around the toilet, the sinks, inside the toilet and the mirrors! Now I need to wash my hands.
Everything was spotless. I had forgotten most stores have at least employee restrooms. That was what she was doing at work.
She then said it was nicer at home than the men’s room. It was disgusting and stinks.
I was floored! Never have I had a child do such a thorough job cleaning anything! I gave her hugs. I told her I was sooo happy with the sparkling clean bathroom.
Then she asked me, Mom, can you teach me how to clean the tub? They don’t have that at the store.
I was shocked. She actually wanted to do more cleaning!
I told her I was so proud of her, and then later made her promise that if she wanted to clean the bathroom again would she please leave the door open. I explained that the surprise was fantastic, but some cleaning supplies were smelly and she could get sick.
She looked disappointed and asked how she could surprise me if the door was open.
I promised if she said she was working on something special I’d stay in the kitchen and make cookies.
I get a clean bathroom, the kids get fresh cookies, and my husband eats raw cookie dough. Wins all the way around!
China SHOCKS The US With Terrifying Nuclear Space Missile
I got a call from a friend, who had literally just been informed that he was laid off. And he was wondering if I had also gotten the axe.
I was on vacation for a week. It was Tuesday or Wednesday, and I was on my way to a dog show to help some friends set some things up. My friend had been walked into the office that morning and been told that his last day would the the following Friday. The severance was good, he had already been thinking about retiring, and his wife was having pretty bad health issues. So he just said cool, and planned on wrapping up the things he was involved with.
So I checked, and did have a voicemail on my phone. I listened to it, and yes, a manager I knew had called VERY EARLY that day and asked that I call her back when I had the time, sometime today. Given that my friend had been laid off, and what the situation at the company was, yeah, I knew I was going to get the boot as well. Not my first time, so I just sat back and made a list of what I needed to do. Then I called my friend back, told him about the voicemail and we commiserated. And finally I called the manager back and got the bad news. No big deal.
Being laid off sucks. But keep your wits about you, be open to doing something different, make smart financial decisions and just keep movin’ on.
In May 2016, Amber Heard, who is now divorced from Johnny Depp, shared photos claiming he abused her. People quickly condemned Depp, especially when he was cast in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Many thought he shouldn’t be hired due to the accusations. Meanwhile, Heard was praised as a survivor and advocate for abused women.
Depp, who had built a good reputation over the years, faced a backlash. People didn’t want to work with him, and he was labeled as an abuser. He received hate from fans, the media, and almost everyone.
However, this year, Depp released tapes that changed how we saw the situation. Heard admitted to hitting him and throwing objects at him, even causing injury. She mocked him, knowing people would likely believe her over him.
Depp, in essence, is saying, “Imagine if I, as a man, claimed to be a victim of domestic violence. How many would believe or support me?” The story shows how we often quickly judge someone as a villain, even when they might not be at fault.
I was the bad boy and what you’re trying to make is a mistake.
Let me explain why.
Most girls in their 20s and even 30s have some kind of masculine ideal. This ideal is anything but healthy. They want the sociopath or the aggressive jerk or whatever is considered nowadays a good representation of masculinity.
The definition of a “good masculine sexual partner” is more of what you’d find in “Fight Club” than “Breakfast At Tiffany”. And yes, I was one of them. I acted as a jerk, I was emotionally imbalanced, I got into a lot of arguments and fights and I was emotionally and physically violent.
And this got me laid. A lot. The fact that my life was chaotic and broken, ironically, made a lot of very beautiful woman want to save me.
And here’s the thing …
If you want to screw your emotional balance, make your life a mess and be in that position for the sake of getting laid you are an idiot. This is because the “bad boy” image that works to get women turned on is kind of the opposite of what works in every other area of life.
Everywhere else consistency, maturity, dignity, integrity are rewarded. In the business world nobody will put up with the “bad boy” bullshit. In the academic world the same. Most realms of life are a meritocracy where your hard work and effort are going to get you what you deserve. Dating is one of the few fields in which the least you care and the more counter-intuitive you act, the better results you’re going to get.
But it is not worth it.
This is because while being a bad boy may get you female attention, being a bad boy is generally not a good life strategy and there is a LOT MORE to life than getting laid. I remember how at some point in my life I was an emotional mess, smoking, drinking, going in bars each night, sleeping with two girls at the same time (not in the same bed) and many people were “admiring me”.
In reality, I was crying out of frustration and desperation often because I was in a hole and no one was pulling me out. While I was getting girls to take off their panties, I had no money, my business partners wanted nothing to do with me, my friends who showed integrity and character have been replaced by superficial relationships and the future looked really bleak.
So honestly, what you want is the most immature thing you can do.
Trust me, treating life as a bad-boy (and I’m not talking about buying a leather jacket but actually being a “I-Don’t-Give-A-Damn” type of person) has a far higher downside than upside. While there are always going to be ladies who will (1) want to save you from yourself (2) think they can change you (3) be attracted because you’re different, the people who don’t want to have sex with you won’t really be impressed by what you’re doing.
So here’s my advice.
Act as a man and stop trying to emulate the dysfunctional bad-boy image. The rogue, the sociopath, the psychopath, the out of control wreck are and were always female fantasies for better or for worse but actually being one sucks.
Instead simply focus on acting as a man. The same traits that you consider boring nice, as a nice guy, are exactly the traits required to succeed in most fields. I’m not saying to be a wimp but I’m saying that being dysfunctional for the sake of mediocre sex (because deep inside you’ll always know that that’s not love but rather fascination) is a very bad trade-of.
It looks a little like this, only in a old claw-foot bathtub…
Wikipedia says…
A bathtub Madonna (also known as a lawn shrine, Mary on the half shell, bathtub Mary, bathtub Virgin, and bathtub shrine) is an artificial grotto typically framing a Roman Catholic religious figure.
These shrines most often house a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary but sometimes hold the image of another Catholic saint or of Jesus. Infrequently, more than one figure is represented.
While often constructed by upending an old bathtub and burying one end, similar designs have been factory produced. These factory produced enclosures sometimes have decorative features that their recycled counterparts lack, such as fluting reminiscent of a scallop shell.
The grotto is sometimes embellished with brickwork or stonework, and framed with flowerbeds or other ornamental flora. The inside of the tub is frequently painted a light blue color, particularly if the statue is of Mary because of her association with this color. Over time, distinguishing characteristics of these shrines can become blurred. Instances occur of shrines whose statue is missing and conversely of grottoes being removed, leaving a statue in place.
One time, I was traveling with my little sister on a nine-hour flight. We were harassed by a drunk man in the middle row for the entire flight, which was incredibly uncomfortable. He kept staring at us, trying to touch us with his arms and legs, and getting up to stand next to our seats and stare and laugh, trying to get closer with his face.
There were still six hours left before we reached our destination. I spoke to the flight attendants and burst out crying because it was so uncomfortable. My little sister was also crying. The flight was full, so they couldn’t move us or him. The flight attendants tried to talk to him, but it was no use. He became weird and slightly aggressive.
There were still a few hours left to go. The flight attendants had a male flight attendant from business class come down to us and talk to us and comfort us. He stood behind our seats for the rest of the flight.
The other flight attendants were so sweet. They kept coming with snacks and sweets for us, and they even went to their private locker and gave us their own snacks and candies that they had brought. They wanted us to write down the whole incident so that the pilots could see it. The pilots then decided to call the police.
I worked in Theatre for many years. Out-of-work actors often earn stop-gap money waitering. Here are two neat reposts.
A famous (I’ll leave her anonymous) actress had been difficult in a high-end restaurant all evening. Nothing was good enough for her. Eventually the waiter handed her the dessert-menu. The actress barked angrily at the waiter: “What the hell is Banana cream pie?”
The waiter politely replied: “Which word, exactly, is causing you difficulties?”
Another actor/waiter pal had a difficult patron snapping her fingers at him and yelling: “Boy! Over here, boy!”
The waiter, ever so calmly said to her: “Madam, if you tell me where you lost your dog, I’ll gladly help you find him.”
Come up with a calm, elegant put down; it’s much more stylish than taking other people’s bad manners to heart and getting rattled. You also end up with some terrific anecdotes.
I bought a huge house backing onto a stream, and on the other side of the stream was a golf course. My next door neighbors were a famous professional hockey player, and a neurosurgeon on the other side.
It had a carpeted garage with built in oak cabinets.
It had a thousand square foot master suite, walkin closet, and ensuite. The Jacuzzi was surrounded by windows that actually opened, it was on the third floor.
I was having Christmas one year and a very competitive relative, who had a nice, but not awesome house, was asking for a tour of the house.
The windows around the Jacuzzi were open. He said, you can hear traffic with the windows open, I like my place better.
I would never dream of finding fault with someones house, especially when they asked for a tour. I was stunned. No mention of the grand entrance way, with the sweeping spiral staircase, that split in two directions. No mention of the mountain view from the 20 foot tall windows. No mention of the finished walk out basement that allowed you to play in the stream. Just criticism of the one tiny flaw he could find.
I being the polite person I was, just said, I have learned to live with it, when I have the third floor Jacuzzi windows open. He didn’t have a third floor, and the year before, he complained he couldn’t use his Jacuzzi, because the hot water tank wasn’t large enough to fill it. So I knew the working Jacuzzi bothered him.
You couldn’t hear the traffic on the bottom two floors, because of the houses and trees blocking it. You could only hear it, when the windows were open on the third floor, and just barely then, because the road was a km away.
Walked in, saw handiwork of someone’s halloween prank. Red liquid / Gel / Syrup / idk was everywhere. Walls, floor, stalls, sinks, ceiling… everywhere.
Executed a perfect 180, and ran into couple of guys carrying a skeleton (liberated from nearby classroom).
Year before that, had a few smoke bombs left over from 4th July, decided that student population of Library wing needed a bit of drama. Wrapped paper matches around fuses, lit matches, and calmly walked out and left building.
Nothing happened, no alarm, no mass exodus, etc. Being young and stupid, I revisited the scene od the crime. Opened door, walked around corner, and there were 3 teachers and resource officer standing by sinks / drowned smoke bombs. Executed a perfect 180 to leave, and was told to stop before could get out. School resource officer found the matches on me…
Was told was same matches that were used. I glanced at drowned non-incendiary devices and told him “Nope, these are white with red heads, those are all black”. Was asked why had them, replied “just had them by mistake after asked to change partners in Chemistry after lighting my Bunsen.”Mr Maeker, chem teacher, confirmed that I was asked to move, but did not disclose his class used *wood* matches.
The story of Joe Arridy comes to mind, marked by misfortune from the very start.
Born to parents who were related and faced with severe learning difficulties, having an IQ of just 46, Joe didn’t even start talking until he was five.
School was a bust; after just one year, the principal told his parents to keep him home.
His family life was rocked when his dad got laid off, and unable to cope, they sent Joe to a state institution. But that place offered no refuge, instead, Joe found himself the target of cruel bullying.
Life threw another horrific punch when, as a teenager, Joe was attacked by a group of boys. That awful incident got him sent back to the institution, where he’d already suffered so much.
At 21, Joe hit the road, riding the rails like many did during the tough times of the Great Depression. It was a rough existence, and sadly for Joe, it led to the most unjust chapter of his life.
Accused of a gruesome crime; the r*pe and murder of a young girl in Pueblo, Colorado. Joe’s fate was sealed by a confession that was disjointed and filled with inaccuracies.
No physical evidence linked Arridy to the crime scene. His conviction was based solely on the questionable confession and the loose testimony of witnesses and was only pardoned posthumously.
He went to death row but carried a strange kind of joy, one that stood out in the grimness of prison life. He was fond of a toy train, a symbol of his childlike innocence, which he spent most of his days playing and kindly gave it to a fellow prisoner right before he was executed.
On the day of his execution, Joe didn’t grasp the finality of what was happening. He left behind a bit of ice cream, which he requested for as a last meal, asking for it to be refridgerated for later, not realizing there was no coming back from where they were taking him.
The sobering story of Joe is a stark reminder of life’s unpredictable harshness and the importance of compassion and unwavering justice in our society.
And to also remind people who have it a little easier in life than others to be eternally grateful.
I worked at a nursing home as a physical therapist and one of my clients was a retired cable TV executive with end-stage Alzheimer’s. After he passed away, I went to his wife’s home to offer my condolences and as I was leaving, I saw an older Cadillac in a covered carport behind the home.
A 1975 baby blue Sedan de Ville with a white vinyl top and a 500 ci V8 under the hood. I was fascinated and asked the widow about the car. She said it was her late husbands and that he had purchased it brand new. But before he was able to enjoy the car he developed Alzheimer’s and was no longer able to drive.
I told her if she ever wanted to sell it to let me know and left.
She contacted me later when she was moving and said she would like me to have it since I worked with her husband at the end of his life. We settled on a price and I bought the car with 24,000 original miles on the odometer. As I was leaving, the wife handed me a box of brand-new original floormats that had never been opened.
After driving the car around for a few days, I discovered a constant “thumping” that would increase with speed. After taking the car to a mechanic, he explained to me that the tires were original from the factory and although there was plenty of tread left, the tires had developed flat-spots from sitting in the driveway for years.
I replaced the tires and the car now has about 60K. Rides like a Cadillac.
Biden neocon war drums beat louder
“As an American, I can tell you firsthand that folks are so unengaged in these events and their consequences. It appears that we believe we’re undefeatable. Our hubris will destroy us.”
China adopts a strategy that is not exactly the Socialist Price Fixing but more of a Price Control
And purely for foodstuffs
China has in place a market mechanism for prices to rise and fall, a sort of a farm futures index
China also engages in buying 44%-77% of all the grain produced and Pork Produced and all other Agriculture produced in China , minus a few products like Fruits or Pears Or Shrimp etc
They pay according to the market index
Then when and if prices rise higher, they release foodstuffs from their storage and increase supply and this automatically lower prices to acceptable levels
This is because China has a storage capacity of 33 months for Grain at a 3.28% wastage
This is astounding for a Country that in 2007 had a 11 month storage capacity with 18% wastage
Now this is technically against Economic Laws
However Adam Smiths Free Market didn’t include manipulations
In the West, Agro Futures and Prices are pretty much capitalist controlled and can surge and fall in a way controlled by cartels
It’s worse in Africa , far worse
And Pakistan, by God it’s atrocious
Surprisingly India has a good old fashioned system like the State Purchases and Mandis that keep prices controlled
So my belief is Government should practise staunch capitalism and free market as long as :-
The market is dictated by PURE DEMAND AND SUPPLY and not by Cartel players
Education & Food & Health & Transport are excluded from pure capitalism and treated as Public Services
To the best of my knowledge only 17 Nations practise the above including China & the GCC& Scandinavian Countries
It smells like mothballs, and the woman at the counter is at least 126 years old.
What’s this? An antique lamp. Looks old. I pick it up and wipe off the dirt and…
*POOF*
A genie.
He’s big. Blue. Sounds a lot like Robin Williams.
He says I get one wish and can’t ask for more wishes. I get it. The United Genie Association (UGA) doesn’t want one person taking all the wishes. They want to share the love. It’s a noble idea… but it’s one I can sidestep.
“I WISH… to be given the option to accept the same thing that every person wishes for when they find this lamp”.
Boom.
Someone wishes for a million dollars a week later… I’ll accept it too.
Someone wishes for the power of flight a month later… I’ll accept it too.
Someone wishes for world peace a year later… I don’t want that (not because I’m against the cause, but what are we going to do with TWICE the world peace?).
I haven’t asked for more wishes.
I’m just being offered a gift now and then.
Checkmate genie.
Now get back in the lamp. There’s an antique apothecary table I’ve got my eye on, and I want to get back to my shopping.
Yes you can. My cousin had her car stolen while at work. While riding the bus home a few days later, she saw it in a grocery store parking lot. She jumped off the bus keys in hand and sure enough, it was her car. Still hadsome of her belongings in it. Still had her registration and other documents in the glove box too. So she hoped in, locked the door and called the nonemergency police number to report she found it. It started up fine so they said she could drive off with it. As she was on the phone with them, someone came out of the store (with a cart full of groceries) and screamed at her that it was their car and to get out ECT. She cracked the window just enough to tell them it was her car, they stole it, and that they were idiots for leaving HER registration in the glove box. She then said I have the cops on the phone if you want to talk to them. They took off running. Left their groceries behind. She proceeded to load them into her car and drive off with the $200 worth of food. She said she took it as payment for stealing her car. She said what are they gonna do? Call the cops and say “Yea the lady who’s car I stole a few days ago took back her car and stole my groceries”
China could destroy the UK economy at the stoke of a pen.
Pull HSBC’s banking licence in China. HSBC is a UK bank. It’s got several trillion in assets and relies heavily on Asia and China now. HSBC withdrew from the US market as they were caught money laundering for terrorists and drug cartels.
The UK government would bail HSBC out and need to print 900–1500bn to do so.
GBP would suffer mega inflation.
Next up sanctions to push that inflation up some more. Without Chinese imports and exports to China their inflation would go up another 10–25% that would cause loss of faith immediately and they’d be looking at £50 bread. Massive riots would happen at this stage.
Biden Threatens War With China Over The…Philippines?
How deluded are these people if they think the US can talk down to China about anything at this stage, let alone human rights…
Obviously, the exact timing depended to a significant extent on the nature of the ground but, in the British army, a man was considered capable of moving, on average, a cubic foot of earth in three minutes. It was assumed that the rate would start at a cubic foot every two minutes in the first hour and then decline to a cubic foot every six minutes by the fourth hour. The work rate also slowed as the trench was dug deeper as the earth had to be lifted further. Reliefs should be provided at least every four hours.
A contemporary example I have seen suggests that forty men, using 40 shovels and 20 picks, could dig a:
forty rifle trench, 18″ command, traversed, recessed, and with head cover, in easy soil, in seven hours.
It is further noted that the minimum practical distance between men working was 5′ if a pick was being used and 4′ otherwise.
A full trench would be 6′ 6″ deep, being constructed of a 1′ 6″ parapet (above ground level), a 3′ drop to the fire step and then a two foot drop to the bottom of the trench. Initially the trench would be 4′ 6″ deep (including the parapet) and a minimum of 18″ wide. As soon as time allowed, the area behind the 18″ fire step would be dug out another 2′ and 2′-3′ wide to create the passage trench, the bottom of which would now be 6′ 6″ deep.
Of course, when under fire, they didn’t start building the full trench all at once. It would have started as a shallow scrape around 6′ x 2′ x 1′. That’s 12 cubic feet and would have taken around 40 minutes to dig. The scrape would then, successively, have been deepened so that it could accommodate a kneeling man (3′ deep) and then a standing man (4′ 6″ deep).
A scrape is defined, in considerable detail, thus:
[The soldier should] tear up and collect any vegetation within arm’s reach, and heap it up loosely as a screen at full arm’s length to the front.
(Lying on the left side of the body, and using the pick or blade of the grubber, according to the hardness of the ground, he should quickly hack the earth loose in a furrow, about 1′ 6″ feet away on the right side, from as far back to the right rear to as far forward to the right front as he can reach.
Then holding the grubber by the handle close to its head, thumb pointing towards small end of handle, and, using the blade as a scoop or hoe, he should scrape the loose earth out of the furrow and heap it up close in front of his left eye and shoulder. He should hack loose another strip of earth along the near side of the original furrow, so that the grubber will strike into ground which is probably softer than the crust, and can thus be undercut and wrenched up from below. He should continue to scrape loose earth towards the parapet and hack off the crust until the furrow is about 1’ 6″ feet wide. Any lumps of earth available should be used to build up the near edge of the parapet as steeply as possible.
Each new lot of loose earth should be disposed so as. to thicken the parapet in a direct line between his head and the point from which the most accurate fire appears to come, or, if the enemy’s fire seems to come from every direction, he may extend the parapet right-handed in a general horseshoe round the front of he trench, keeping. the past of the parapet over which he intends to fire about 6″ lower than the remainder, and of bullet-proof thickness if possible.
When the depth of the trench reaches about 6″ at the front end and 12″ at the back, and the parapet is 6″ high and bullet-proof, some vegetation, if any is available, should be scattered over the parapet to conceal the earth thrown up. The soldier is then ready to join the firefight.
The following diagram shows the evolution of the scrape (A) through successive digging to the full trench (E).
When sapping or extending an existing trench, the working face, and thus the number of men that can be employed, is obviously limited and it was expected that a trench could be extended by between one and two feet per hour.
Before I was old enough to go to school my best friend was a little boy named Lester who lived across the street. We were almost inseparable. Then, just before starting school, we moved away. We visited Lester and his family a few times over the next couple of years, and then my parents started saying it was too far away and making other excuses for not visiting. After a while I got used to not seeing Lester any more, but I never forgot him.
After I had grown up, finished college and gotten married, my wife and I went back to my hometown and visited my mother. While looking through Mom’s old photo albums I came across an invitation to one of Lester’s birthday parties. Mom then told me the truth about Lester for the first time. One day she and Lester’s mother had taken us to the doctor together for our regular checkups. My results came back normal, and Lester’s showed he had leukemia. He still looked healthy when we moved away, and for the next couple of years. But then he became visibly ill and my parents didn’t want me to know, so they found reasons to stop the visits. But Mom secretly kept writing and talking on the phone to Lester’s mother for several years afterwards, and knew that he died not long after our visits stopped.
Even though it had been many years I was very shaken and saddened by that news, and to this day I wish I had been told what was happening and had a chance to say goodbye. All this happened in the late ’50s and early ’60s (I was born in 1955). Then, a few years ago, I decided to try and find out what had happened to Lester’s family. Mom had died in 1999 so my only recourse was to search online with what I had from my own memories. After a long search I finally came across a picture of Lester on a genealogy website and sent an email to his cousin. She put me in touch with her mother, who was one of Lester’s sisters. We exchanged several emails with memories of Lester, and though she wasn’t much older than him she vaguely remembered the little boy across the street (me) who had been his friend. I scanned several photos of him and me together from Mom’s photo albums and emailed them to her, including a few in which he was wearing the same clothes as in the picture they had put on the website. She was glad to know someone outside the family still remembered her little brother with fondness.
I’m 68 and I still wish I could have seen him once more, but this experience at least finally gave me a little closure.
Thanks for the a2a. Why? Those of us old enough to remember all the manufacturing jobs going to China know that capitalistic greed is the reason. Owners and CEO’s thought paying Chinese workers rock bottom prices was more cost effective than to continue producing product in the US.
I don’t blame China. They needed the jobs back then. They took those low wages because it was better than none. It was better than starving in the Great Leap Forward. They were just providing for their families, same as the rest of us. I don’t begrudge them their success and rise to greatness.
In fact, I am impressed and absolutely thrilled with how far China has come. By the way, you get what you pay for. Pay them low wages and you might get low quality. Pay them well and you may see high speed rails and virtual reality. What you get from China is really up to you.
But don’t resent China or the people. Resent the factory owners. Resent your bosses that took your job out from under you. Blame the true villain instead of the straw man.
Rats reach giant sizes in the battlefield of Ukraine as they feed on corpses of the dead soldiers and they’re never out of new meat.
The Western Siberian oil basin is the largest oil and natgas producing region in Russia. One would think that locals benefit from cheap gasoline.
Residents of Orenburg, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, and other neighboring Russian regions who live close to the border go on gasoline tours to Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan filling tanks and canisters with much cheaper gasoline. For A-92 the difference is about 50%; for A-95: 30-33%, for diesel fuel: 30-37%.
What gives? High taxes to pay for war in Ukraine.
In Russia, the share of taxed in the liter of gasoline is much greater than in Kazakhstan. The excise tax on diesel fuel in Kazakhstan is 540 tenge (90 rubles), while in Russia 9,556 rubles per 1 ton (the share of excise tax per liter of fuel is 8 rubles).
The excise tax on imported gasoline in Kazakhstan is 1,839 rubles per ton while in Russia it’s 13,262 rubles, or about 10.3 rubles per 1 liter.
As a result, the share of the tax component in the liter of Russian gasoline at the moment, taking into account the excise tax, mineral extraction tax, and VAT, is over 70%!
Therefore, Russians pay extra for gasoline in order to dispatch fellow citizens to feed rats in Ukraine! Lucky rodents.
In the Perm Krai, an 11th-grader was given military summons right at school after celebrating Conscript Day. “Rats are hungry,” said the representative of the conscription office.
The Hamas delegation led by a member of the Politburo of the militants Abu Marzuk arrived in Moscow. They plan to discuss with their Russian counterparts how to conduct surprise targeted raids and kidnappings, share secrets about how to fool intelligence services, and receive additional lessons in paragliding.
But you do not worry, I’m sure that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who first came to power two years after Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus killed all his competitors. These elderly men are birds of the same feather and flock together. Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has regularly entertained Taliban, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas as they have one crucial thing in common – they have dedicated their lives to fighting America’s hegemony .
During the Civil War in Sri Lanka, Mossad sold weapons to both sides of the conflict. Likewise, after seeing Hamas out of the door, Putin will meet with a delegation from Israel.
Military service is advertised on buses. Russian state agency plans to have ads on space rockets. In case aliens will see the phone number in the outer space and decide to become heroes of Russia.
The Head of the General Staff of Russia’s friendly India stabbed Brutalsky in the back and turned the knife one hundred and eighty degrees.
“Russia’s geopolitical importance will decline over time, even though it is a nuclear power.”
Flashing his nuclear head has been Putin’s favorite pastime for the duration of two years. Having an Indian general say publicly that they’re not impressed with the endowment and that the size doesn’t matter is appalling.
Russia depends on India. India can squeeze Russia for discounts as they have to sell oil somewhere while India has many options where to buy it.
After the start of Special Military Humiliation, the whole world stopped being afraid of Russia witnessing the low level of training of the military and the lack of modern weapons.
India is now considered a space power with its own lunar mission, while the Russian moon probe crashed and burned, the mission unaccomplished.
Sergey Shoigu should issue a threat that they would nuke the Taj Mahal and invade Goa on the pretext that thousands of Russian creatives are engaged in non-conservative and non-traditional activities there.
Many years ago I worked at a Toyota factory in the USA. One day we had some visitors from GM taking the factory tour and the visitor’s center was hospitable and had them meet some of the engineers and technical people (I was in IT and honestly had the best personality to deal with visitors so was invited along).
The GM people asked us to see our rework yard. I had no idea where or what that was so I asked my colleagues what it is and where it is. They were as confused as me.
When asked, the GM folks told us it’s the lot where they keep cars that come off the assembly line with defects so that they can be patched up and sold.
So we took them to the small warehouse area where we keep the dozen or so cars that come off the line with a minor issue that we can fix and make it as good as every other car. More often than not it was an issue with the stitching on the seat or a steering wheel or something like that, and we would just replace the part that was imperfect.
GM guy: “Where’s the rest of it?”
Me: “This is it. What do you do?”
GM guy explained they had a large lot for cars that come off the line with faulty body work or engines or transmissions, and they’re patched up so they can be sold. Then he said “what do you do with your defective cars?”
We explained that it rarely happens, and when it does we study it, figure out what went wrong, fix the issue so it won’t happen again, and then either keep the car for further study and training purposes or crush it. Nothing that comes off the line with a serious defect leaves the factory.
And that’s why Japanese engines (and vehicles) are known for reliability. Yes, tolerances are tight and yes, Japanese companies avoid untested technology. But that’s secondary.
The main reason is that anything defective that gets produced is studied, not sold, and then improvements are made so it won’t happen again.
The Japanese do make bad cars sometimes. They just don’t sell them.
Not everyone can say that.
Edit: Thanks for your awesome comments everyone. This is the sort of thing that makes Quora fun.
Second edit: Since Edward Deming keeps getting mentioned in the comments I feel I should address his influence on Japanese industrial processes. I’m no expert on Deming but from what I’ve read he’s clearly a remarkable man who had a tremendous impact on Japan’s postwar industrial development. With that said I feel it’s wrong to entirely credit him with Japan’s reputation for building quality products. He could have made the same contribution in other countries and received different results. Deming planted the seed and the Japanese nurtured the plant. Deming certainly deserves accolades for his contribution but the main credit for Japanese quality goes to the Japanese themselves. By all accounts Deming was a very humble man and certainly would agree. The world is a poorer place without him in it.
Iran Defense Minister to USA: Ceasefire in Gaza or be “Hit Hard”
Iran’s defense minister said Sunday that the U.S. would be “hit hard” if Washington doesn’t push for and implement a cease-fire in Gaza.
“Our advice to the Americans is to immediately stop the war in Gaza and implement a cease-fire, otherwise they will be hit hard,” Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani said, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Chinese people, by nature, are very calm/collective/and incredibly hard-working.
I have never seen/met even one Chinese in Canada/or China who is boastful, talks too much, and delivers nothing. Their talk is zero percent, and delivery is almost 100 percent. I have worked with Chinese Canadians at different levels for nearly fifty years.
By nature, they are very humble.
They are not gossipy/very goal-oriented.
And they are wired to work very cooperatively and team-spirited.
To describe Chinese: There used to be one advertisement. It used to say: Let your fingers do the talking.
Regardless, It was an advertisement for OLD TIME: Yellow Pages, before the internet. Some people may remember these Yellow Pages in the phone books used for publicity for all kinds of things/services/almost everything.
For Chinese people, I have a similar thing to say: Let the achievements of the Chinese do the talking.
I have observed and tried to implement/copy some of their trademark habits.
To win from the Chinese is almost mission impossible.
I could write many things about others, but these are my impressions/observations, it may upset some people.
And
It is sufficient to say that China and the Chinese will rule the world for a long time from now onwards.
A word of caution:
Yes, I am very aware of the lifestyle of rich kids: A present is small numbers but eventually will put one nail in the coffin. It happens to every race/country/company: To become complacent/wasteful/lazy/let it go. It is a usual growth curve, stagnation, and dying of wealth and power.
Yes, I am aware of the shortcomings/evils/of the riches, too. There is a start of problem of obesity.
Yes, there is an onset of flaunting new riches, too.
Yes, there is the onset of being complacent.
Yes, there is the onset of being lazy.
Yes, some of the new affluent Chinese kids are becoming obese/lazy/show off/useless/they come to the West to live in penthouses/fancy cars/big money in the bank by the daddy/and blow away dady money.
One line sums up: China and the Chinese: Let their achievements do the talking.
No race can compete with them: They are killing -machines in every field. And most of our neighbors are Chinese, and our kids went to school with their kids.
There is zero tolerance for not excelling in academics in a Chinese household.
I want to share something: One of our kids was neck to neck-with the Chinese kids in school. Chinese, by nature, as said earlier, keep to themselves, do not discuss their game plan, and work very hard. They surprise the competition with the result.
They did the same thing with China: They closed the doors to outsiders and put their houses in order. When they opened the doors, the world had a big surprise.
Go to China, see it yourself: Come back to the “Developed” so-called first world and see it yourself.
Rest assured, the world will not be the same: Life will be insensitive for the rest.
It is NOT only their industrial might: It is also relatively crime-free/corruption-free/full equality of women/and not wasting money in useless wars. During my six visits, I found that most people in China hope for a bright future.
Sadly, the West was in gloated form, complacent form, and ignorance form, and China’s bashful behavior of not flaunting took the whole world by surprise.
And
Due to the Chinese’s very reserved nature, not flaunting, keeping a shallow profile, however, the fact of life in Canada is they own massive real estate. In one city where I make most of my living, Chinese money is behind in all gigantic projects. And in other words, China owns an enormous share of Canada. (Please note this statement is based on my gut feelings/observations.)
It is also a myth that most Chinese are atheists. There is no truth to it. The Chinese have found the real God (Do your good Karma and do not worry about the results). Their massive churches are not ONLY for praising the LORD. There is all mutual business, comparing notes about the kids’ super achievements, kids helping kids, and parents exchanging their business cards. In the end, yes, it comes to Praise the Lord.
I have worked with almost all the races on the earth in Canada. Rest assured, NOT even one race except the Chinese can work together. You do not need supervisors/guards on any other race; if one tries to come out of the hole, the other members of his race pull him down, except the Chinese, they will lift the one who is trying to get out, and the same way the whole pit will be empty. Moral: That is why the Chinese are the wealthiest community in almost every country. (The hole is a metaphor for the poverty of comers; helping each other is a metaphor for a deep bond for each other, coming out of the hole to enjoy prosperity.) These were all metaphors and my observations.
Here is a bit more information on the author:
Something about myself and my family: I was born a few years ago; India was independent in 1947in the Punjab region of India, in a Hindu/Punjabi family. I did a BSc with two extra B.A. subjects and a BEd MSc from Punjab University Chandigarh. Now, it is in the U.T.
I moved to Canada in the early 70s when I was in my early 20s, enrolled in a grad program at U of Guelph, and finished my MSc with almost double the courses than expected and a lovely thesis on an industrial problem of that time.
I became very interested in learning about China and the Chinese in primary school. Our teacher was very impressed with China/Buddhism/Culture/and so on. He sowed powerful seeds in my mind about the great civilization of China. I vowed that one day I would visit China. I saw it six /visited times, and I just scratched the surface. Then COVID hit the world, and my continued journey stopped. Hopefully, I will start again to explore China.
I have been in Canada for close to fifty years. My wife and I raised our kids. Now, we are blessed with grandkids.
I hope it helps.
Sam Arora: MSc Food Science U of Guelph, Canada MSc Dairy Science U of Punjab, NDRI, India
Beautiful Shanghai: The area is called The Bund. In the background, the Pearl Tower salutes China’s rise to the Unofficial Chairman of the board(In my view). China and the Chinese showed the world that everything is possible with super hard work, And that is the real essence of Hinduism: super Karma.
Most Chinese people do not believe in reducing anyone’s height. They increase their very quietly and with total devotion.
It is possible that in the eighteenth century, the US may have adopted the metric system of measurements if it were not for a series of unfortunate events that befell Frenchman Joseph Dombey. Mr. Dombey was sent to America in 1794 to help the Americans reform the imperial system of measurements inherited from the British. The Americans had with the help of the French defeated the British and might be interested in a non British measurement system.
Dombey took with him copper prototypes for the newly devised meter and kilometer, which he intended to present to Congress. Unfortunately, his ship was blown off course to Guadeloupe where French royalists imprisoned him. H, Dombey was released only to be captured by pirates who stole his measurements and held him for ransom. While in captivity the unfortunate Frenchman died of a fever- thus depriving America of the the opportunity to adopt the metric system.
The morphine syrette used in WWII and Vietnam had a wire loop pin with a guard in the end of the hollow needle that was used to break a seal where the needle was attached to the tube. After breaking the seal, the wire loop pin was removed and the hollow needle was inserted under the skin at a shallow angle and the tube flattened between the thumb and fingers. After injection the used tube was pinned to the receiving soldier’s collar to inform others of the dose administered.
In the infantry, usually the medics carried them however some soldiers did carry some in case needed.
Today’s wounded soldiers suck on lollipops.
The new treatment offers an alternative to the morphine needle you see in the World War II movies, with medics jabbing a syrette into a soldier’s leg or arm.
The Fentanyl lollipop offers medics a faster way to ease the pain of a battlefield injury as the drug can be absorbed more rapidly through a lozenge in the mouth than from a needle injected into the muscle.
The absorption is actually faster through the blood vessels in the mouth. You don’t have to worry about shock which will constrict the blood vessels in a major muscle in a leg or an arm.
I was young and unwed. The doctor I saw attended me nicely, tried to counsel me, teach me about babies, etc, assuming at 17 I wasn’t capable.
After my beautiful baby was born and about 3 months old, at a routine check up, the doctor began asking me odd questions about wanting my freedom, needing money, etc., until he finally got around to saying he wanted my baby. Said he could do more for her than I ever could blah blah blah.
I was dumb struck. Insulted beyond belief. Scared me, too.
I told him he wasn’t her mother and could do any more than I could because he could never be her mother.
An odd response, I suppose, but I believed it then and still today. I was young, naive, resourceless, etc., but I knew he could never love her like I did (and do).
I got pulled over in Florida on Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County. FHP trooper came up to me and asked me how I was doing. I replied, “Well, honestly, I was doing pretty good before I met you.” He laughed and replied, “Oh yeah. Ninety five. Ninety FIVE!”
Now it just so happened that he pulled me over right in front of an interstate marker sign. So I pointed at it and said, “But look right there. The sign says 95.” He laughed and then pointed to a piece of paper lying beside me on the passenger seat. “What’s that right there,” he asked. Um. A ticket. “Let me see that.” I handed it to him. He looked at it, then said to me “You’re going to screw around until you lose your license.”
Then…he let me go. I couldn’t believe it. I think he realized with the ticket he was about to give me, coupled with the ticket I already had, actually would result in a suspension of my license. I think that because I gave him a good laugh, he decided to cut me a big break.
When I was 17-years-old, I was working as a waitress in a hotel restaurant. I was clumsy as hell and uncomfortable serving people. I started as a kitchen hand so I was used to being in the back and safe from the patrons.
One day, a group of four from England, came in wanting to be seated. We only had one table available and we hadn’t cleared it yet so as they walked toward the table. I’m panicking about getting it prepared for them.
One of their party is an older gentlemen probably in his 40s and he’s quite handsome. He looked a little like Mads Mikkelsen.
He was just like this and pretty fetching in my eyes. So, I apologized to his group and there were really gracious about it. They were lovely, lovely people. However, just as I’m removing a water jug from the table and one of the other girls is cleaning it, I bang into the gentleman as I’m turning and I spilled water all the way down the front of his shirt and all over his trousers. I’m instantly horrified and I’m pretty sure I actually stopped breathing. He just said, “Ooops!”
He grabbed a serviette and starts dabbing at his shirt and without thinking and TRYING to be helpful, I also grab a serviette and I “dab it on his crotch”. Realizing the mistake I’ve made, I just drop the serviette and walk away back into the kitchen followed by the other waitress who is pissing herself by laughing hysterically while I’m nearly crying.
I had to return to their table to give them their cutlery, and as I’m placing it on the table, my hands are visibly shaking from my shame and embarrassment. However, the people at the table are so friendly, they’re laughing and joking so I feel less shitty about accidentally molesting the nice man. They were staying at the hotel so I saw them a couple more times during breakfast and dinner again the following night. Every time the group came in, they stopped to say hello and asked how I was.
To this day, I cringe and I still see the embarrassed look he gave me when I had my hand on his crotch. Oh, floor…please swallow me!
Johnny Depp. He had zero acting education or prior experience. He simply accompanied his band mate (!) to an audition for A Nightmare On Elm Street before a band rehearsal and waited in the lobby. Director Wes Craven spotted him, noticed his boyish good looks and said “You! Get in here right now.”
I’d say that qualifies as practically falling into a movie career.
A programmer named Tim Paterson worked hard writing code for a new operating system. Later that year in August 1980 Seattle Computer Products, shipped the first version of the operating system.
One day, a young energetic guy with large eyeglasses walked into the company searching for the operating system named 86-DOS.
He negotiated a non-exclusive license for $25,000 and took it to the computer giant named IBM. He showed the demo, offered a few modifications that they were requesting and closed a deal.
A few weeks later, in May 1981, this bright guy named Bill Gates who worked on a startup named Microsoft went back to Tim Paterson and hired him to further develop the software.
On July 27, 1981 he paid another $50,000 for the full rights, totaling $75,000 and renamed it to MS-DOS.
A month later, Microsoft was shipping MS-DOS on IBM personal computers, and within a year Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to over 70 other companies!
Eventually this work turned Bill Gates and Paul Allen into the world’s richest men.
This my friend, is one of the best examples of “Work Smarter, NOT harder!”
I’m not sure that this counts as cheating, but a couple students did exploit a loophole.
It was about 2000, and I was teaching a large (~200 students) circuit theory course at the University of Washington, in Autumn quarter, in the big lecture hall in Bagley Hall. As the time for the second midterm approached, students began clamoring, “Professor Sahr, how can we get extra credit on the exam?” I kept telling them, “just study for the exam, okay? And do your best. No extra credit!”
But the students kept whining and whining, and finally (exasperated), I said this: “Okay, any students who cross Drumheller Fountain on the day of the exam get 10 extra points.” The students said “awwww, you’re no fun.”
You can probably see where this is going.
At any rate, the day of the exam arrives, and the weather just sucks. It’s mid November, and (unsurprisingly) it’s raining cats and dogs, and the wind is blowing. As I stagger over to Bagley Hall, I notice that Drumheller Fountain is on — there are these water jets in the middle of this 100-foot-diameter fountain which is (by the way) about seven feet deep. And I think to myself, “why in hell is the campus running the fountain right now?” because the wind is blowing the spray all over the place, and making a miserable day even more miserable.
Anyway, I get into the auditorium, and I look around. Everyone is kind of bedraggled, because of staggering through the rainstorm outside. Obviously there’s a lot of water on the floor, because of the 200 or so students tracking it in with their wet feet and clothes.
But it seems to me that there was kind of more water than I would expect, even on such a rainy day. Glancing further around the room, I notice something weird off to the side: it’s a rubber raft. As I look up into the seats, I see the hundreds of students, but then I notice two students sitting next to each other, and *nobody* is sitting near them. These two students are wearing orange survival suits, and it dawns upon me that these two idiots have crossed Drumheller Fountain in that rubber raft.
I had a friend of my father-in-law’s reach out to me in desperation. His daughter was about to graduate from U. Buffalo with a major in cinematography. She was working on her final project and her Mac crashed on her. He implored me to help her out as best I could.
I got her laptop and pulled the drive. I popped it into an external enclosure and it had 10k available. A hard drive should have 15+% free so the computer can write temp files to it. 10k is REALLY bad. Then I heard a click come from it. This is desperation time, now. A click from a hard drive usually implies a “head crash”. This occurs when the magnetic reader inside the drive makes contact with the platter that has the data written to it. It’s usually a fatal situation.
It was about 9PM on a Saturday. I broke out a bottle of Jameson’s and knuckled down for some serious thinking.
OK, the reader is making contact with the platter. I need to make the platter smaller, so the head comes off it. Come on, science, help me out here. What makes things smaller? COLD! I took the drive and stuck it in my freezer (in a ziploc baggie). Then, I built a box that could hold the drive, and I attached a bunch of computer fans to it, pointed down where the drive will lay. After a couple of hours, I removed the drive from the freezer, stuck it in the box with the fans, and fired it up.
NOTE: the fans were there, not for cooling, but to prevent condensation from forming on the drive and its controller card.
I fired it up and was able to recover the entire contents of the drive. I finished the bottle and powered down the drive. Just for S&Gs, I turned it back on and it failed HARD, like it’s never gonna work again, “hard”. I just managed to recover it as it was on its final death throes.
I told my FIL’s buddy to send me another (bigger) drive and that I was able to recover everything. He asked, “How? I thought it was completely dead.”
“SCIENCE!”
Somewhere out there is a cinematographer who owes her college graduation to me, Jameson’s, and science!
The B-52 does have a toilet, but it is very basic and primitive. The toilet is located behind the offense compartment, which is where the pilot, co-pilot, and electronic warfare officer sit. The crew members have to use a bag to defecate and dispose of it when the bomber’s mission is over.
There is no privacy, as there is no door or curtain. The toilet is also very close to the classified communication servers, which can be awkward and uncomfortable.
The B-52’s toilet is not very convenient or comfortable, but it is necessary for the crew members who have to fly long and demanding missions. Its pilots and crews have to follow strict procedures and protocols, such as pre-flight checks, post-flight checks, flight planning, flight testing, and flight training, to ensure the safety and readiness of the aircraft.
Its pilots and crews also have to deal with varying atmospheric conditions, such as temperature, pressure, and humidity, which can affect their health and comfort. The B-52’s toilet is one of the few amenities that the crew members have on board the aircraft.
So the B-52’s toilet is not very convenient or comfortable, but it is necessary for the crew members who have to fly long and demanding missions.
When I was 19 years old I was in an elevator in a high rise building at night on my way to the 50th floor.
At the 5th floor, the elevator stopped, a man got in and pressed the ground floor button. Once the doors shut he suddenly grabbed my purse! I stood there looking at him while he frantically started pressing the first floor button.
I explained to him the car would go all the way up to the 50th floor first but he ignored me and kept pressing the button.
We slowly went up. It was quiet and creaky. Old elevator in an old building. No cameras (that I know of).
About halfway up I asked if he could take the cash out and leave me the purse so I would not lose my pictures and identification. He said “sure”, took the cash, handed me the purse. I mumbled thanks.
When we got to the top and the doors opened, he said “please stay in the elevator until I get off”.
So I stood there in my corner, nervous, but also calm while we went all the way down to the first floor where he got out. The doors shut and I went back up to the top floor.
In the country, there are elections every five years, there is no other candidate in the elections.
2.Owning cars.
In North Korea, only rich people, powerful people and government officials can on cars including luxury cars.
3.If you commit a crime, the rest of the family would go to jail.
In North Korea, committing a crime would lead your Innocent family to be in jail as well if they didn’t commit a crime.
4.There is an abandoned propaganda village within the border of South Korea to attract south koreans who desire to defect to north korea.
5.You will find almost every empty roads in that country.
In North Korea, almost every roads in that country are very empty with few cars and people.
6.Don’t talk to locals when you’re a tourist.
When you’re tourist, you’re not allowed to talk to locals citizens of that country.
7.Western products are not allowed in that country as well as products from South Korea.
Because of the sanctions by the international community, products from the outside world including k pop music and products from South Korea aren’t allowed in that country.
Despite the ban of these products by the North Korean government from the outside world, people smuggle them and they are sold in black markets.
8.People aren’t allowed to wear jeans in that country.
Jeans aren’t allowed in that country because the North Korean government thinks that they are western made clothes.
Years ago I was on a tour with a bunch of classmates in Northern California.
Naturally, we had to stop at In N Out and since most of my classmates were from the East Coast, it was their first In N Out experience. They quickly learned that you could order as many hamburger patties as you liked for your burger and one guy decided to push the limits.
In true first timer fashion, he ordered an 11×11, meaning eleven patties and eleven slices of cheese between the same bun. The burger cost him more than 20 bucks and for some reason he ordered fries as well. He couldn’t finish the damn thing and ended up wasting a good portion of it. This was before camera phones and social media, so he was even able to get a picture and brag about it. The glory of ordering an 11×11 was lost to a rubbish can that day.
Fortunately, In N Out won’t put more than 4 patties on a single burger any longer. That’s my understanding anyhow.
No, but they are certainly among the most powerful and formidable weapons in the world. Nuclear-powered submarines are not weapons themselves, but platforms that can carry and launch various types of weapons, such as torpedoes, missiles, and mines.
Some of these weapons can be nuclear-armed, which means they can deliver a nuclear warhead to a target, causing massive destruction and radiation.
Nuclear-powered submarines have several advantages over conventional submarines, which are powered by diesel engines or batteries. Nuclear-powered submarines can operate at high speeds and depths for long periods, without the need to surface or refuel. They can also travel long distances and access remote areas, such as the Arctic or the South China Sea. They can evade detection and countermeasures, thanks to their stealth and maneuverability. They can provide a credible and persistent deterrent, as well as a rapid and flexible response, to potential adversaries.
Nuclear-powered submarines also have some drawbacks and limitations, which make them less than the most deadly weapons ever made. Nuclear-powered submarines are very expensive and complex to build, maintain, and operate. They require highly skilled and trained personnel, as well as strict safety and security measures.
They are vulnerable to accidents and malfunctions, which can result in radiation leaks, fires, or explosions. They are also subject to international laws and norms, which regulate their use and proliferation. They are not invincible, as they can be detected, tracked, and attacked by other submarines, ships, aircraft, or satellites.
I’d appreciate an upvote if you found this answer helpful or informative.
In any military, young recruits are often highly idealistic — as many of us are with any new profession.
These recruits have played Call of Duty and watched Full Metal Jacket. They love battle and are excited to go full Rambo and blow things up.
And then they experience war for the first time.
They are shot at. They see a friend bleeding to death, knowing they can do nothing to save them. The recruits learn the hard way that war is true horror.
In the US Army, there’s a phrase, “Standard Operating Procedures are written in blood.”
It means that every stupid rule a cadet is drilled on, is there for a massive reason. Other units have learned these lessons in a very, very difficult way.
No, not all of your life’s lessons will be written in blood — but you may pay a steep price if you don’t listen to people wiser than yourself. They’ve seen things.
Cajun Pot Roast with Maque Choux
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 (2 to 2 1/2 pound) boneless beef chuck roast
1 tablespoon dried Cajun seasoning
1 (9 ounce) package frozen corn
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup green bell pepper, chopped
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
Instructions
Rub entire surface of beef roast with Cajun seasoning.
Place roast in 3 1/2 to 4 quart slow cooker. Top with onion, corn and bell pepper.
In small bowl, combine tomatoes, pepper and hot pepper sauce; mix well. Pour over vegetables and roast.
When he was 87 and slipping into dementia, I asked my father exactly this on one of his “good days.” He smiled and said that it had been worth it, even when he became the last of his siblings alive and started to lose his ability to remember names, first, and other things later.
He became a very gentle person to be around (he had been an angry and argumentative Democrat for most of his life) and enjoyed his children, grandchildren, and even their pets. We got along better than we ever had. I remember taking him to the Fourth of July parade and whispering the names of people who came up to greet him. Once he knew their names, he could have a great conversation. Then I brought him back to a school reunion and that was wonderful. He needed no introductions as everyone wore a name tag.
Having watched my father in those years, I hope that I may live long enough to navigate old age just the way he did despite his obvious infirmities.
I’ve worked with the company I’m presently employed with for not quite 12 years. Up until a year ago, we were a small personable, easy going, family owned company of about 250 drivers. If you were around for any length of time, everyone in the office and shop knew you, and vice versa. That was up until about a year ago when the owner of the company retired and threw us under the bus by selling us out to a larger company and everything changed.
It’s common practice for just about any trucking company to require any damage to their equipment be reported and documented. With my company, if the damage was minimal, the report would still go in the driver’s jacket, but no further. It would stay in-house instead of being reported to a national data base.
I’ve always been the type to man-up in situations such as this. I was raised that way, and it was the right thing to do. Even leaving small damage unreported could result in the next driver having to have it repaired and possibly being late for a delivery.
So, after pulling out of a customer’s driveway and cutting it too tighly, I felt something go bump in the night. Upon further inspection, it appears I clipped one of those large landscaping rocks placed to prevent idiot drivers like me from cutting corners too tightly, and running over their curbs. When I stopped for the day and was doing my mandatory post-trip inspection, I came upon this,
Thinking it was no biggie, and my company would normally think likewise, and wanting to do the right thing, I called it it. What happened next was nothing short of a shit storm. The new people acted like I ran over a carload of nuns. Initial phone call to my parent company, followed by a call to the new company’s safety department, followed by a call-back the next day from same, followed by submitting pictures and a full accident report, followed by a call-back from the new company to review of same, followed by a never-heard-of-before-review from Greg in our safety department.
When I related the story to the former head of our . safety department, her reaction was, “It was just a fuckin’ rim!”, as she shook her head.
Trust me, if it ever happens again, I won’t think twice about going palms up with a “Dunno nuthin’ ‘bout it. When I dropped it off, it was fine “, should anyone inquire.
I was driving down the freeway and all of a sudden I couldn’t see the cars ahead of me. It was if someone had pulled a shade down in front of my line of vision. I could see all around the shade, but not right in front. Although it was only for a few moments, the terror I felt was devasting.
I was a 21-year old college student, a senior at academically prestigious school, getting good grades, working part time, and enjoying a fun social life.
So, what was the matter? Where did the intense headaches come from? Why did I frequently wake up in the middle of the night, jumping out of bed and running to the bathroom, to vomit repeatedly? Why did I feel that I was about to fall down whenever the sidewalk was a little uneven?
Then there were those crazy nightmares I was having.…. I dreamed one night that I was driving on the freeway. The car next to me pulled up right beside me. The driver pulled a gun out. He shot me in the head. My head exploded. Everything became dark. I woke up in a terrified sweat. What on earth was wrong with my head that I would have such a dream?
In spite of everything, I was doing okay and maintaining my studies. But finally it became too much for me to handle. Especially the shade covering my eyes on the freeway.
I saw several doctors. They said I was fine.
I went to a psychologist. I figured that since the doctors said I was fine, it must be all in my mind. The psychologist listened to my symptoms. He said that I didn’t need to see a psychologist. Instead, I needed to see a neurologist and he urged me to see one right away.
I took his advice and went to a neurologist. The neurologist admitted me to a hospital. Still no answers. Many tests were done, but it was during the days before C-T scans or MRI’s were used, so it was hard to figure this out. Finally a diagnosis was made: brain tumor.
Surgery was scheduled. They operated for 10 hours, and were able to remove half of the tumor. The surgeon told me the tumor was the size of a large orange and that if I hadn’t been diagnosed when I was, I would have had 6 months left to live. It was just taking over my whole brain and growing so fast.
I was in intensive care for 2 weeks. I can’t remember too much about that time. It seemed like a dream, for just a few hours.
Then, more surgery. And then some more.
I lost the ability to walk. I couldn’t see very well. I lost hearing. I was fed intravenously. Because I had stroke-like symptoms, one side of my body became weak and uncoordinated. I no longer could hold a pen and write.
I had physical therapy and occupational therapy to regain some of the skills that I had lost.
I finally left the hospital and went home to live with my parents. The tumor was not all gone, but I needed a break. I needed time to get stronger before the next onslaught of surgery.
While I was home, I had physical and occupational therapy at a nearby hospital. I still couldn’t walk or write, but I was beginning to feel better. In physical therapy I worked on learning to walk with a walker and then eventually on my own. In occupational therapy I worked on strengthening my very weak hand. I did many activities with my hands, including making some beautiful crafts. Occupational therapy was so much fun! I loved therapy.
I went back to the hospital and had the last surgery. Finally the tumor was gone. After some more time had passed I felt that maybe it was time to return to school.
Living on my own again was not easy. I still couldn’t walk or write well. But I persevered. Sometimes I fell down. I used a tape recorder during lectures since I couldn’t write fast enough to take notes, and my professors gave me extra time to write exams. With the support of my family and professors, I did well and succeeded.
As graduation approached, a brilliant idea occurred to me. I remembered the great time I had in occupational therapy, and how I had been helped so much. Maybe I too could become an occupational therapist. I thought of how wonderful it would be to spend my life helping others just like I had been helped. I decided that yes, I would try, and so I applied to a master’s degree program in occupational therapy.
There were many more applicants than spots available, but much to my delight I was accepted into the program!
The program was so difficult and very competitive. But I worked hard and after two years became an occupational therapist.
That was 40 years ago, and I am still going strong. I have worked with literally thousands of patients during my career, from little 1-pound premature babies all the way up to 103 year-old patients in nursing homes, and everything in-between. I have loved every minute of it.
Occupational therapy is a flexible career with an abundance of interesting and meaningful jobs available. During my career, I traveled the world, met and married my husband, gave birth to and raised two beautiful children, and enjoyed my life!
I turned what could have been a terrible, frightening experience into something really wonderful.
My sister-in-law once called me to borrow my fax machine. This was in the days before most people had computers and internet. She had a very important document that had to be faxed to a company showing proof of payment.
I took my fax machine to her house that night, hooked it up, walked her through the simple instructions and left.
She called me at work the next day in a panic. She said she had tried to send her document several times and it would not go. This was important, and she needed it sent right away. I was getting off early that day so I agreed to go by her house and help her with it.
When I arrived I checked the machine and connections and everything seemed fine. I told her to send it again so I could see what was going on. She did everything correctly and at the tone hit Send. The fax machine pulled the paper through and indicated a successful receipt at the other end. My sister-in-law grabbed the paper as it came back out of the machine and said, “See. It doesn’t go, it just spits it back out.” My jaw hit the floor. It turns out she thought the actualpaper was being sent over the phone lines.
After I explained the concept to her, I let her know that this story would be told at every family get together for the rest of my life. It is now firmly a part of the family lore and enjoyed by each successive generation.
My sister-in-law fortunately took it in stride. She declared it her worst blonde moment and laughs as hard as anyone when the story is retold.
P.S. My sister-in-law did call the company still to confirm receipt. They told her they had four copies and that was absolutely sufficient.
Close? I accidentally found out I was going to be demoted which lead to me quitting.
In my 20s I worked at one of those places that made huge cookies, I was specifically hired by the manager to be the assistant manager, she’d worked with me as a key holder at another place so she knew I would be good at it. A few months after I was hired the owner sold the business.
One day I was hanging out with the Manager L when she got a call from one of the kids at cookie shop. “Hey L, the owner is in here with some chick he says is the new Manager, what’s going on?”
Too bad L had no answers for her, we had no damned idea what was happening. She and I jumped in the car and headed to the cookie shop to talk, in person, to the owner.
Sure enough, he was demoting L into Assistant and me into just a regular employee. Neither of us had done anything wrong, the new owner just planned to make this new lady a manager. He told us a bunch of BS saying she had experience bla bla… but we found out later she was actually just his girlfriend. We told him how messed up that was, and that both of us would quit if he planned to do this. He was unrepentant, even gaving us the whole “I’m sorry you feel you need an apology” line.
She and I looked at each other, got up and walked away.
Apparently he truly didn’t understand what had just happened because when he saw the kid who called us changing the schedule he was confused. When he was told by her we had just quit, he was completely stunned and didn’t understand why we would have done that. Dude, we literally told you to your face that’s what we’d do if you demoted us for no reason other than to put someone else in as manager, WTF did you think would happen?
Turns out the girlfriend was horrible as a manager, and the owner ended up folding in a few months. Funny how that happens when you take actions that force the people with a clue out, and put someone clueless in just because you are dating them. The two of us were the ones who knew how to run the store, knew how to run the fundraising side, which is where most of the money was made. He screwed himself by being an idiot.
Cajun Butt
Yield: about 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
1 (6 pound) boneless pork butt
15 to 20 garlic slivers
3 tablespoons red pepper flakes (or less)
4 tablespoons yellow mustard
3 tablespoons Tony Chachere’s Original Seasoning
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
Cut 15 to 20 slits 1 inch deep on external surface of pork butt. Press one garlic sliver into each slit with thumb, to bottom of slit. On top of each garlic sliver, insert 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes in the slit. Pinch slit closed.
In a bowl, mix mustard, Cajun seasoning, brown sugar and black pepper. Mix well and apply to pork butt. Lightly dust with a coating of red pepper flakes.
Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Smoke-cook using apple and hickory chips on a covered barbecue pit off the heat for 1 hour per pound or until the internal temperature reaches 190 degrees F.
Perhaps one of the most effective improvised weapons was the Rhino tank. An ordinary tank – usually a Sherman but with improvised steel teeth welded to the front.
In 1944 just after D-Day the Americans, Canadians and British troops were getting held up in the ‘bocage’ countryside of Normandy. Bocage consisted of high hedgerows built on thick banks of earth. This environment proved ideal for German ambushes, providing plenty of defensive cover. It also meant that the Germans could pick off tanks because they would be funnelled down the lanes, or forced through the narrow gaps in the bocage hedgerows. The Germans knew exactly where the tanks would come through and could lay anti tank mines, or train their guns on that exact spot. If the tanks tried to avoid the gaps and instead drive over the top of bocage embankment, it was so steep that it would expose the thin underside armour. Allied tanks were getting wiped out. Until this man, Sergeant Curtis G. Culin had an idea.
When one of his fellow soldiers joked and said they needed a big set of teeth to bite their way through, Culin didn’t laugh but took the idea seriously. He welded some of the steel that the Germans had used as tank traps to the front of his tank, like this.
The teeth allowed the Sherman to burst straight through the hedgerow, surprise and then destroy any Germans waiting in ambush on the other side.
When General Omar Bradley saw what Culin had done and saw how his tank was able to smash its way though the bocage hedgerows, the General ordered that as many tanks as possible be fitted with this improvised weapon. The Normandy beaches had been filled with landing spikes which were conveniently just the right shape and type of steel to make the ‘teeth’.
This simple but effective innovation enabled the Americans to swiftly move on and cut off the Cotentin Peninsula and then move south and meet up with the British and Canadians cutting off the Germans in the Falaise Pocket.
I bought the house we are in now exactly 10 years ago in “as is” condition. In fact this was the entire listing:
“Seller and agents make no representations and warranties. Sold as is.”
The house is in a fairly upscale suburb, and was about 15 years old at the time. There was plenty of cosmetic damage — water damage on the hardwood floors, a filthy kitchen, holes in some drywall, a half-full leaky pool clogged with algae. Plus the interior and exterior were just sad looking, with ugly brown paint and outdated stained oak stairs.
But the funny thing was that no matter how carefully I looked, I could not see any actual serious problems. In fact, it was a bank repossession, and I eventually figured out that since it looked so bad they just assumed there were real problems, and they listed it the way they did to avoid any liability. Over 100 people looked at the house, and we were the only ones who put in an offer, and we got it way (way!) under the asking price, which is rare in Toronto.
I was planning on doing a full renovation anyhow, so I didn’t care about the drywall and flooring. The entire kitchen went in the dumpster. And for $600 we repaired the pool, and it worked perfectly.
I’ve been here for 10 years now and we have not had a single serious problem with the house.
I am sitting outside Quoraing this morning and I took this picture 60 seconds ago:
When you can’t destroy a target by dropping bombs vertically, you can drop them horizontally. That’s what the 617 Royal Air Force Squadron did in May 1943.
The squadron carried out Operation Chastise, designed to destroy German dams and hydroelectric power stations. Reconnaissance and simulated bombing runs revealed that bombs dropped vertically on top of dams were not effective. So instead, the RAF used an experimental bouncing bomb, designed by Sir Barnes Wallis, that was dropped at low altitude onto the surface of the reservoir and skipped along the water horizontally until it hit the face of the dam.
The strategy proved effective. “The Möhne and Edersee Dams were breached…Two hydroelectric power stations were destroyed and several more were damaged. Factories and mines were also either damaged or destroyed.”
Lancaster bomber dropping bouncing bomb during the Operation Chastise raids on Germany’s Ruhr Valley.
The operation was later the subject of the movie Dambusters, released in 1955.
I remember seeing a girl, her parents were millionaires due to a massive inheritance.
She would try and talk about her “Working class background” how the struggle was real.
One day she was telling me how her parents only bought her a brand new mini when she passed her test and how that went to show how much her family had struggled. One of her school friends got a brand new Range Rover.
I listened to that thinking “My Mum couldn’t have afforded a driving lesson let alone a car”
My sister’s daughter and her husband were about to lose their house in Texas because neither of them had jobs, they had one very young daughter and were expecting another baby. My 80 year old mother couldn’t stand to watch this happen. So, she took out an equity loan on her house and lent them $100,000. They were supposed to make the equity payments for my mom, and at first they did and were supposed to pay the whole loan back when they sold their house.
A few months later, they sold their house but told my mother they needed her money as a down payment on their new house in california. So, they kept the money, and continued making the monthly payments until they had a big fight and split up. Suddenly, no one wanted to make the payments on my mother’s equity loan so my mother had to. If she couldn’t keep up on them, she would have lost her house.
She is now 85 years old, completely disabled, living on a tiny pension, and trying to pay off this loan. Since my niece split with her husband, they did not make payments on their house either. So, it went into foreclosure, and Mom cannot even put a lien on it to get her money back.
Needless to say, I am truly disgusted by my niece’s behavior as well as her husband’s. I have now sent my mother money; my sister has sent her money, and another one of my nieces has sent money. The only people in the family who do not seem to feel terrible about this are the two people who should.
When i decided not to break up with my boyfriend at that moment.
I had just joined post graduation course and found this guy who was extremely caring about me. Within a month, he proposed me. I was confused however i said yes.
We use to talk, study and laugh together. However even after six months, i was not sure about our relationship.
AND Here comes the blow. He was back to his hometown. He was ill since a week. Meanwhile, i had a introspection round with my roommates. I found i was still unsure about our relationship. So i decided, on the next call, i will tell him that this is not the right time to fall in love etc., we should be friends only.
He called me around 8 PM. I was full prepared to say him a No. As soon as i picked the phone, he was crying on the other side. He was suffering from a fatal disease, Meningitis. I could not gather courage to leave him at this crucial moment. I just said, “I am with you today and always. No matter what happens.”
He was not in position to join college. His parents was insisting him to leave the college and repeat next time. He refused and joined the college next month. He had not recovered fully. In fact, he lost his hearing power around 40%. When he came back, he told me – how my words motivated him to join the college again. I took care of him. I used to call him reminding his medicines, diets etc. Meanwhile, i actually fell for him and then never told about that breakup thought.
Today, i am happily married with him.
P.S. I do not want my husband to know about my breakup thought even today. He is on quora. So i am writing anonymously.
I visited a radio station for an interview, at the station manager’s request. At the time I was somewhat “known” as a pleasing radio “personality” and therefore many stations wanted to talk to me.
Part of the interview process includes a station tour where the owner or manager shows off their office, production facilities, etc.
But at this particular station, I noticed all the shelved albums (well over a thousand) were locked in place by a steel bar which prevented their removal from the shelf, unless the bar was unlocked.
But who the Hell would steal the records? During business hours, when the station was open, advertisers or promoters might come in, but they were always accompanied by station staff, so visitors couldn’t steal an album (or even a 45). So, when the doors were locked after 5 PM, who did that leave as a potential thief?
Answer: the DJ who was on air, and the news guy or gal. Sometimes, the sales manager might come in.
So, the owner of the station was paranoid about theft from his or her own people! I had worked at a number of stations, and had never seen a lockdown of the music library. It had to mean that employees and top management were not happy with each other, and I was NOT going to work in that kind of environment.
Thus, I stopped in my tracks and said, “Thanks for the tour, but I don’t think this will work for me.” And I was out the door before anyone could say, “Huh?”
Years ago, I lived in an apartment in a two-family building. Upstairs and downstairs.
The landlord had rented the downstairs to a woman and her three teenage kids. They were obnoxious, had fights constantly, played music so loud it literally shook the walls, and despite multiple complaints by other neighbors to the landlord and the police (because yes it was that bad), nothing was done.
While technically, landlords are supposed to do snow clearing after a snow fall, getting some landlords to do so in a timely manner is more effort than digging out the snow yourself. This was one such landlord.
That winter we had a bad snow storm, a few feet of snow.
The downstairs neighbor knocked on my door to ask when I, the older woman with no kids, would be shoveling out the apartments and driveway, all of it, by myself.
I told her I wouldn’t, but we could split the cost to have someone come over and do it since the landlord was extra full of excuses as to why it would take days to get to the property and do so.
She laughed and said she wasn’t paying. She then told me I was welcome to hire her 3 kids to dig out the entire property. Her kids were a big part of the problem as to why the cops were coming over constantly, and so no. I’d previously had problems with her children opening my mail and putting it back in my mail box or opening deliveries of mine. There was no way I’d pay them.
Oh hell no, first you expect someone older than you to do the work for free, then expect that I will pay your kids, who are apparently perfectly able to do so, to dig YOU out? Fuck that.
A friend’s husband was offering to dig people out for a reasonable rate. I contacted him and hired him. When he got there, I explained the neighbor issue and what I wanted and was willing to pay for. He was only to clear out MY half of the driveway/garage/sidewalk. Her sides were still untouched, because no one(Me) would pay her kids to do it.
He went the extra mile, splitting the snow between the yard, and her side, of everything. AKA her side ended up with more snow that needed to be cleared.
This level of petty
Picture from Google.
She complained to the landlord that:
1. I refused to shovel her side of the property for her and her family (I was not obligated to do ANY property maintenance at all)
2. I had refused to hire her kids to do it
3. I had hired someone and refused to pay him to clear her side.
Now this was a kinda shitty landlord, but still… I was amused that the landlord contacted me about it and agreed to reduce my rent the amount I paid to have MY side cleared, as well as tell me about the downstairs neighbor’s complaints about me.
Until I moved out, whenever there was snowfall, you would see a similar clearing pattern on the property. SO much so the other neighbors joked about it, and refused to hire her kids to clear their properties as well.
EDIT: Apparently there are a large number of people who feel the need to comment about how she could just use my side of the stairs as if I lack a functioning brain. Seriously, the level of condescending ‘splaining in the comments is a sad statement on so many here. Thanks all you Captain Obvious’.
Of course she could, as could the postal worker who had to use them to deliver mail(Something not one of those commenting about her using the stairs seemed to consider).
Her being able to use them or not wasn’t the point. So many of you making the same comment as if the more of you who say it, the more I will regret it, or as if I didn’t realize that years ago when I did it is mind-boggling.
For those clueless ones that feel the need to comment the obvious, you all missed the obvious point that it wasn’t about her use of the stairs, but the refusal to clear her side on her command.
My partner (not my husband). My mother had been really sick from cancer for 18 months, we were told that she was unlikely to make it past the weekend. With that being said I was completely distraught… my partner of 9 years said pack your stuff and leave first thing in the morning (400km drive). He woke me up at 430 am, had already packed the car and fueled it up for me. Had a travel mug of coffee ready and said call me when you get there. I left 5am Friday morning.
mum passed 8am Saturday morning (the next day). I called my partner and told him, he said I’ll move heaven and hell to get there as soon as I can. I said, don’t worry, there is nothing you can do, just be here in time for mums funeral (the upcoming Friday).
in the mean time, it was my birthday 4 days after mum had passed. My family tried to make it as special as it could be. But, it was quite a somber occasion. At 8pm, there were headlights at the top of the drive way (rural property). I know the sound of his car. I’m like it’s *partners name.
he had worked 12 hour shift (construction) then drove 400km to be with me in my darkest time to help me feel better on my birthday. In the days after mums passing I had not been able to sleep, or cry or anything but just barely function. I slept solidly that night.
I know most would say that or like to think their spouse would do the same. But, that level of love and support got me through my darkest days. Love this man so very much.
Unfortunately, this is the point. The U.S. is not filty rich but filty poor.
All those money for Ukraine and Israel we got by using the printing press. We’re now $33 trillion in debt.
We can’t pay for basic utilities to keep our house in order but we believe we’re still able to live the high life of showing off to the rest of the world how powerful we are.
Genghis Khan, the legendary Mongol conqueror, had a unique approach when it came to treating his soldiers. Known for his strategic brilliance and military prowess, Khan understood the importance of a strong and loyal army in his quest to build the largest empire in history. So how did he treat his soldiers?
First and foremost, Genghis Khan believed in meritocracy. He valued skill, loyalty, and bravery above all else. Regardless of their background or social status, anyone who demonstrated these qualities had the opportunity to rise through the ranks of his army. This approach fostered a sense of unity and purpose among his soldiers, as they knew that their achievements would be rewarded.
Khan was also an astute observer of human nature. He recognized that soldiers needed to be motivated and inspired to fight with unwavering dedication. To achieve this, he led by example. Genghis Khan was renowned for his courage on the battlefield, often placing himself at the forefront of his troops during crucial engagements. This not only boosted morale but also instilled a sense of camaraderie and trust among his soldiers.
In addition to leading from the front, Khan took great care of his troops’ physical well-being. He ensured that his soldiers were adequately fed, equipped, and cared for. The Mongol army was known for its skilled horsemen, and Khan prioritized the breeding and training of horses to provide his soldiers with superior mounts. This gave them a significant advantage in maneuverability and speed during battles.
Furthermore, Genghis Khan implemented a system of rewards and recognition for valorous acts. Soldiers who displayed exceptional bravery or achieved notable successes on the battlefield were given honors, titles, and even land. This not only motivated his soldiers to excel but also created a sense of pride and camaraderie within the ranks.
However, Khan was also a strict disciplinarian. He demanded discipline and obedience from his soldiers, as he believed that a well-disciplined army was crucial for maintaining order and achieving victory. Disobedience or betrayal was met with severe consequences, ensuring that his troops remained loyal and committed to the cause.
Woman EXPOSES The INEVITABLE Problem With Dating Modern Women | TRAINED/GROOMED To Be Masculine
I was in talks to design a business plan for one of those “Become a Millionaire” guys – aka a “Life Coach”.
As we moved along in talks I immediately got the heeby jeebies from the guy.
He was in his late 50’s and only seemed to brag about things he did in high school and his early 20’s. When I would ask about subsequent years, just to understand his career narrative, he would get thin on details and then squirm and change the subject.
So then I watched a few of his media interviews where his go-to story was about this incredible and vivid vision that came upon him when he was a child. A vision that he would someday become rich.
To his credit, it indeed came true. He was a wealthy man.
But it became true because he inherited his dad’s company when his dad passed away unexpectedly. He then immediately sold the company and spent the next 30 years doing a whole lot of nothing.
So now he is one of those people going around telling everyone he knows “that ONE special secret to getting rich”. He released his first book on becoming wealthy, which a bunch of unfortunate suckers bought.
And, no, I won’t tell you the title because he will sue the hell out of me.
But I’ll give you the cliff notes version, “Get rich by having a rich dad.”
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that are like him.
Preying on people’s hopes and dreams in search of a dollar.
The American industrial system does not have such production capacity.
American shipyards do not have such production capacity: There is only a dry dock suitable for manufacturing aircraft carriers, and aircraft carriers waiting for repair are still queuing;
The steel mills in the United States do not have such production capacity: The last scandal involving the use of low-quality steel made in Kobe, Japan, by US nuclear submarines has not yet passed. This batch of nuclear submarines with quality issues cannot dive at all, and diving into deep water will explode due to increased pressure. American warships are even unable to withstand the impact of fishing vessels, which fully proves the quality issues of the steel used in their shipbuilding.
There are not enough skilled workers in the United States
20 And Back – The Super Soldiers Defending the Kuiper Belt
Joe Biden is taking the World to the brink of World War III
What can the American people do about it?
SQUAT
…
Until 19/1/2025 at least, there is nothing any American citizen can do about it except watch the World plunge into war under the watch of a senile idiot who needs Diapers
So what is the use of saying
Biden is destroying USA and he must be kicked out
It’s just empty gas isn’t it. It’s just 10 words at the end of the day. Biden laughs and keeps doing whatever he likes for four years, unchecked
…
Same with every Democracy in the Planet
At the end of the day – WHAT IS THE END RESULT OF ABUSING OR CRITICISING THE LEADER?
Nothing
Either the Media suppresses it or people shrug and brazenly keep doing what they are doing
…
Take India
We have had Protests on every decision that has ruined the country
Demonetization, CAA, NCR etc
They matter Squat
Once in, Modi is in power for minimum 5 years and he can’t be shaken by the common man
…
France?
Same story
All those Protests and Screams and Shrieks about Pension reforms and Macron did exactly what he wanted
He is in charge till 2027
…
Same with South Korea , exports plunge to historic lows and people scream and protest but does it matter? Nopes
Taiwan?
Japan?
Germany?
So many protests begging to end the war and Germany openly and brazenly calls for Escalation
So what is the use of this damn free speech? You can say the words but they are worthless in every possible way
Now China
Yes
Maybe in China, saying these 10 words could be counter productive
However the people’s voice in China is heard much better than in any democracy
Lockdowns were ended post protests
Rural Banking Reforms were initiated after Protests
Crackdowns on Real Estate Financing was initiated after Protests
1.03 Crore Jobs have been added due to vigorous Weibo Netizen criticism
Tagging Schoolkids Or regulating online gaming has been deferred due to Weibo online protests
Plus the Biggest Biggest Thing…
Recently on the XI Jingping app, they asked if Chinas History for 6–9 Classes be modified and whether Chapters on the Boxer Rebellion and the Opium Wars had to be reduced
The Question was asked of Students who had already passed out their 9th Grade and above
79% Students said NO.
DON’T CHANGE HISTORY
They didn’t.
…
In India, US, and all those wonderful democracies – they don’t ask the kids do they????
So on one hand you have Western Democracies and their lapdogs where you can say what ever you want but can do zilch
Or China where your criticism must be tempered but as citizens you can achieve much greater control on Governance
The Chinese say WE LIKE OUR MODEL BETTER
I kinda agree with them
So you keep your Senile Alzheimer’s Ridden President and your ‘Freedom and Democracy’ and let the Chinese have their own version
I think you might want to edit the question to ask which item from Italian cuisine does the US actually get right.
Italian American cuisine is a cuisine in its own right. Millions of Italians immigrated to America and they adapted their traditional dishes to use American ingredients. Some of the ingredients they used at home were unavailable or too expensive in America, so changes were made. Successive generations didn’t know there was a difference between what they were eating and what was being cooked in the old country. They just accepted the food their families prepared as being Italian cuisine, which at heart, it is.
There’s a lot of water between America’s East Coast, the epicenter of Italian American cuisine, and the old boot herself. It’s that distance that led the creation of Italian American classics. If I had to point at one item the made the leap unmolested though, I’d name Sfogliatelle.
Sfogliatelle are a flaky pastry that originated in Campania. They’re made by rolling out dough, brushing it with lard or oil, rolling it up, cutting it into portions, shaping the pastry, filling it and baking. Sfogliatelle can be baked unfilled or filled with sweetened ricotta, almond paste or candied citrus zest. They’re simple to make and don’t call for any exotic ingredients. It’s the thin flakey layers that make sfogliatelle unique.
Ricotta filled:
If you’ve never tried these pastries, seek them out. They’re amazing and their recipe has not been molested by time or distance.
Life robbed me of my childhood. My parents had to quit school after grade 9 to help support their families. They vowed that my brother and I would not be barred from finishing school and going to University.
But we were poor, so they had no way to pay for it. So they propped me early. I knew by grade six that if I wanted to go to university, I would have to pay for it myself.
So in grade 8, I started mowing lawns and shoveling snow.
In grade 9 I got a part time job and worked 20 hours a week, in grade 10 ,30 hours, and grades 11 and 12 it was 40 hours. I graduated first in my class. I lived in a 10×14 ft room, with a roommate and the bathroom, was down the hall. I worked in the dorm cafeteria. When summer came I got a camp job, where I worked 360–380 hours a month, and they also paid room and board.
This was the way I graduated from university debt free.
So, as soon as I turned 13, I stopped having a childhood, and had an adulthood instead. So much for life being easy for baby boomers.
I’d do it all over again in a heart beat. Its what it took to break the cycle of poverty.
Because I am 71, I knew people who were in their prime of life a hundred years ago (1918) and there were definitely things that they did easily and routinely that are rarely done today:
Baking bread and caramel rolls. My grandmother learned it from her mother but did not pass it on to her daughters, probably because sliced store bread had essentially taken over.
Writing cursive and writing letters. I have saved some of my grandfather’s letters. For a person with an eighth grade education, he wrote simply but beautifully.
Sewing and mending. My grandmother was not wealthy, but she was capable of producing wonderful pajamas for all of her grandchildren on her trusty Singer. My generation has lost the ability to create heirlooms.
Gardening and canning the things they grew. In an era when you were not going to see fresh fruit or vegetables in stores after growing season, people developed great preservation skills. Things like pickles, berries, tomatoes were canned as were peaches and plums when in season. I do not remember kale or zucchini, however, and that was also a blessing.
Memory work. I grew up with great uncles and aunts (all born about 1900) who had memorized massive amounts of poetry and famous speeches as well as scripture. Rote learning was fairly normal in their education, so they did group memorization. We loved to hear their recitations.
I miss those folks. They just slipped away one at a time between the seventies and today.
This wasn’t me, this was my wife. She is a lawyer and was interviewing for a job managing the sale of properties. She was interviewing at a firm that specialised in really expensive and tricky sales and when she turned up to the interview she was told by the recruiter that the partners had told the last two people who were interviewed to leave midway through so they were quite abrupt!
She went to the interview, which went quite well, and they asked her to prepare an answer to a legal sale question. When she looked at it, she knew she had no hope: it was madly complicated and about a type of property sale that is known to be horrendous to do. She thought about trying to brazen it off and decided to be honest and say she had no idea.
It turned out the partners knew from looking at her CV she would have no idea about how to do it; it was something so complex the partner himself had had to do it himself. What they were trying to do was see how she reacted to something she didn’t know. The last two people interviewed had tried to make something up and so failed the test.
I was nowhere qualified as a computer tech but one time a friend of mine brought over a a desktop machine and keyboard and asked me to see if I could get it running as it wouldn’t boot up. Every time you’d plug in the power cord to the wall socket a strange odor would start permiating from the cover. I figured something was wrong with the power supply, which if push came to shove I could’ve probably went to an electronics supply store and bought another one and installed it. I was adept at soldering and replacing some common components at the time, which is why my friend thought that I could fix it.
Anyhoo, I removed the screws holding the cover to the unit, lifted the cover off and got the most absolute shock of my life!! Hundreds of live cockroaches start running out all over everywhere not to mention many more that were obviously dead inside that cover!
I came unglued along with a major panic attack! I’d never, ever had to deal with roaches after I became an adult. I despised them because while growing up my family and I always had a major problem with roaches and they were always into everything and would drop from the ceiling when you went into a room after turning on lights, etc etc etc.
I spent 2 hours stomping on and smashing roaches trying to prevent them from getting into places in my apartment where I couldn’t reach and in the long run wasn’t successful. Ended up moving out to get away from them making sure in the process that I didn’t inadvertently take any with me.
I was not happy with my friend. It caused a major, almost homicidal argument with him and it would be several years before we spoke again. The creepiness and ick factor of watching those roaches pile out of that machine that day still haunts me to this day.
Huawei refused to disclose its foundry information, sending the Biden team into madness.
Let’s talk about smart children. Particularly smart children in the United States. Particularly those in grades K-8 at a public school.
A lot of you reading this are, yourself, a product of the American public school system. Think back to your K-8 years. Do you remember people whose only job was to deal with the students with behavior problems? Were there “special education” teachers who had special classrooms with aides and all kinds of equipment for just a handful of students? Do you remember being bored a lot in school, because your teacher didn’t have the time to challenge you, because they were so busy re-teaching things to the students who didn’t get it the first time? Do you remember a handful of students who seemed to set the pace for the whole class, and that pace was much, much too slow for you? Do you remember a handful of students whose attitudes and behavior set the tone for the whole class? And was that a negative tone that left your teacher spending most of their time dealing with that small handful of students?
That was my experience, at least. In grades 4–8, I was one of about 20 students in a special gifted program in my school. But that gifted “program” was just two teachers who were given a spare classroom in five schools in the district, and they went to a different school every day of the week, and pulled out the gifted students from their classes for an hour, to play logic games with them.
One hour per week. That’s what we got.
Meanwhile, the students on the other end of the spectrum had resources thrown at them, including permanent classrooms with full-time teachers for students whose only “special need” was that they didn’t give a damn about learning.
I remember one incident in particular, when I realized just how much time my teachers wasted trying to get one particular student under control. His name was Anthony. One day, in seventh grade, we were learning about feudal Japan by playing a game where we were all on teams, given items to trade, and could use money we made to hire soldiers, and then there was a huge map of Japan on the wall, separated into regions, with the number of regions under each team’s control represented by different colored push pins.
My team started in Osaka. To this day, I know exactly where Osaka is because of this game back in 1992. I remember that we were the blue team, our main thing to trade was fish, and we began with five pushpin armies.
Also Judith was in my group, which made it even that much more enjoyable for me. She was forced to interact with me for a few minutes each day because of this.
It was a computer-less strategy game. I loved it. The game was supposed to last for a few weeks.
It lasted two days. On the third day, Anthony vandalized the giant game board, and some of his friends laughed. And that was it. The teacher was tired of putting in so much effort for something that students like Anthony just kept ruining. We did the rest of the unit, and every unit afterwards for the rest of the year, through textbook reading and worksheets.
But, as I thought about it, I realized that Anthony had been that way since he was first in my class in second grade. He was always out of control. He always set the pace and the tone for the class. In middle school, he got kicked out of class a lot, which just wasted a lot of time because he rarely went willingly and they had to call and wait for security. But he was always back in the class the next day. He just needed to “chill out.”
That was actually the name of the kick-out room for students like him: the “chill out room.”
I just Googled him and found a story that he was sentenced to six years in prison in 2004 for “domestic battery, drug possession, and forgery.”
Yep. All of that extra time, effort, and money the public school spent on him… how’d that work out?
That would be fine, if the public schools spent the same amount of time, effort, and money on the upper end of the spectrum.
My point is this: What’s the saddest truth about smart people? Public schools just aren’t equipped to deal with your special needs, because they’re too busy dealing with the special needs of students on the other end of the spectrum. The very people who have the most potential to give the most back to society are the same ones who school prioritizes the least.
Imagine a school system where every dollar spent on students on the lower end of the special needs spectrum had to be matched by a dollar for students on the higher end of the spectrum.
Imagine if, just like schools have resources in place for when the teachers need to kick out the Anthonys of the world, those same schools had resources for teachers to send out the students who were too smart for that day’s lesson.
“Timmy, you can read this and learn it on your own in five minutes, but I’m going to be teaching it to the rest of the class for the next hour. You can go to the gifted resource room and work with the teacher there on more advanced stuff.”
Imagine if, just as schools pay extra attention to students with special needs due to federal laws and fears of getting sued, schools did the same for students on the high end of the spectrum. Imagine if parents could threaten a lawsuit because the school wasn’t meeting the needs of their child… the legally-mandated requirement that the school challenge them on their academic level and not let their classmates hold them back.
Imagine how high your hot air balloon could be now, if not for the classroom sandbags that weighed you down when you were in school.
Instead of “No Child Left Behind,” it should be “No Child Forced To Wait.”
Gavin Newsom goes to China, one-ups Biden and meets Xi Jinping
“As a Californian, I can tell you that not only is Newsom not acceptable to the rest of America, California is not acceptable to the rest of America”.
It is likely that China will sell virtually all of its remaining U.S. Treasuries.
It is useful to look at Russia’s experience in this regard. Russia sold virtually all of its Treasuries in 2018, fairly quickly. At that time, Russia encouraged the world to dump U.S. Treasury bonds. Thus, it is possible for a country to officially not hold Treasuries.
After 2018, Russia continued to hold some foreign currency reserves in U S. dollars. When the Ukraine War started in 2022, the United States and its allies froze hundreds of billions of dollars held by Russia.
As a result, the world has been forced to look elsewhere to store its savings. Both China and Russia are storing much of their wealth in physical gold. Other countries are doing the same. The planet is also increasingly doing business in currencies other than the dollar.
As a result of these trends, China will increasingly no longer need U.S. Treasuries to do business. In October 2023, China bought its first oil for Chinese Yuan. If this continues, China will get its oil for free, by printing Yuan. America will be forced to trade hard goods for oil in the future.
America’s leaders were very short-sighted to weaponize the dollar. A global reserve currency requires trust. The United States had a money-making machine, and voluntarily gave it up.
FLASH TRAFFIC ADDED – TURKISH NAVY DEPLOYING 100 SHIPS AGAINST ISRAEL –~FIFTY (50) U.S. Military Transport Planes in 24 Hours to Middle East
FLASH TRAFFIC ADDED – SEE 12:27 PM EDT UPDATE BELOW —— From Friday-into-Saturday, the United States sent no fewer than fifty (50) military transport planes loaded with troops to the Middle East. In addition, the list below shows “unprecedented” naval deployments. Today, Iran said they WILL NOT abide U.S. warnings to stay out of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
We begin with Naval Deployments into the Middle East showing 11 Countries in Support of Israel:
All of the above, along with Submarines and other support ships show an utterly massive naval deployment. I am told this present deployment is larger than the ones done prior to the US war(s) against Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 1991 and again later.
In addition to all the above vessels, another Aircraft Carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth II, transited the Strait of Gibraltar yesterday morning around 11:00 AM, enroute to the eastern Mediterranean:
In addition to THAT additional aircraft carrier, the Navy of Italy is also now deploying vessels:
AIR
In the 24 hours period from Friday into Saturday, the United States flew 49+ military transport aircraft from the US to the Middle East, carrying TROOPS!
On top of those troop transport flights, a Significant number of C-17A Globemaster lll and C-5M Super Galaxy Transport Aircraft from the U.S. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command have been arriving in the Middle East.
The flight info above DOES NOT even cover the regular commercial airline flights the US has chartered to exclusively move troops!
Yesterday, Saturday 28 October 2023, Germany put 1,000 soldiers on alert for deployment to the Middle East in case of emergency The German Army keeps 1,000 troops on alert for possible deployment to the Middle East in case of emergency, given the prevailing tension in the region as a result of the war between Hamas and Israel.
This flight from Fort Sill, OK has my attention at the moment. Fort Sill is home to a THAAD battery and this flight appears to be headed overseas. There are no helpful ACARS for this flight, but this is possibly a THAAD battery flight enroute to Saudi Arabia:
At about 1:47 AM eastern US Time Sunday, which was about 11:00 AM in Tehran, Iran, the President of Iran said Tehran will not follow US warnings against interfering in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to the Press service of the President of Iran: “Israel has crossed red lines, forcing everyone to take action.”
The President made it a point to also say “the presence of U.S warships in the region will make no difference to Tehran’s decision.”
Hal Turner Analysis
Based solely upon the movement of ships, troops, and planes, it is obvious to me the United States is going to war. A big war.
Trouble is the federal government under the Biden Regime has intentionally left the US southern border with Mexico, virtually open. Literally millions of illegal aliens have been entering the country via Mexico since Biden took office.
It is my opinion that many – but not all – of these illegal aliens are a “5th Column” sent here by adversaries to be “sleeper cells.” I believe that when war erupts in the Middle East, that WE HERE IN THE USA will also be attacked by these sleeper cells.
YOU must be ready with emergency food, water, medicine, a generator to make electric in case the grid is taken down. Have CASH MONEY in your possession incase cyber attacks take out the financial networks, making credit, debit, and SNAP/EBT useless. After all, almost no one takes checks anymore. So folks with cash will eat. Those without cash will go hungry.
The utterly massive movement of troops and weapons indicates to me that hostilities are imminent. Which could — and I emphasize “could” (not necessarily “will”) — trigger sleeper cell attacks here in America.
If you wait until trouble starts, then YOU and every other person who failed to plan, will all be rushing to stores at the same time trying to get food and supplies. In short order, store shelves will be empty and those of you who took no action, will find yourself standing in an empty store.
Don’t be like “the masses who are asses” that wait until the last minute to get supplies. Do it right now. Today.
And gas-up your cars, trucks, and spare gas cans for your generator.
Lastly, have COMMUNICATIONS GEAR – a CB or a HAM (Shortwave) radio — so if things go wild weasel, and communications like phone, fax, email, cellular/Internet all go down, at least YOU will be able to communicate locally (CB) and hear international news on shortwave (HAM).
Of course, some of you will say that this story and its advice is sort of like “Chicken Little, the sky is falling.” To those who would scoff I merely point out that, this morning, a U.S. E-6 Nuclear Command Post is now flying over the US East Coast:
The E-6B Mercury is a communications relay and strategic airborne command post aircraft. It provides survivable, reliable, and endurable airborne Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3) for the president, secretary of defense and U.S. Strategic Command.
So it isn’t just ME telling you to take steps to prepare, it’s the US Military, too. Take the hint!
(PERSONAL: Sorry my coverage today begins at this late hour of 11:00 AM EDT. I slept-in this morning. Didn’t wake up until 9:25 AM. I was literally exhausted.)
********** FLASH ***********
UPDATE 12:27 PM EDT —
The Turkish Navy is, right now, transiting ONE-HUNDRED Naval Warships through the Bosporus Strait from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
It is BELIEVED Turkey plans to engage Israel over its ongoing military action in Gaza. War may break out between Turkey and Israel within Hours! ! ! !
Unlike its better known relative, the Enigma machine which was infamously deciphered by code-breakers at Bletchley Park throughout the war, the Lorenz cipher posed a much greater challenge. Utilising 12 wheels to scramble up the message being sent as opposed to the 3 or 4 rotors found in the Enigma machine, the Lorenz cipher was incredibly secure. As a result, unlike the Enigma that was used by the German standard armed forces, the Lorenz cipher was used only by high command with messages coming from Hitler himself. As a result, to crack the Lorenz cipher (or Tunny as it was code named by the British) would have the potential to change the course of the war.
Not much headway had been made in breaking the Lorenz cipher through the war until a German operator made a catastrophic mistake on 30 August 1941. When a German receiving operator did not receive a message correctly, he asked the transmitter to resend the information and despite clear protocol against it, the two operators resent the message without changing their key settings (the settings that determine how the text is scrambled up). However since the message in question was 4000 characters long, the lazy German operator abbreviated several words, thus changing the length of the message. Since their key settings were both the same, the two messages had the same scrambling pattern of characters. Thus by comparing the locations where the message text changed, details of the way the rotors worked could be determined.
These two messages were intercepted by the British who soon realised the importance of what they had discovered. This task of cracking Tunny was given to W T (Bill) Tutte who began to find repetitions in the cipher which allowed him to reverse engineer the Lorenz machine’s logical structure in what would be later described as “one of the greatest intellectual feats of World War II”. In order to support the painstaking decryption of German messages, the British Colossus was built in 1943 by Tommy Flowers, the first ever modern computer.
The Colossus Machine
The impact of the decryption of Tunny was enormous. It gave the British intimate details of Hitler’s most secret communications which was most notably vital in D Day where the Allies were able to deceive the Germans that they were going to attack at Calais as opposed to Normandy and at the Battle of Kursk in 1943, Germany’s last ditch attempt to reverse their fortunes on the Eastern Front and one of the largest battles in history. Involving 3 million men, without foreknowledge of German planning provided by the British, the Soviets would have been badly prepared defensively and could have lost this crucial battle and as a result, the war would’ve been prolonged. In fact, historians estimate that the breaking of the Lorenz cipher shortened the war by two years and thus saved millions of lives all due to the careless mistake of two lazy German operators.
However this pivotal event is not well known due to the Official Secrets Act keeping the nature of the code breakers working to break the Lorenz cipher secret until 1974 and some former staff even today still refuse to break their vow of secrecy, preferring to take their knowledge to the grave.
W T (Bill) Tutte, the man responsible for cracking the Lorenz Cipher
Cajun Pot Roast
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 (3 pound) beef sirloin or chuck roast
2 large garlic cloves, cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces
3 cayenne chiles, or jalapeno chiles, cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
1 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 (4 ounce) can whole or sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Creole seasoning to taste
Instructions
Cut 1/2 to 3/4 inch slits into beef. Stuff one piece of garlic and one piece of chile into each slit. Season the roast with salt and pepper.
Heat a large nonstick pan over medium heat. Add beef and brown well on all sides.
Add onion, bell pepper and minced garlic land sauté until tender.
Add water to pan to cover the beef.
Stir in the mushrooms and Worcestershire sauce and season with Creole seasoning.
Simmer, covered, for 3 to 4 hours or until tender, adding more water if needed to keep liquid level halfway up the beef.
Notes
You may stir 1 tablespoon flour mixed with 1 cup cold water into liquid near end of cooking for a thicker gravy.
I broke off a 10 year off and on relationship over a single piece of gum.
He and I weren’t on great terms for a long while. It was mostly out of his cheapness. He wouldn’t take me out to eat-we ate at his place. That wouldn’t have been bad except that he bought cheap items and used foods that had expired. I told him I wasn’t eating his cooking anymore, thank you. We watched TV but only shows he liked-he didn’t want to waste his time on my shows. I could watch them at my place.
Things were coming to a head and I knew the next fight we had would be the last. It was November when he called me and asked me to come over and fix his computer. I wasn’t in the best of moods-I finally had a free afternoon with the kids out with their father and I had things to do. Ok, I decided I would go over and see if I could do something to help. I got there and he already told me I had just an hour to get things right. Perfect start-no thanks for coming over, great to see you, etc.
He offered me a piece of gum. I haven’t chewed gum in years because it sticks to my dental work, and he knew it. Why was he offering me gum-was my breath stinky? After I thought about it for a moment, I took a piece. I didn’t even get it open when he started to yell at me-why is everything in your life a big decision? Don’t waste my gum-either take it or don’t! I paid money for that!
I immediately put the gum back on the table. He flips out again-you touched it not you don’t want it! What’s the matter with you? With me? I don’t chew gum, not in years! You knew that! I thought you were hinting my breath stunk so I took a piece of gum. Now you don’t want me to take the gum! Why don’t you make up YOUR mind?
He immediately moved my tech bag away from his computer and began to work on his computer. Don’t you want me to do that? No. You asked me to cone down here to help you, now you don’t want me to help you? Silence. Are we really going to have a fight about a piece of gum after I wasted my time and gas to come here? Silence.
I sat on the couch for a few minutes. I could have just stormed out the door. I wanted to compose myself and make it clear what would happen. I told him that I have spent 10 years doing for him, taking care of him when he was sick, lent him things like my cell phone and my car, then paid the repairs when he broke them and he never paid me back. I have put up with all this, and if we didn’t resolve what was really going on, I was leaving and not coming back. All I got was silence. Are we really going to break up over a damned piece of gum? Silence.
I picked up my things and I left. I never went back. I blocked his number from my cell phone. I had a feeling I knew what happened because he did it to me before. He used to get moody around Thanksgiving time and lots of times we broke up so he could avoid my birthday in December and Christmas/Chanukah/Valentines Day. He used to call around March to renew our friendship but his birthday was in April and he really wanted a present. I just had enough of his childishness, his cheapness and his abusive control. It was just one fight too many and I was done.
He did email me the following April-after I sent nothing for his birthday. I emailed him back that I told him that after our last fight, I was done and I wanted nothing more to do with him. He replied that he forgot what we fought about, and I told him that it was over a piece of gum. Then I blocked his email.
He called from another phone the following September, demanding I stop being stupid and get back together. What a lovely invitation, no woman can resist that, I answered. Then he threatened me. I told him to come over and try to f*** me up. I had an old lead pipe my father had and it had his name on it. I told him I’ll invite my neighbors to watch me smear him all over the street. My temper broke and I told him about the horrible things he did to me over the years. He finally said “I guess you’re mad at me, huh?” I hung up and blocked his new number too.
He attempted to contact me a few times through his friends but I told them I would go to the police and file harassment charges. He finally moved out of New York City-he attempted to contact me from his mother’s home in Tennessee. I blocked that too. He’s been blocked in every social media site so I don’t have to deal with him.
He had 10 years to grow up and apologize. The words aren’t in his vocabulary. I know the piece of gum wasn’t the reason our relationship ended-it was years of my giving and him taking and never appreciating what he got. But that stupid piece of gum was the catalyst. To this day, when I see a pack of Wrigley’s gum, I still smirk with amused disgust.
I interviewed for a support engineering role, the interviewer asked me how a fluorescent light fitting worked. I explained what I knew about the ballast, starter and gas tube etc. He delved deeper and I drew a rudimentary circuit diagram. When he asked exactly how the starter worked I was stumped, so I said “I don’t know”.
He told me that he must’ve had 2 dozen other applicants attempt to convince him how it all worked, but being able to admit I didn’t know something landed me the job. I learnt how knowing one’s limitations is so important.
Despite increased attacks on US occupation bases, Joe Biden has reportedly turned down more ‘aggressive bombing options’ in Syria out of fear that a wider conflict may erupt
NOV 13, 2023
(Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images)
Several missile and drone strikes targeted US occupation bases in Syria on 13 November in response to the latest round of US airstrikes on alleged Iranian targets in the country.
Fifteen missiles targeted the US base in the Conoco gas field, sources told Al-Mayadeen, adding that US helicopters began making flights ten minutes after the strike.
“The Conoco base was targeted with advanced Grad missiles, which led to the death of four US soldiers,” Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent reported.
Field sources told Al-Mayadeen that the attacks were carried out by the “Popular Resistance” in Syria.
In a second response to US airstrikes, three drones struck the Al-Shaddadi military base in Hasakah, northeastern Syria.
The US Green Village base at the Al-Omar oilfield northeastern Syria, was also hit with a drone. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is a coalition of Iraqi resistance factions formed last month in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
The coalition was formed to confront US forces in Iraq and Syria as part of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and in rejection of US support for Israel in the war, and has been targeting US bases on a regular basis.
Hours before Monday’s attacks, US warplanes carried out several airstrikes in eastern Syria.
Washington claimed the attacks targeted facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
According to Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent, the US airstrikes “targeted a house in the town of Al-Mayadeen, which led to the death of a citizen and the injury of another.”
US jets have struck Syria several times over the past month in retaliation to the unprecedented surge in resistance attacks against US military bases in Iraq and Syria. Washington has labeled the attacks as “self-defense.”
According to the New York Times (NYT), US President Joe Biden “has rejected more aggressive bombing options proposed by the Pentagon out of fear of provoking a wider conflict with Iran.”
The newspaper also cites Republicans in Congress as saying that Washington’s strikes on Syria “only invite more frequent and more dangerous attacks against US troops in the region.”
There have been at least 48 resistance attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria since 17 October, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
“At least 56 U.S. service members had been injured. Roughly half of those suffered traumatic brain injuries, and two had to be flown to Landstuhl military hospital in Germany for treatment,” the NYT adds.
There doesn’t seem to be many who are rude. My story is about a beautiful and kind woman.
Many years ago I was in O’Hara airport getting ready to fly home from Navy boot camp. As I waited, I saw what looked like a Hollywood photo shoot going on. I walked over with my nearly bald head and baggy Navy uniform and talked to an absolutely beautiful woman, dressed like an Elf. She was friendly and asked where I was from and what my home was like. We talked for about 10 minutes. As I needed to catch my plane, I thanked her for taking the time to speak with me. I asked her what her name was. It was Ann-Margaret. Surprise! I’ve had a soft spot for her since our meeting.
There have been a lot of memes lately, discussing this subject:
It’s viewed as a sort of work-around to all of life’s problems:
These’s memes are funny and all (sometimes), but they also have some truth.
A good portion of depressed people definitely view suicide as a way out and they genuinely think it’s the only way.
But it’s not.
Sunday, Nov 18 is my late-uncle’s birthday.
No one ever talks about him in my family. And of the few times he’s brought up, is always in relation to his suicide or mental illness.
He lived a pretty amazing life, but the memory of his suicide looms over the conversations around him.
It’s not like we never talk about him, or that suicide is strictly the only thing that we remember about him. There’s just no solace to the memory of his passing, suicide is something that is preventable, it didn’t have to be this way.
And, unfortunately, it’s the same with my idol, Chester Bennington.
In every Linkin Park YouTube music video, all the comments are the same. They’re ALL about his depression or his death.
No one talks about his life, how he made it big after a period of being homeless. How Linkin Park immediately knew who their lead singer was after his audition; how Chester would always do screaming vocal warmups, which could be heard several changing rooms away, before each of his live performances.
No one talks about that anymore.
If I’d killed myself on year ago, all I’d be remembered as was “that quiet kid who killed himself.”
You have a lot to be remembered for.
Stan Lee, who passed away on Nov 12, 2018, is positively cherished by fans.
So much material was circulated recently about his life and work.
There was a meme about how he drew the Peter Parker meets MJ comic strip based on the time he first saw his future wife. There were memes of his cameos in Marvel movies, memes of Infinity war, Spider-man memes….
It was awesome.
And nobody was particularly sad, rather they celebrated everything he did in his 95 year life on Earth.
You have a lot to live for.
And a lot to be remembered by.
And even if things don’t get better quickly.
Don’t tarnish that with suicide.
It’s not worth it.
You are worth it.
You are worth a good life and the world deserves your proud legacy.
During my very first visit to China, there were a couple of things that took me by surprise:
Massive malls absolutely everywhere
I’ve heard that Chinese food is so much better in China than what you get in other countries, but that’s is a massive understatement. There is so much diversity in food options, all of it is amazingly delicious and very reasonably priced. I could not get enough of it, and I can’t wait for my next visit so I can stuff my face with all that deliciousness again!
I didn’t expect to have that much trouble finding restaurants or shops that accept foreign bank cards. Some locations only allow Alipay. Also, apps like Didi are not available to foreigners as you need a Chinese number to sign up, and hailing a taxi is not always easy.
I saw very few tags or graffiti on buildings in big Chinese cities. Those are a major issue in pretty much every European city, as even historical buildings get smeared in tags, so this was a welcome surprise.
Excellent public transportation – so cheap and easy to use!
All the people I’ve met were absolutely lovely and extremely helpful. Also, there are so many older people in the parks, exercising or dancing, which is refreshing to see.
There is never any paper in bathrooms, so you have to carry a roll with you
The only thing that slightly threw me off during my very first visit was that people in China often take pictures of foreigners without asking. I’m very visibly a foreigner, so I always get quite a bit of attention when I’m travelling in Asia. I’m used to that, and I never decline a picture with some curious locals, as I find it a sweet experience. However, in China, while many approached and asked for a photo, there were many more who just tried to ‘’sneakily’’ take it, which made me feel a little bit uncomfortable at times.
As a tiny woman travelling alone I felt quite safe, even at night in less populated areas.
My wife and kids lived upstairs in my parent’s house. My Dad passed before my Mom. When she passed, as the only child, I had to sort out her bills, insurance, etc. My Mom was a school teacher for many years and received SS and a pension. At her time of retiring, she did not make as much as teachers do today. A few days after her funeral, I was sitting at her desk going through her checkbook to see what was paid and so forth. When I looked at the deposits, I started to see bill after bill after bill being paid, leaving her with very little left over. I am still saddened to this day, many years later, that I never knew the depth of how bad things really were. We could have contributed more to the household, but she hid most of this from us, trying to spare us any hardship. This is the single biggest regret I have in her passing, knowing I could have eased her burden, as she was the most loving mother one could ask for. She worked her whole life to teach children and raise me, who deserved so much more in her retirement. I am shedding tears as I write this, and hope that others can take more of an active role in their parents lives (when allowed) while they are still with us.
While employed as a pizza delivery rider, after the lifting of the COVID lock-down, our company decided to pull a fast one.
A memo from the head office was circulated among all restaurant staff at all branches. It basically said that the company was so concerned about our welfare in these trying times that they were willing to keep a percentage of our weekly salary for us as a form of savings. The memo also mentioned that if we agreed to this ‘Pizza Savings’ (my term, not theirs) that we will be getting 0% interest.
My delivery co-worker and I had a field day with that memo. We read it several times in disbelief and laughed. The owners could not be serious.
It was obvious they wanted to get a loan/invest in something. It was as if they told themselves instead of taking a 16% interest loan from the bank why not simply take it from their uneducated restaurant workers, all they needed was our signatures.
I went around some of the co-workers joking about it. Most of us laughed it off but two of them couldn’t understand what was so funny.
‘But we’re getting 0% interest!’ an older woman working the grill said.
She seemed to have the idea that this was a good thing. Apparently she had had so many loans in the past that to her the word interest = bad.
I explained to her it was a savings and not a loan. That with savings you want the highest interest you could get and the exact opposite when it comes to a loan.
‘But isn’t it good to have a savings?’ one of the teenaged girls working the pizza table said.
I explained to her it is a good thing but it makes no sense to save your money with someone giving you 0%. I tried explaining how banks work, about buying shares etc and getting the best rates for your money. Both women looked at me in silence.
In the end they both decided to ‘try it out.’
I didn’t know what shocked me more. The fact that the restaurant attempted that stunt or the fact that it actually worked on two employees.
Controller got fired for all the right reasons. On his way out, and before his access was deleted, he programmed a very, very offensive message on the Windows start menu for the entire company-something along the lines of “fxxx you, (name of the CFO)”. Now I’ll admit the guy had it coming, but will also say that the CFO was the biggest a-hole I’ve ever met. Anyway, it took the IT guys weeks before they were able to fix it (always wondered why it took sooooo loooong).
As a 45 year old, I started feeling very tired. I fell asleep in the bathroom at work one day. Went home and thought I was coming down with a cold. Never actually got cold symptoms, but could barely move my body. It felt like all of my extremities were filled with lead. Then I started getting dizzy. Then I started to vomit. I went to an urgent care center and told them all of the above symptoms and how now I’m vomiting and peeing every 5 minutes. I even told them I was vomiting black stuff which they informed me was blood. I was told I just had a stomach virus like people get on cruise ships. I said I have never been on a cruise ship in my life. I was sent home with antinausea meds. I had lost about 15 lbs in 3 days. That night and next day still vomiting and now breathing in short gasps. Now my body is shivering uncontrollably and I can barely move and still vomiting blood. My kids found me on the kitchen floor and took me to the ER. I was rushed back and found out I was in diabetic ketoacidosis. My body was shutting down. I was about a day away from death. My blood sugar was 854. I was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic.
While hospitalized, I received a survey from the urgent care center asking how my experience was. I’ll told them that I almost died thanks to them, but other than that it was great.
Years back when Subway still gave you tickets to collect for free subs, my kids’ mother and I were going to have dinner and movie night with my brother and his wife. Subway was the night’s choice. Well, it is Friday evening and the video store is packed. So we’re standing in line waiting to check out our movies, and she is going through these Subway tickets. She asks me,
“I don’t supposed you’ll eat a 6 inch?”
To which I responded, in a building with over 150 people in it, without even missing a beat,
“No, if I don’t get 12 inches, I’m just not satisfied.”
Children were laughing at me. Had it not been so hilarious, I would be mortified of that story getting out.
When I was with my first wife, back in the late 1980’s her mental illness started to “kick in”.
For me, it was brutal.
I didn’t know what the Hell was going on. She started acting more and more peculiar. Followed by strange… really, REALLY strange behavior, and a mix of passive-aggressive and full-on aggressive behaviors flooded and spewed from her.
She would just spend 24-7, never sleeping, never taking a break just berating me for every problem under the sky. Non-stop tirades. First it was personal stuff. Then it evolved into the kinds of television commercials that played on the television… going to why I “allowed” the television to show those commercials.
Or, why I permitted a grocery store to price the cans in a “haphazard way”.
Why did I allow those commercials? Why didn’t I yell at the Store Manager?
She started saving boiled egg shells on plates. As they “predicted the future”.
The bedroom closet ended up being stacked with piles of plates with shells on them. She even labeled the plates with dates written on masking tape.
That was only the beginning, and she stopped washing her hair, and showering as it was a sign of my “male dominant” desires…
Like I said … “crazy” behaviors.
At this time, I was also living a nightmare as a cubicle employee in a company. It was a scene right out of “Office Space”. So, between the nightmare work environment, and the nightmare wife…
…and STILL being in MAJ with all the world-line swaps…
…I was HEAVILY stressed.
…
One day, we went for a walk. In those days, I would need to go out and get some “fresh air” and she would burst out of the house tagging behind me continuing her narrative of how rotten her life was, and why I was at fault. He was running amok and I hadn’t a clue as what to do. I couldn’t get a break. I couldn’t get a rest. I couldn’t get any alone time except while being in the car…
And…
…I snapped…
No, I did not go crazy. I did not go into a rage. I did not get upset. I did not freak out…
Something snapped inside of me.
I had an event. I had a breakdown.
Suddenly I was enveloped in fuzzy grey calmness, and all her talking was volume muted, the ground became warm and fuzzy and I felt like I was detached.
I was…
…comfortably numb.
…
She noticed this. She looked at me.
She then started to yell at me. “What are you doing!” she screeched. She grabbed me by the arms. “Snap out of it! We are talking about me! Pay attention to ME!” she hollered.
But it was too late. I was too far gone.
I had retreated inside. And the storm raged outside.
…
…
…
Look, I got over this. Buspar and Trazadone really got me back on track. They helped immensely.
And if you are going though this kind of event… you will too.
Stress and the horrific situations that it creates are but fleeting moments. Later on, when we are older, we look back in amazement of the things that we endured.
Yep. Was commuting into the office on the train as per usual, when my work cell phone rings. Bit early for calls, as it wasn’t barely 8am yet, but ring ring ring anyway, and while Caller ID wasn’t blocked, I didn’t recognize the number entirely but it did seem vaguely familiar, and I pick up.
Turns out it was the support department for the company who hosts email for where I worked, since they outsourced it rather than dealing with running Exchange natively. They tell me the reason they’re calling is that they have somebody else on the other line who is asking to be promoted to owner of the email system, and asked if I approved it. I asked who it was, and it was somebody from HR, interestingly enough. Of course, nobody ran this by me, so being unable to rule out a social engineering attack, and not having approval from anybody to do so, I declined.
A few minutes later, I got another phone call on my cell, different number, still not my office or boss, and was asked the same thing pretty much by our phone system vendor. At this point, I’m thinking it’s less likely a social engineering attack and more likely that HR is trying to secure things I have access to. I pull out my laptop and MiFi and sure enough, my access to our VPN is terminated already. I figure I’m about to be fired, and sure enough, I get into work after disembarking the train and don’t even make it to my office before I’m ushered into HR and informed of the decision to let me go.
I ask if there’s a severance package, and am told there is not, and that before the company will release my final paycheck, I must return all my equipment and sign the paperwork. I do so, since I had my laptop, work issued cell phone and MiFi with me, and the charger for both at my desk. I expect HR to then hand me my check, but apparently, no, they instructed me to wait, while they called the email vendor back to get me to authorize a transfer of ownership. I waited patiently, and when they went through the department to make the request with me standing there, the support rep asked me if I was able to authorize the transfer.
I simply informed them that I was no longer a representative of the company and as such, couldn’t authorize anything, while smiling at the HR rep in the room. The email support rep then informed the HR rep that they’d need to file the correct paperwork to verify the business, exactly the paperwork they were trying to avoid, to reclaim the account. I snatched my final paycheck off the table and said “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way, now.” which went unresponded to, unless the glare from the HR person and my boss was a responce.
That would be Cadillac, I bought a new Catera, which is a rebadged Opel. It came with 4 year bumper to bumper warranty, and service. When the oil needed changing, it was free, new wiper blades free. New tail light bulb free.
So far, so good. On the night of the last day of my warranty, when the dealership was closed, my right turn signal would flash the radio light, but not the signal light. The dealership said that they consider the failure to have happened the first thing the next morning, when it was off warranty, because I didn’t report it when they were closed. It only happened at night, when the radio light came on. They said it was a $10,000 repair, if they did it by the book, but if they just clipped the old signal light wire, and ran a new one it would be $300.
Two weeks later both catalytic converters went, the dealer wanted $2500 a piece, but I was able to get new ones welded in at a muffler shop for $1300 for the pair.
A week later, I was driving, and suddenly lost all power, the engine died, most electrical went out. It turns out there is a cable, under the car, that requires the seats be removed, that came unplugged, it was the main power conduit. It was a $500 fix, including the tow.
The car requires that I pump the pedal to start it, its fuel injected, and that shouldn’t be the case. They park it outside in the winter, and they run the battery down, trying to start it, to take it in to work on it. They put in a new battery, that I don’t need. They tell me that you never have to pump the gas on a fuel injected car, to get it to start. So it was a bad battery. I point out that, the car was in to be serviced, because it wont start, without pumping the gas. It turns out that its a computer error, and is soon fixed, but they still charge me for the battery.
A month later, the transmission starts leaking. Its a totally sealed unit, there is no dip stick, no way to add fluid. It can’t be repaired, I need a new one. The dealer wants $5000. I go to a transmission shop, and they say they can put in a rebuilt one for $2500.
The kicker comes, not even a year after the car is off warranty, when idling I have no oil pressure, but it returns to normal when I step on the gas. I assume worn bearings, but how can it be, when the car only has 60,000 km, 40,000 miles on it, and all the service has been done at the dealer. The dealership is perplexed, they say that they have another, a year newer doing the same thing, and I should wait for them to figure out what is wrong with that car, as its under warranty.
I have had enough, I have paid more in repairs than the car is worth. I go to the dealer that I had bought it from, and trade it in for a Chevy.
I wouldn’t sell that car to anyone, but the company that sold it to me. The mechanics, gave it a clean bill of health and I got full trade in value.
I didn’t really want a Chevy either, but you take what you can get.
Due to employee carelessness, I was badly injured on the job. Due to the owner’s negligence, there was none of the required paperwork at the store to fill out an on-job injury report. I drove myself to the ER, got treated, and the ER (very reluctantly) filed the injury report. (I had to write it up for them, with both hands heavily bandaged!).
I was off work for about 10 days, when I got back the owner told me because of the “poor quality of cleanliness”, my hours were being cut by 20%. The week before I got hurt, we had scored a perfect 100% on a corporate cleanliness/service inspection. I gave him the keys, and walked out, with him yelling after me I wasn’t allowed to quit.
When the staff realized what was going on, all but two of them followed me out, and when the customers found out what was going on, half of them came with us!
I came home from work at 4:30 pm and was unpacking purse, jacket, etc.
My son came close to me, and whispered. “Mom. I have to tell you something. I hope you won’t think I’m a tattle tale. But Nicholas* is smoking cigarettes when he’s on duty taking care of my sister! Sometimes I see the smoke going right into her!”
My daughter, with a tracheostomy, acute allergies, and chronic lung disease, was cared for while I was at work by Nicholas, an au pair from a Scandinavian country. He was referred to me by his sister, who was another au pair; she was good and I trusted her.
My son was protecting his sister. As a child, he could not defend her against this au pair. He was trusting me to intervene.
I went into Nicholas’ room, smelled cigarette smoke, and fired Nicholas immediately. My children’s father immediately came home from work when I called him. He drove the au pair to the airport.
When I went to clean out his filthy room I found a lot of Nazi propaganda. And, months later, we were notified of three lawsuits. Apparently he had crashed the car we provided for him into other cars.
I will never forget that my son saved our family with an unforgettable and frightening conversation, because he trusted me to fix a situation he knew was a bad one, even though he was only five years old.
*not his real name
Brigsten’s Restaurant Banana Bread Pudding with Banana Rum Sauce
This is a fantastic cross between the classic bread pudding and Bananas Foster, the great flaming bananas and ice cream dessert.
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients
Bread Pudding
6 cups bite-size pieces day-old French bread
3 cups milk
3 large eggs
2/3 cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 large very ripe bananas
3/4 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup seedless raisins
1/2 cup roasted pecans
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Banana Rum Sauce
2/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
6 large ripe bananas, quartered
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons dark rum
2 tablespoons banana liqueur
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Heat the oven to 300 degrees F.
Bread Pudding
Put the French bread pieces into a 9 x 12 x 2 inch baking pan.
In a blender or food processor, blend the eggs, milk, 2/3 cup of sugar, bananas, cinnamon, nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon of the vanilla extract until smooth. Pour this mixture over the French bread pieces. Fold in the raisins and the pecans and let the mixture set for 20 minutes. Top with small pieces of the butter.
Cover the pudding with aluminum foil and place the pan into a larger pan. Add warm water to a depth of 1 inch in the larger pan. Bake for 1 hour.
Remove the foil and bake uncovered for 15 minutes until set.
In a deep, medium bowl, whisk the cream just until it begins to thicken. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Continue whisking until soft peaks form. Cover and chill.
Banana Rum Sauce
Heat a large sauté pan or skillet over low heat. Add the butter, sugar, bananas, cinnamon and nutmeg. Moving the skillet back and forth, cook until the butter and sugar become creamy and the bananas begin to soften, about one minute. Remove the skillet from heat and add the rum and the liqueur. Return the pan to the heat. Tilt the pan, avert your face and and light the liquid with a long match. Shake the skillet until the flames subside. Add the vanilla extract, remove from heat and keep warm.
To serve, place a large scoop of bread pudding in the middle of each serving plate or bowl. Place 2 slices of banana on each plate and top with about 3 tablespoons of sauce. Spoon the whipped cream over the bread pudding and serve immediately.
My husband, kids and parents went to dinner with my sister’s family…a total of nine. We went to a unique steak restaurant where you ordered what you wanted and paid the cashier, then sat at a table where the food was delivered to you.
My brother in law, always the epitome of good manners (not!), made sure he was first in line when we entered. My parents were not in such a hurry, as they were chatting and having fun with their grandchildren, and were closer to the end of the line.
My BIL ordered a very basic steak dinner. This guy had a well-paying job, but the lengths he went to to save a buck or two were almost comical.
As the cashier was ringing up his order (He usually made my sister pay for her own), my mother called out that dinner for everyone was on her.
Charm boy immediately told the cashier to cancel his order, then proceeded to order the most expensive dinner, the steak and lobster with sides of prawns and garlic toast.
I hated going for a meal if he was included. He was always rude to the server and usually sent his meal back if he detected the slightest problem.
I’d love to know how many gallons of spit he has invested thru the years due to his rude and abusive restaurant etiquette.
“I’ll be devastated if you’re not at school on Monday.”
This was said to me by my teacher for Math and Italian when I was 14.
I won’t go into great detail, but I was experiencing a particularly difficult period at that time.
I was severely depressed and expressed to multiple teachers how I felt. No one reacted.
Naturally, I decided to put a permanent end to a temporary problem over the weekend.
I had Maths for my final class on Friday.
As my teacher for Maths and Italian had always been my favourite, I left him a short note on the back of my test stating I wish you and your family all the happiness in the world.
He collected our tests, saw my message and asked me to stay behind.
He spoke to me for an hour and expressed how devastated he would be if I (or any of his students) were to take their own life.
At 14, to have someone I only spent two hours a day with show genuine concern meant everything to me.
China JUDGES United States: “War Addicts” Will an “Intervention” to stop our addiction come next?
The People’s Republic of China has JUDGED the United States of America as being “War Addicts.” As families of anyone with Chemical Dependency know, making such a determination is the step before an “intervention” to put a stop to an addiction!
A uniformed spokesman from China’s People’s Liberation Army brought the judgement to the world via a Press Conference. “”The USA are war addicts.” The country has existed for 240 years, and only 16 years it did not go to war. They built 800 military bases around the world. “Wherever the US military goes, people die everywhere,” said a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense.
RUSSIA CHIMES-IN
Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday “The terrible events in the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by anything.”
He went on to say “We see that in the Middle East, instead of punishing terrorists, they began to take revenge on the principle of collective responsibility.
When you look at bloodied, dead children, the suffering of the elderly, the death of doctors in the Middle East, your fists clench, but emotions are unacceptable,” the president said.
Then Putin let loose with the quiet part that isn’t supposed to be said out loud:
“Behind the conflict in the Middle East, Ukraine, Iraq, and Syria are the ruling elites of the United States and their satellites
“They don’t need lasting peace in the Holy Land, they need constant chaos in the Middle East,” said the Russian President.
The US ruling elites, without achieving success on the battlefield, are trying to weaken Russia from within.
Putin’s key statement to Palestine sympathizers:
“We can only help Palestine in the fight against those who are behind this tragedy. We are Russia, and we are fighting them as part of a special military operation. Exactly with them. Both for ourselves and for those who strive for real true freedom.”
The President of Russia called it the duty of a real man to fight Nazism during the North Military District appearance he made yesterday, defending the Russian Federation and the future of the world, including Palestine.
Hal Turner Editorial Analysis
Folks, the rest of the world sees us for what we have actually become: Dangerous and out of control. Specifically, two of three most powerful nations on earth are now openly saying we’re causing the whole world deadly trouble . . . and we’ve been doing it for years. They’re tired of us.
It’s sort of like any other addiction. A family sees one of their own out of control, and decides to intervene. First they talk to the chemically-dependent/addicted person. They try to reason with him. Then they start applying efforts to make the addict’s life harder. But finally, and it ALWAYS COMES TO THIS, the family must physically stop the addict.
It seems the United States has now been judged an “addict” by China and their 1.5 Billion people. (Four times larger than OUR population.) If they decide to the we need to be physically stopped, we will have brought it upon ourselves.
The people in Washington, DC in the federal government, are personally to blame.
If the world begins to “intervene” in our war-making, and bombs start falling on . . . us . . . . to put an end to the trouble-making around the world by the people in OUR federal government, be sure to remember who is directly to blame.
Never compare your sex life with porn videos. Because porn videos are totally fake.
Never be sad for losing someone. No one lasts for long period of time. Even, you are gonna lose your beauty, money and health with age.
Never underestimate failure.Only a failure gives you the proper perspective of success.
Never “Trust” easily on anyone. Because trust is the most expensive thing and so don’t trust blindly. Even, your friends get jealous when they see your progress.
Never share your password of social media accounts, email, Internet Banking, and ATM pin\CVV number with anyone. Never!
Never get involved in sexual activities till you are not serious in your relationship.
Never believe on that girl\boy who have lots of relationship in their past. They can easily manipulated you by crying their bad past.( Exception is everywhere)
Never try to hurt your parents. They have lots of expectations from you.
In any situation, Never think about ending your life. Even plants regrow leaves after one leaf shed.
Their life has grown visibly better under the so called dictators and very rapidly too
Take Gautam Adani
In China
Adani if he was building a plant within a distance of 200 Kms Radius of a Village that had a chance of pollution effluents
He would have to pay for mandatory medical tests every 6 months
He would have to build a School for every 875 students between ages of 7–16
He would have to furnish and equip the school and pay the State / Province who would arrange the teachers
He would have to build roads, build warehouses & basic infrastructure plus employ a mandatory 85% of his staff from these villages and TRAIN THEM UNDER HIS OWN DIME
He would have to pay insurance premiums for all the employees he employs and if he fires anyone, he has to pay a mandatory 6 months salary plus a 36 month premium
This comes from his revenue which is audited by a State Auditor on his Board.
So no lying about making losses
If he is unable to sustain his businesses , his shares will be transfered to someone else
And he can’t leave China unless he has an exit visa
That is how the CPC protects the common mainlander
The Billionaire gets a tax credit and tax discount to cover this sum
If he tries to dodge this payment, he can be levelled with PUBLIC CORRUPTION and Jailed for 240 months/ Life or executed by the State
This is just one example of how China mixes it’s Capitalism and Socialism and rises accountability for the Party and it’s Private Sector
Likewise Poor Kids are inducted to WORK for 26 Hours a week at a minimum wage of 264 RMB a week
In exchange the employer must Mandatorily ensure that the Kid is TAUGHT Chinese & Mathematics until the age of 17 with proper medium of instruction
Talented Kids who score above a threshold can be paid a scholarship for 2 years to prepare for the GaoKao and prepare for the School Leaving Exam as well
Otherwise they are still educated and can become upto Foreman or Floor Manager in the factory and take basic certifications
While the whole world targets China for Child Labor, China does best for poor kids and gives them a FIGHTING CHANCE without burdening their families with Debt
So many poor kids today have respectable jobs as Foremen or Supervisors or Small Business holders because of the CPC
In Chinese Cities, if you have a Job and no housing, the City gives you a Public Housing with minimum space ranging from 24.45 Sqm in Shangahi to 61 Sqm in parts of Chongqing
Very low cost and rent
No homelessness
If you are a Sweeper from Rural China working in Chongqing, four of you get a single public house with a heater, bathroom and indoor plumbing
No Slums since 1976
No Shanty Towns
Proper Public Houses
In the words of Gita Gopinath, nobody in the world has a Public Housing program like the Chinese do
No desperately homeless families in China
Xilin purchased 11000 Pre Fab homes for their public housing which is more economical
This in China, you are GUARANTEED of a roof above your head and indoor plumbing no matter how poor you are
Plus Healthcare
The Poorest Rural Villager can get a Coronary Bypass for 5000 RMB on State Dime even without Employer Insurance
They trust Alternate Traditional Medicine Quacks more, that’s a different story
Plus Education
Plus Food Prices capped
This means Pork, Rice, Beef and Soybeans can’t sell beyond a maximum price in China
The State will absorb the extra cost
So in a way
The Median Chinese feel protected and safe
This is around 86% of the Chinese living in China
Among the remaining Chinese , mostly in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and other top cities, some 3% of the citizens feel they cannot really live upto the standard of their wealth in China and leave for Singapore and Australia and extol the virtues of Democracy
86% triumphs 3% is it not?
So that’s why People are comfortable under China and Chinese Dictators
Give them a Multiparty system like India and by God they would vote for a Putin like man for 40 years consecutively
There was a crew of men replacing the carpeting in the offices at work. It was a long, narrow hallway in that part of the building and someone in the crew set up a radio and had it blaring. I ended up having to be the one to tell them they couldn’t do that during work hours. I talked to the guy who seemed to be the foreman on the job and he seemed pleasant enough about it. He turned off the radio and talked to the others about it. He then came back and talked to me for a few minutes. Just to make conversation I asked him about the quality of the carpeting. He assured me that it was pretty good stuff, even though it was fairly thin. He said that he used the same stuff in his house. I said, “Oh, really?”, as I thought it was odd that someone would use commercial carpeting at home. He answered, “Yeah, I had to use this because my grandson is living with us. He’s only 2 years old, and he’s blind, so he has to have this kind of carpeting to make it easy to walk.” I was taken aback somewhat and said, “I’m sorry to hear about his disability.” The foreman quickly replied, “Oh, it’s fine. He’s a great kid and a lot of fun to be around. Sometimes we move the furniture around just to watch him bumping into things. It’s funny as hell seeing him all confused and falling down.”
I have to say that I’ve never met anyone else in my life that could entertain themselves by torturing a blind baby.
Why Women Are Upset When Men Have PREFERENCES?!
Why? The inability to emote. Many women (that are younger) just are unable to emote. They think they have a high EQ, but an inability to emote decries EITHER a ZERO EQ, or a narcissistic personality disorder.
My story is awful in its own fashion but very different from the other responses. I had a wonderful roommate my last two years of college. Let’s call her Sue. She helped me get a job proctoring standardized tests. One Saturday I was finishing up a test when I saw my roommate in the door along with her then-boyfriend, Bill.
That surprised me because I thought they had plans since he didn’t live in town and they didn’t see each other often. Sue motioned me over.
“Jen, as soon as you can get away, we’ll give you a ride home.” The supervisor noticed the conversation and told me I could leave. I walked out to the car still wondering why Sue was here. After we got in the car, she turned around and gently told me, “Your mom called a little while ago. Your grandfather passed away this morning. Bill and I are going to drive you home.”
I was shocked. Although my grandfather had been diagnosed with terminal cancer the previous fall, he had responded well to radiation and had been active and in good spirits when I had last seen him only a month or so ago. Sue drove me back to our apartment to pack, then she and Bill drove me two hours back to my hometown for the funeral.
I’m not sure I ever really conveyed to Sue how grateful I was for that ride. I didn’t drive at the time, and it would have taken much longer for my sister or brother to have driven over to my college town to pick me up. She and her boyfriend gave up a large chunk of their rare time together to drive me home while I sat silent and grieving in the back seat, barely able to give directions in those pre-GPS days. “Sue,” if you’re on Quora and see this response and recognize the scenario, Thank you!
A little background — I was working in a chain drug store in Southern California, the only employee who came to work, on Christmas Eve. We were a 24-hour store, so, having cleaned everything, and faced all the stock on the shelves, I was thinking how to murder the “dancing Santa” (bad recording, 2 1/2 feet tall, and poorly made).
10:30 (22:30 for 24 hour clocks) a guy comes in, freaking out. His wife has recently left him for her “hot stud boyfriend”, with whom she has a brand-new baby. They are divorced, but she got the kids on holidays. He had bought and wrapped the presents for the kids (daughter, son), and dropped them off at her boyfriend’s house — left them on the porch, because she refused to open the door until he left. He gets home, and finds the kids waiting on his front porch. His ex-wife’s mother had just dropped them off, and left them alone, because ex-wife, new baby, and “Hot Stud” were going to his parents for Christmas, and she didn’t want the kids “getting in the way”. Grandma had plans of her own, and refused to take the kids with her.
Ex-wife left him with two kids with no change of clothes, no presents, not enough groceries, on Christmas Eve. And there was no way he could not make her sound like the totally selfish bitch she was.
Semi-happy ending. I abused the hell out of my authority as the manager, and “store-used” or “over-ride discount”ed everything we needed to put together a Christmas for his kids.
Each of them got a ream of paper, the largest box of Crayola (crayons) we had, a generic fuzzy toy, and two other toys that he thought they might like. Each present was individually wrapped in a different paper, with big fancy (store-bought!) bows, and a Christmas card on each present, plus each one got a good sized bag of “stocking stuffers”. (Pocket sized toys and games, candy, fruit, nuts, etc). Then I threw in (from me) a couple of bags of Christmas candy and chocolates.
It’s Christmas Eve, and your mother has her mother drop you off at your father’s house — who isn’t even home — because she doesn’t want you, because she has the new baby that you aren’t even allowed to touch.
Because there are two worlds: the one you see in real life and the one you see on TV or newspaper.
You watch TV, navigate through social media and you think you are well informed abou the world. And you know a lot about China. A strong dictatorship, damn commies, cheap labor and poor brainwashed people that would be amazed to see the “Free world”. The government is spying on their citizens, like CIA or NSA. But when commies do, you think is worst. Of course.
And one day, casually, you decide that you will visit China.
You arrived there and you are shocked. You can barely believe in your own eyes.
The big cities are super modern, big, shinning tall buildings. The way you pay, the way you shop, the hypermarket looks like in The Jetsons. You are in the future.
The level of automation there is out of this world (Western world, cough, cough). You had no idea that so many online services were already available to the people. You realise you have been scammed by your own country and media.
After the initial shock, you, an an educated person after all, well traveled, you have knowledge. Knowledge from the free world.
You decide to talk to the educated Chineses. Another shock. They know more about you (you as a citizen and your political beliefs) and your country than you know about them. Where is the brainwashing?
“Hey, but they are not free” you think in relieve. What can you do that they can’t? Let’s see… protest?
As if protests are changing something…
Vote? Chinese economy is growing faster and better than democracies…
It doesn’t matter, you are a free, superior citizen of the developed world. You travelled there to China to see them! And see that the Chinese studying abroad are going back to China… Whatever, they are commies.
You visit the Rural China, you still see a lot of poverty. You feel better about yourself. Hahaha, they are still poor!
You go back to the big cities and there is no way to deny the reality: China is growing and is glowing.
You go back home and you see, China is actually a good place. Very different from what you see on TV.
That’s why year after year the experts in your country are predicting the fall of China. There is nothing else to do beyond pray that somehow China will stop growing and wil be the end of the Western hegemony over the world.
Oil tankers are large and heavy vessels that carry oil across the world’s oceans. They can be up to 400 meters long and weigh up to 500,000 tons when fully loaded. They are also designed to be stable and safe in various sea conditions. There are several factors that contribute to the stability of oil tankers.
The hull is the main body of the ship that floats on the water. The hull of oil tankers is usually long, wide, and deep, which gives them a large displacement and buoyancy. The displacement is the weight of the water that the ship displaces when it floats, and the buoyancy is the upward force that the water exerts on the ship. The larger the displacement and buoyancy, the more stable the ship is. The hull of oil tankers is also divided into several compartments, called tanks, where the oil is stored. The tanks are separated by watertight bulkheads, which prevent the oil from spilling or sloshing in case of damage or movement. The tanks are also arranged symmetrically along the centerline of the ship, which helps to balance the weight and distribution of the oil.
The draft and trim of oil tankers vary depending on the amount and location of the oil they carry. The draft and trim affect the stability of the ship by changing the position of the center of gravity and the center of buoyancy. The center of gravity is the point where the weight of the ship acts, and the center of buoyancy is the point where the buoyant force acts. The center of gravity and the center of buoyancy should be as close as possible to each other and to the centerline of the ship, to ensure a stable equilibrium. The draft and trim of oil tankers are controlled by adjusting the amount and distribution of ballast water, which is seawater that is pumped into or out of the empty tanks to balance the weight and trim of the ship.
The metacentric height is a measure of how stable a ship is when it is upright. The larger the metacentric height, the more stable the ship is. The righting moment is the torque that tends to restore the ship to its upright position when it is heeled by an external force, such as wind or waves. It is proportional to the product of the metacentric height and the angle of the heel. The larger the righting moment, the more stable the ship is. The metacentric height and the righting moment of oil tankers are calculated and verified by using stability instruments, which are devices that can measure and display the stability parameters and criteria of the ship.
I didn’t work for a company, it was just a guy who sealed driveways.
I was 16 when he offered $10/hour under the table for good work.
We had fun. I busted my butt. I mixed sealer like a machine, process improvement every time.
We completed three or four driveways in five or six hours and then he took me out for a few beers on him.
It went on for two years.
At the end of the second year, he left his payment book open in the truck while getting something at the convenience store. He charged $300-500 per driveway on average.
I did the math quick in my head. Materials $40-50, labor $10, amortisation on equipment $20 (being generous).
That led me to: he gets $220-440 per hour and I get $10.
It was our last job of the year and I said nothing.
Next year in spring he called me and I upped my price to $20 per hour.
He freaked out, and asked if I was crazy.
I said, “Go and hire anyone you want, you won’t make as much money as you do with me and you won’t spend the last two hours at the bar drinking beer with somebody you like.”
My 83 year old father had an accident which caused a severe traumatic brain injury. He survived for a few months. My own mother died when I was 12, followed by my father emotionally abandoning me. He and his new wife carried this treatment forward for decades. This wife of 35 years, had always made it known I was not her cup of tea, was now terrified and desperate for help and support. I was the only one Dad recognized. She was panicked if he came home what would she do because he would have been severely disabled. During this time her tone changed and she made exclamations of “Family forever”. She asked me to move there and I agreed. The plan was I would stay for a month and then settle up the details of the sale of my home. I was moving whether Dad lived or died. I stupidly believed the cheetah changed her spots. Dad died and less than 48 hours later she told me I had to leave and I realized I was not welcome. I overheard her tell someone what a trauma it would be to have me around.
At that moment I felt the entire weight of 35 years of emotional abuse and neglect and the scales fell from my eyes. I felt like I was hit by a lightening bolt. I sobbed every day for the next 1.5 years…the pain was horrible as I realized how I allowed myself to be manipulated by her and how I allowed myself to be mistreated for all those years. I will never speak with her again because I refuse to be a second class citizen.
When you are looking for countries that have unusual or weird capital cities, Tokyo takes the cake. Tokyo itself is a beautiful city, which is incredibly safe, and has some of the best food in the world. The city itself has over 13 million people in it (3rd largest capital city), and the metropolitan area has 37.8 million people in it – more than 195 countries (making the Tokyo-Yokohama area the largest metropolitan area in the world). It is also the best city that I have ever visited in my life. Tokyo is a city that is totally worth visiting.
I like Tokyo because of how weird it is. It’s not weird in a bad way – its just that you see a lot of things in Tokyo that you don’t normally see in other cities.
Tokyo restaurants often display plastic models of their food on their windows.
Now, where do you think you get these plastic food models?
Look no farther than Kappabashi Street – because the whole street is dedicated to selling restaurant supplies – such as these plastic food models.
Want to sleep in unusual hotels? Tokyo’s got your back. Introducing the capsule hotel – not for claustrophobics!
Ever felt like sleeping in a Kikkoman Instant soup bed?
Bored of playing Mario Kart 8 on your Nintendo Switch? Now you can do it in real life!
Tokyo is also known for its really weird restaurants. Alcatraz ER is a medical-prison themed restaurant.
Zauo is a restaurant where you literally catch your own food, bring it to the chef, and tell them how you want it cooked.
Mr. Kanso is a store that only sells canned goods.
The best way to experience the wonderfully weird city of Tokyo is to visit it, and I highly recommend to do it – it’s totally worth it!
Not to me, but to my mom. 15th of July is “Asshole day” in my family. Why, you may ask?
When I was 9 years old, my mom got pregnant. I was soooooooo excited to have a sibling! But a few years after, my mom finally told me what had happened before she told me she was pregnant.
When she first found out, she was so happy. Her first doctor check up was fine. She went back about a week after, and there the doctor (a different one) did the ultrasound, looked at my mom, and simply said:
I’m sorry. You lost your baby. It’s dead
No explanation, nothing. My mom cried but came back home as if nothing had happened. She told my step dad but not me, I had no idea of what was happening in my home. I don’t remember seeing my mom cry, she would always make sure I wasn’t around.
In the next 2 weeks, she realised she still had all the pregnancy symptoms. Still had the same cravings. She was sure she hadn’t lost the baby. She went back and got an appointment with the same doctor as last time (it was at the hospital, you couldn’t really choose who you would see).
When she explained that she was still experiencing all the pregnancy symptoms, he denied all of it. He told her she was doing a phantom pregnancy. That she was too old (37) to have a baby so she just imagined she was having one. She refused to accept it and demanded another doctor to do the ultrasound. It took a while but finally another doctor came to see my mom. Took him about a minute to find my brother with the ultra sound. Doctor 1 was so embarrassed he didn’t even apologize.
Doctor 2 explained that Doctor 1 was still a student, hence why he made a mistake.
I don’t know why that student was doing ultrasounds alone. All I know is, the first thing my mom did when coming home was telling she was pregnant.
She was first told my brother was dead on July 15th. So we commemorate that day as Asshole Day and my mom usually goes out with my brother!
Just when I thought I’d run out of stories for Quora answers. Praise almighty god.
I was on a date with a Veterinarian in her late 20’s. A very polite girl, pretty, smart – she had all the right boxes checked.
It was our second date and we were talking about “kids growing up too fast” which is code for teenagers having sex too soon.
We probably shouldn’t have been talking about that topic so soon and it was probably my fault, I tend to steer conversations to bad places. But oh well. Good dates usually involve being honest and talking about real things. And it was indeed a good date.
All I remember though was that at one point I was taking a sip of beer as she said,
“I mean I get it, kids experiment from time to time. When I was 8 years old I stuck a pen in my p—y.”
At which point I choked on my beer and started coughing and she immediately started blushing.
I was actually glad that beer was coming out of my nose because it probably minimized her own embarrassment.
She said, “Sorry – that was too much.”
After I wiped the beer off my face, I waved both hands and reassuringly said,
My dad always bought his cars from a specific car dealership. After he died, my mother gave her big boat of a car to my brother, and decided to buy a smaller car.
We went to the dealership that dad had always used, he must have bought 10 cars from them, and we picked out a small one year old lease return, with very low mileage.
We were paying cash, and my mother and I sat down and signed the contract. We would pick up the car, after the check had cleared. When she went to get up, she almost fell over. We got to the door, and we were parked right out front, and she didn’t recognize her car. I took her directly to the hospital, she died 8 days later, never leaving the hospital.
After the funeral I went to talk to the dealership and they refused to take the car back. I tried to contact the local television reporter, who always aired these kind of stories, and never heard back. I asked Mom’s lawyer, and he said that she was obviously not of sound mind when she signed the contract. But that it would cost us more to use him to fight it, than it was worth. So we sold the car, still sitting on the dealers lot, to someone for $1500, less than we paid for it, two weeks before. A week later, the reporter contacted me, he had been on vacation.
I told all my friends, family and acquaintances about it. Many of them used that dealership as well. They all said they would never set foot in it again.
There were at least 50 people, who had bought at that dealership in the past, who swore they wouldn’t go back.
It didn’t make it right, but it felt better to know that they were losing customers.
This actually happened in 2011 or 2012, a hacker stole a penny from millions and millions of ppl amounting to a total of 78 million dollars. They couldn’t prosecute him for a plethora of reasons and as a matter of fact it got him tons of clout. He ended up getting tons of job offers because of his genius feat. So you’re late to the punch and that loophole has long been sealed by now
What is a strange experience you’ve had that you’ll never forget?
Sorry folks, this isn’t a ghost story, but it was awfully weird.
Years ago, when my husband lost his job, we used to run a stall at a Craft Market. We sold African crafted goods, and framed pictures of African wild life.
In the stall next door was a lady who did upholstery – she sold beautiful Ottoman’s and all manner of stuff to do with upholstery. She had a sister, Cat, who would help her out at times.
Cat had a deck of Tarot cards, and after obtaining permission from the owners of the market, set up a cubicle to do readings, within her sister’s stall.
Cat invited me over for a ‘practice run’. Not believing in any of it, I reluctantly obliged. I knew how these things ‘worked’, so was determined not to give anything away, by way of body language or expression. I sat immobile and stony-faced as Cat did her reading.
I honestly can’t remember 99% of what Cat told me, but one thing stuck in my mind. She told me that someone in our household was pregnant. I laughed it off.
At that time, we still had a young cleaning lady, Rachel, who lived in an outbuilding on our premises. I was very attached to this young woman, she worked for us for ten years and was almost like one of the family. I fed and clothed her as I knew her other job didn’t pay very much; I also saw to her medical needs.
A few weeks later, Rachel confessed that she was pregnant. Well! You could have knocked me down with a feather! I didn’t see that one coming.
Not only did Göering speak as others have posted, but he used a clever trick. He would listen to the question in English, which then had to be re-asked in German. The trick (so I’ve read) is that Göering was fluent in English. He’d get to hear the question and have time to consider his answer while it was put to him again in German.
1, Taiwan’s TSMC already moved out of Taiwan. It is a US firm now. Do you see China suffering?
It hurts Taiwan more than China.
2, It is all a political show by Taiwan’s pro-USA politicians. They all do business with China. With business with China, Taiwan has trade surplus. Who hates money? Not the corrupted Taiwanese politicians.
3, Of course, there are Taiwanese who are pro-China. They welcome China to “invade” Taiwan.
Taiwan is part of China. Is a Chinese province. There is no invasion of China when China decides to suppress the Taiwanese rebels.
Maurice was a soft-spoken and mild mannered boy in my class. He was friendly and pleasant to all. I cannot think of a single moment where he said or did something that angered or offended anyone while in school.
He lived further up the hill from where my school was; practically walking distance from the school. Girls confided in him due to his reserved nature and boys respected his kindness. Once he invited a few of us guys to his house for food and to watch SpiderMan (the very first movie) on his PC, after school. Maurice was the last boy one would think of when the word ‘dangerous’ was mentioned.
When we entered Form 5, a boy named Kevin entered the school and stoke fear upon many of us. I say ‘boy’ but he was already an 18yo adult when he came. He had transferred from a really rough school and practically every week he was involved in vicious fights or would be seen breaking class to smoke behind the labs. He would harass random boys, threaten them for their money and if they didn’t cough up he’d shove, slap or thrash them, according to his mood.
Maurice happened to pass by him one day and judging Maurice to be harmless he tackled Maurice for some money. Maurice ignored him but Kevin grabbed him by the shirt and slapped him on both cheeks, warning him that next time things will be worse.
Maurice’s shirt was dirty and his face red from the fracas but he remained silent and walked away.
After school ended I was walking with my friends out the compound and down the hill when we saw trouble was brewing. We saw a gang of no less than twenty young men from the area had accosted Kevin. Kevin’s face was bruised and swollen, eyes red and most of his shirt buttons were ripped out from a prior struggle. They dragged Kevin to Maurice and asked what to do with him. Maurice, in his soft voice told them that that was enough. The men shoved Kevin off and fired kicks behind him as he ran down the hill, thoroughly learning his lesson. The hill where the school lay was Maurice’s turf.
Kevin learned a lesson that day.
The most dangerous people are sometimes the ones you least suspect.
Your manager is not your friend, no matter how nice, friendly you think he/she is.
Understand difference between a friend and colleague. Draw the line, and keep your friend circle outside work as much as possible.
You’re a “resource”, that’s how upper management refers to you.
Do what’s required of you, go a bit outside your comfort zone sometimes when required. Do the basics consistently, that’s what is expected.
Look at your payslip, offer letter and understand your salary components. Plan your tax accordingly and investments accordingly.
You can stay in a company for a long time, or keep shifting every 2–3 years. It’s upto you, and no one is right or wrong. Some people prefer respect and comfort and some more money.
Update your LinkedIn, spend time on it.
Have a life outside work.
POSH can attack you from anywhere anytime, please be aware of it, and understand it. Know when to talk where and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble.
Choose a company that is still starting out, you’ll have an opportunity to learn more, and your views shall be respected.
An employee without a good personal life and stability cannot be a good professional. Give people time, lend some hand if you can, if it’s in your professional prowess.
“Easy to work with” is in more demand than “good worker”
If you don’t like your job, move on, try to get a new job but please don’t expect that you’ll like it either.
9–5 jobs are amazing. All these entrepreneurs need some workforce as well to survive.
Be aware of skills required to upgrade in your role and the latest trends that are dropping in.
HR (employee relations) actually don’t do anything.
Nobody likes you and everybody talks about you behind your back. So, don’t try to build an image to be likeable.
You’re there to make money and learn. Everything else is not a priority.
Learn how to be respectfully sarcastic on mails, communication channels.
Don’t keep grudges. You won’t work there forever.
If you find someone is toxic, ignore them. If you have to work with them directly, just keep it to minimum work talk, and get everything over mail or slack/skype/teams.
Verbal communication is pointless. Document everything.
Smart people in corporate world will make you think they’re idiots and get away with everything.
Use Glassdoor. It helps other people.
Don’t be an attention seeking unethical jerk. Be normal, come on time, leave on time.
Does Iran have NUKES?!? Should we be worried?
Did you vote for a war with Iran? Your elected representatives did! On Wednesday, U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 559 on Wednesday which paves the way for a war with Iran over nuclear weapons.
Second trip to New York a couple of years ago. Loved the first trip, the sights, the people, the atmosphere. Got chatting to a young lady who had moved to New York and was working as a ticket seller for one of the tour bus companies while we were waiting for the bus she’d just sold us tickets for.
Turns out she was a heavily qualified medical professional who was struggling to find work in the US.
Middle aged lady came up to me and asked if I knew how to get to such and such a place. I explained that I was a stranger, but suggested that she asked the young lady we were talking to.
He response? “I don’t ask ni**ers for directions”
I wish I could say that I said something witty in response, but I was so shocked that I just stared at her. The Englishman in me meant that I felt I had to apologize on her behalf. Swore never to go back to NY.
1) China has something like 4.5 times America’s population, so the fact that their economy is en route to exceed ours is hardly surprising. If you think that’s a bad thing, you are essentially saying that 1.4 billion people should be living in poverty. What reason is there for believing that the U.S economy should always be the largest on earth?
2) What do you think the government should be doing to prevent the Chinese economy from growing? A boycott is hardly possible and a trade war would hurt us as badly as them. Investment restrictions would again just hurt us and benefit Europe and Japan.
The fact is that the American and Chinese economies are tightly linked. We should be thinking about how to benefit from China’s rise (for example, selling them some scrubbers for their coal plants) instead of pointlessly trying to keep them down.
Who produces Huawei’s Kirin 9000S chip? This is a mystery that no one can figure out.
The test results of the United States have also come out. They admit that it is not an American technology and that it has reached the chip level of 5 nanometers or higher. However, they still point out that there is still a gap of five or six years between Huawei’s chip technology and the technology controlled by the United States.
What is the difference between six years?
The one that can help Huawei produce high-end chips cannot be TSMC, let alone Samsung. SMIC does not have this ability, so who else in the world can produce such high-level chips?
The relationship between Huawei and Songshan Lake began in 2005. At that time, Songshan Lake signed a project investment agreement with Huawei Investment Holding Co., Ltd. to establish a 750-acre Huawei Southern Factory, which was officially put into production in 2009. In 2012, the two parties signed an investment agreement to establish Huawei’s terminal headquarters. In 2018, Huawei’s terminal headquarters officially settled in Huawei Xibeipo Village, located in the south of Songshan Lake, Dongguan, where Huawei’s production and R&D capabilities also began to gather.
This is called the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou S&T cluster by the WIPO’s Global Innovation Index 2023, but actually the Songshan Lake Science and Technology Industrial Park in Dongguan, Guangdong, China in the Guangzhou Shenzhen Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay area.
The photo was taken at the opening ceremony of the new academic year of Dongguan Institute of Technology. The speaker in the photo is the Secretary of the Party Committee of Dongguan Institute of Technology, introducing the industrial situation of Songshan Lake.
In July 2020, the state approved the joint construction of the “Greater Bay Area Comprehensive National Science Center Pilot Launch Area” by Songshan Lake Science City and Shenzhen Guangming Science City, covering an area of 90.5 square kilometers. In October 2021, the Songshan Lake Science City Development Master Plan (2021-2035) was officially approved by the Guangdong Provincial Government.
At present, the new generation electronic information industry cluster with Huawei terminal as the main chain has reached a scale of 100 billion yuan, becoming a pillar industry in Songshan Lake and even Dongguan. When a steady stream of scientific research results is transformed and applied to the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, Dongguan’s “smart” manufacturing will have endless productivity and creativity.
Songshan Lake has gathered 84 national-level talents of various types, including 21 dual-employed academicians, and has 56 innovative scientific research teams at or above the municipal level. More than 50 academicians and experts and more than 2,000 well-known domestic and foreign scientists carry out scientific research here all year round.
The City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan) and the University of the Greater Bay Area (Songshan Lake Campus) are accelerating their construction and are expected to be completed and enroll students in the academic year of 2023. Songshan Lake, which is only 103 square kilometers, will have 6 universities.
The production and R&D capabilities of Huawei will also expand even further in the most productive and innovative Greater Bay area of China.
Why the fuck should China be complying with any of the U.S. sanctions?
By your logic, China being the most sanctioned country by the U.S. should be sanctioning itself?
China should in fact be working together to bypass U.S. sanctions – Iran also being heavily sanctioned by the U.S. – by directly settling trade negotiation with their own currencies. This, together with Saudi Arabia – directly contributes to the discarding of the petrodollar.
FreshandFit REACT To Cheesecake Factory DATE Gone WRONG
She’s forever the Cheesecake Factory chick. Ironic and poetic.
If you cry out of happiness, the first tear will fall from the right eye; if you cry out of sorrow, the first tear will fall from the left.
A person has 7 minutes of neural activity left before he dies. You will see your memories in a dreamlike pattern during the 7 minutes of neural activity you might have before dying.
When people who speak two or more languages switch from one language to another, they may unintentionally change their personalities.
As humans, we are most imaginative at night and least creative during the day.
According to studies, travel improves brain wellbeing and even lowers the risk of heart disease and depression.
When you’re sleepy, your brain does more imaginative work.
Being around happy people makes you happy.
Persuading yourself that you slept well deceives your brain into believing you did.
The music you listen to has an impact on how you perceive the world.
China is more than a first world country but unfortunately for China , it is neither Caucasian (or of European descent ) nor friendly to them so it is rather called an emerging economy just to pretend to take it out of the disgraceful third world status . Tiny Israel with a beggarly $300 bn GDP ( lower than Nigeria’s $500 bn ) is put in the first world whilst China with an $18 trn GDP (or 60 times than of Israel is virtually ranked third world . And China has technology that even America cannot comprehend — high speed trains , landing on the dark side of the moon etc . The World of Wonders
When I was growing up, I saw my father going to office every day. He would eat his breakfast at 9 and leave for office by 9.30. It was a six days week during that period. Since he was a civil servant, he had to many times go for work even on Sundays and holidays.
When I was in school and then in college, I seldom missed my classes. It was fun going to school and college and meet with friends and participate in all activities.
When I joined my job, everyone in office used to come in time without fail. There were many who wouldn’t even avail their full quota of casual leaves (15 in a year). There were a few instances when due to Deewali or some other vacations, there were continuous holidays for 4–5 days. People used to wait for offices to open.
Even today, in most government offices, there is no concept of working from home. All government employees go to office every day.
During the covid pandemic, most of the private sector companies introduced the concept of work from home. It was the need of the hour and was very convenient for the employees. Lots of people shifted to their home towns and worked from there. It became a new normal.
Now that the things have gotten back to normal, a number of people are still preferring to work from home. I know a few youngsters who resigned their jobs when the companies asked them to report to office for work. They became too comfortable perhaps working from home.
Maybe I am old school, but for me staying home all day is not done. I want to go to my office and work.
China in November 2023, will not be lectured and talk down to. Not now not again. Certainly by a nation build on slavery after genocide on its own natives. Certainly the one and only nuclear bombs on human. Certainly not by the biggest murderer of Arabs, Muslims, orientals, and certainly by the biggest terrorist state on earth.
Get use to the new fact of life. Then let’s talk as equal. No more no less. If the US has any sense of reality not to mention humility, it is the US needing China. Not China wanting this talk. Without China the US can kiss goodby to 30–50% of world demand. Without China it cannot win over the Global south or 170–180 out of world’s nation. Without China the US will collapse and implode.
But the US is lucky China is not the US. Not the hypocrisy, not the hubris, not the nation that wants the world to be submissive and subservient to them. Not the nation that is at war 237 out of its 247 years after stealing their nation from their natives. China don’t steal Hawaii, Guam, and some 50 other islands! And this nation wants to lecture China!
But China is willing to help make America good again. If it ever grow out of puberty. I doubt it will but if it does it will be good for the US and for Americans. And certainly the world.
This is a very complicated situation, involving multiple sides with intertwining relationships. So who’s fighting whom, which side is China supporting? It’s China’s version of the drug Cartel south of the border.
This conflict is mainly fought in the Kokang (green) region, on the borders between China and Myanmar. There are 3 sides to this conflict:
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) VS Myanmar’s Military (Tatmadaw) Allied with Kokang Local Forces.
Both MNDAA and Kokang Forces are ethnic Han Chinese. MNDAA split from the Myanmar Communist Forces in 1989, founded by Peng Jiasheng (pic below) In 2009, MNDAA rules Kokang’s capital Laukkaing. A splinter group betrayed Peng and the MNDAA as the Tatmadaw attacked Laukkaing.
The splinter group worked with the Tatmadaw to drive the MNDAA out of the city of Laukkaing. They later formed 3 branches of the Kokang Local Forces, controlled by 3 families. The first and most powerful are the Kokang Militia controlled by the Bai clan. Headed by Bai Suocheng
The 2nd branch is the Kokang Police Battalion. Controlled by the Ming clan. Ming Guoan (Up) was in command, but he recently suffered a serious injury while horse-riding on the streets of Laukkaing. So his younger brother Ming Guangcai (Down) assumed command.
The 3rd branch is the Border Guard Battalion, overseen by the Wei clan. Wei San as the head of the Border Inspection Committee that controls the Border Guard Battalion.
Other families have interests in different industries, from Mining to Gambling to Prostitution to Telescamming. These 3 clans wields the gun, I’ll call them Kokang Militia for simplicity (Kokang Militia Up, Kokang Police Battalion Middle, Border Guard Battalion Down)
Northern Myanmar is a lot bigger than Kokang. Kokang is just the Northern periphery of the larger Shan Autonomous State, which contains anther autonomous State called Wa State(Red). All of them are involved in drug trafficking (less so now) and telescamming(until very recently).
Wa State is another interesting faction, it’s entire government structure were copied from China. The Party Leads the State and Military. Even their congress building took hints from the one in Beijing.
Wa State is led by Bao Youxiang, used to be a drug smuggler. Wa State is the best administered state, with the most financial muscle, they also cooperate closely with China, to more or less resolve the drug epidemic on the border. Wa State is officially neutral in this conflict
MNDAA, Kokang Militia, Wa State, they are all vying favor from China. The Myanmar’s military, Tatmadaw that has a ceasefire with Wa State and is allied with Kokang militias, also needs China.
China’s official position is to avoid conflict, and negotiate a power sharing structure. MNDAA, Kokang Militia and Wa State are all ethnic Han Chinese, we can’t really betray any sides.
Wa State is the good-natured elder son.
Kokang is the son hanging with the wrong crowd.
And MNDAA is the rebellious son with a sense of righteousness. After Peng Jiasheng’s death, the command of MNDAA was passed to his son, Peng Deren.
MNDAA follows the party and military structure of China. Although they are no longer communists, they still have many iconographies from China. Before 2009, Peng clan struck hard against illicit drug in Northern Myanmar Winning praises from local Chinese citizens on the border
In the 2023 offensive, they also listed the eradication of telescamming from Kokang as one of their goals. Along with driving out the Tatmadaw and regaining the control of Kokang. The announcement of eradicating telescamming was a propaganda coup for them.
Chinese netizens cheered for them, some even organized donations. This is because the telescamming industry were on par with the Mexican Cartel in terms of brutality. They would lure people from mainland China and Taiwan with promises of very high salary. After they arrived..
They are forced to be trained in how to scam people through online and telephone. If you’re not very good or don’t comply, you’ll be tortured or worse.
After which if you are of no use, you’ll be sold into the local mines, after you’ve been exhausted, your organs will be harvested and sold on the black market This can exist in Northern Myanmar because of its lawlessness It’s under these circumstances the 2023 offensive started.
MNDAA has 4 Brigades of troops, all based in the deep forested mountains of Northern Myanmar, On Oct. 28th the 211 Brigade of MNDAA took control of Chinshwehaw, a land port with China.
As of me writing this thread, battle rages on in Kuktai and Hsenwi in the West, and Monekoe in the North. The MNDAA strategy is to cut off routes of reinforcement by the Tatmadaw and deal with the Kokang Militias separately. The goal is the city of Laukkaing (green circle).
221 Brigade have already taken Mang Dong Ba today. It’s only 7 km away from the city of Laukkaing. But what awaits them in Laukkaing will be a tough battle. This is the business HQ of a warlord of sort, called Liu Abao (all big businesses have their own private army). He’s been singled out by the MNDAA declaration due to past grudges. Liu fortified his building accordingly
As the MNDAA brigades marches towards their objectives, numerous Tatmadaw outposts were taken, weapons taken to bolster their firepower.
Graphic images of dead Kokang militias and Police brigades are plenty, which I won’t show. Tatmadaw armors have been destroyed, MNDAA have also learned from recent wars to use commercial drones to drop mortar rounds.
But the numbers is not on MNDAA’s side It’s 17,000 Tatmadaw + 6000 Kokang militia vs 7000 MNDAA. How will this end? Who knows. But Kokang authorities are handing over 2000+ telescammers to the Chinese side as MNDAA marches on.
Happy to report that Wei Qingtao of the Wei clan, and Liu Zhengqi of the Liu clan of Kokang are under Chinese custody. They are 2 key family members of organized criminal groups in Northern Myanmar, involved in murder, torture kidnapping and telescam. Why is it significant
They sincerely urged their families to give up telescamming and other criminal activities in Northern Myanmar. Relaying China’s resolute actions taken to eliminate organized crime in Northern Myanmar. All of this happened as MNDAA troops marches towards the capital of Kokang.
Wei clan is in charge of the Border Guard Battalion, a private army of sort in Kokang Myanmar. Wei Qingtao is the younger brother of Wei Rong, the CEO of the Henry Group, the biggest telescam organizations in Kokang.
Now, if you’re wondering, how did we get our hands on 2 key family members of 2 influential organized criminal clans in Myanmar? As their clans prepare for a fight? Let’s just say the plot of Wolf Warrior is not entirely fictional.
At the moment MNDAA troops are mainly fighting with the Myanmar Tatmadaw, encircling Laukkai capital of Kokang, Northern Myanmar. The Bai and Ming clans seems to be the main resistance. Let us see how MNDAA will exploit this major development.
The original Thread. follow her, she really have many info that hard to get otherwise.
I was in a big steakhouse in California about 30 years ago. The waitress, like many Americans, liked our Brit accent and happened to say their head chef was from England. Thought nothing of it because England is quite a big place with a lot of people . About an hour later as we were finishing up our desserts , the chef came out.
Conversation went something like this.
CHEF: I heard your accents and had to come out because you sound like you are from Essex.
ME: Yes all four of us are. We are from Southend on Sea. ( A very famous large Essex town recognised around the UK).
CHEF: Really. That’s where I’m from. Actually Shoeburyness just outside Southend.
ME: Really! I lived there for 12 years,after I was born.
CHEF: Do you know West Road. I ran the Chippy ( fish and chip shop) there for 10 years between ’71 and ‘81.
ME: You’ve got to be joking. I used to come in your shop the last Friday of every month with my brother and my parents to get fish and chips.
In Turkish places they drink too. But those who don’t have a chai (tea culture) where you sit outside tea houses and pretty much do what you do at bars violence excepted.
A young woman was brought in by ambulance at 3am after she collapsed while working a night shift restocking shelves in a nearby supermarket. After examining her and some tests, I concluded she had simply fainted. So I started asking about the causes.
Was she dehydrated? No
Suffering a mild viral illness with a slight fever? No
Had a history of vasovagal faints? No
Had been very stressed or seen blood or something upsetting? No
Could she be pregnant? She says no. Hmm. They always say no. Does she have a partner? Is she sexually active? Both yes. What birth control was she on? None. When was her last period? It was overdue. Oh, but it was coming because her breasts were sore. Double hmmmm …
But… but. … but she couldn’t be pregnant she told me. She had very painful periods and investigation had shown a bicornate (“double”) uterus with both sides nearly closed off by abnormal membranes and she had had surgery a few months ago to correct it and her periods were much better and….but she had been told pregnancy was nigh impossible. Her and her partner really wanted children, but had accepted it was not to be and were talking about adoption.
Could she produce some urine for a test? She was sceptical about the value of doing it but was a nice girl and would do it if we wanted. She handed me the sample and I did the test myself. It was firmly positive. I did a second to be sure. Same result.
I took the test and showed her the two dark blue parallel lines. She asked what it meant. I told her.
She lit up like a Christmas tree. She was beside herself with surprise and delight. Suddenly, she asked what she should do. I suggested telling her partner. She checked the time- 4.30. He’d be asleep and had work in a few hours. She decided to phone her mum. It took a while for the phone to be answered, I could hear the sleepy voice. Where are you? At the hospital? What? Suddenly more awake. Are you ok? What? Pregnant? But… PREGNANT!
We could all hear her mum screaming down the phone, her Dad being woken, and then him shouting too. They were just all so happy.
It was just a really lovely experience, giving welcome news for once.
Modern Women DEMAND Chivalrous TRADITIONAL Men but Don’t Want To Be Traditional Women…
I got pregnant in my freshman year of high school, I even remember the day it happened. I was 14 almost 15. Too young to be having sex and definitely too young to raise a child.
The circumstances that lead to me getting pregnant weren’t ideal and I knew that I would be on my own. Completely. I knew that the father wouldn’t have anything to do with the baby, especially since he already had one that he didn’t see or take care of. My mother told me I’d be kicked out of the house, which wasn’t anything new since I had been living with friends when I got pregnant. My life was completely unstable and wasn’t a good place for me, let alone a baby.
The first time my mom kicked me out of the house was when I was 11, she always picked her boyfriend over me. So I bounced around from grandparent to grandparent and then eventually friends houses.
As any kid who is unsupervised and has no boundaries whatsoever, I did things I shouldn’t have. I missed a lot of school but no one ever bothered me about it since I kept a 3.8 gpa. I always wonder what I could’ve done had I actually applied myself, but I didn’t take it serious. It came too easily to me. I was more interested in partying.
Long story short, I got pregnant September, 1998. I was in denial for the first couple of months. The guy said he’d give me money for an abortion but then he spent it. I don’t think I would’ve gone through with it anyways.
When I was 5 months pregnant I wrote my mom a letter before I went to school. Looking back, that wasn’t the best way to tell her but I was scared out of my mind and she wasn’t the easiest person to talk to. When I got home from school she blew up. Asked how many periods I had missed and when I said five I thought she was going to have a stroke. She said, “it’s too late to get rid of it!”, to which I replied, “I know, that’s why I’m telling you now. I’m going to place her for adoption.”
I don’t think my mom thought that I could do it since that was her original plan for me. I think that is part of the reason she always told me that I wouldn’t be able to live there if I kept the baby. But I had my mind made up. I was going to find a maternity home and an adoption agency. My mom was in a maternity home when she was pregnant with me, so that was our first thought. Thankfully we couldn’t find it when we went to look. I do believe things happen for a reason.
I was absolutely blessed with an AMAZING teacher. I truly miss her and would give anything to see her again and express my thanks to her. She helped me find a nice maternity home that was about an hour and a half from my home. She took the time out of her life to drive me all the way up there to check it out. Took me out to lunch and most importantly talked to me like I was a human being and not another dumb teenage statistic. She helped me in so many ways and she will always have a special place in my heart.
So I moved into a Christian maternity home (a culture shock to me since I grew up with no religion) with four other girls. I was the only one who was planning an adoption. We soon became a little family and I had a wonderful time there. The staff was amazing. I’ve never met a nicer group of women who were so supportive of unwed pregnant teenagers.
I formed an extremely close bond with one of the girls. Shortly after I had arrived she had lost her baby. Her and I were the only ones going home without babies, I think that is what brought us closer.
The time came to find parents for my little girl. A daunting task. You wouldn’t believe the amount of profiles that I looked through! I had certain things that I expected though.
They couldn’t have a child of their own.
They had to be educated.
They had to live “comfortably” but not be too rich.
They had to live close (within a few hour drive).
Most importantly they to had agree to an open adoption.
A lot of people don’t want an open adoption, and I can understand that, but it’s my child, my rules.
I found couples who were extremely rich, couples with a bunch of kids, and I even found an Amish couple. Then I found my couple. Something about their profile made me instantly like them. They came from a large family, lived comfortably (she was a teacher and he was a business man), they only lived a few hours from me, they were down to earth, they couldn’t have children since she had a hysterectomy, and they were open to an open adoption.
I had my lawyer set up a meeting with them. I liked them right away. They were a little leery about a completely open adoption but after I told them my reasons they seemed to understand. I don’t think it’s healthy for a child to live under a lie, I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t love her and just abandoned her, and if she wanted to get to know me one day she could. I made sure that they knew I wouldn’t be in their lives constantly, but I had to know that she was ok.
They were the only couple that I met. I told them that day. I know they didn’t want to get their hopes up too much, but I knew.
So the big day finally arrived. I was in labor for two days! It was hell. She finally arrived very early in the morning. When they put her in my arms my heart melted. It was the most incredible feeling in the world. I didn’t know that I could love like that. Didn’t know a love like that could exist. The entire world stopped once I looked into those blue eyes. She was pink and perfect and I’ll never forget the way she smelled. I was lucky enough to spend four amazing days with her. Four whole days that I spent just looking at her, smelling her head, and making sure that I always remembered these things because she was going to be out of my life soon.
Those were the quickest four days of my life.
The other big day finally came. The day I had been dreading for months. They had been staying in a local hotel since I had called them before I went the hospital to let them know. I imagine those were the longest four days for them. I signed all the papers, took a thousand pictures, and held her as much I could.
Putting her in their arms was the hardest thing that I’ve ever done, but I knew in my heart that it was the right thing to do. I only had love to offer her and babies need much more than that. I had dreams for her, dreams she’d probably never realize had she stayed with me.
And she was gone.
Misery and depression became my constant companions. There are no words to describe that pain.
I was lucky though. Her mother sent me letters and pictures constantly. I saw my beautiful baby girl grow. Always happy and smiling with little curls and chubby dimpled hands.
Five years later I finally got to see her again. It was amazing. She knew who I was and was so excited to meet me! I was scared, but that day helped me so much. I got the closure that I needed. I knew I had made the right decision when I placed her for adoption. I backed off for a few years after that. I wanted to give them space. I wanted to let them be a family.
This past summer she turned 16. She’s beautiful, smart, and amazing. We talk once in awhile but I don’t want to intrude. She knows I’m always here if she needs me. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to see her again soon, but only if she wants to. I told her that I would understand if she didn’t want to, but she wants to meet up. She says that she wants to see me again and meet her sister. I’m thrilled.
I have thought about her every single day for the past 16 and a half years. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder what she’s doing, how she’s doing, if she’s happy, if she’s sad. I love her more than life itself.
I think of them as my family. It might not be your typical “normal” family, but it works. We love and respect each other. I’m incredibly lucky to have them in my life and I’m thankful every day that they are amazing parents to my girl.
I have had many embarassing moments as a foreigner in several other countries. But here are two of the most embarassing ones in Norway where I currently live.
“I accidentally did drugs, thinking it was chewing gum.
I was once at a pub with a few people. One girl on our table there was offering this one thing called snus to everyone seated at the table, except me because she knew that I am not into smoking, tobacco or any kind of drugs. I innocently thought it was chewing gum because it looked exactly like chewing gum, it came in a box that looked like a chewing gum box. I was wondering why she was offering it to all the others seated on the table but not me. Then I asked her for one She said, “It contains a bit of tobacco is that fine ?” I was like yes yes, convinced that it was harmless chewing gum. Then she told me that I needed to put it on my gums and I did that. Within 10 minutes, I noticed that my vision was getting blurry, someone was talking to me but I couldn’t focus on what they were saying, my head was aching so badly and I was getting really really dizzy. I felt very nauseous as well. I was so confused and upset about what was happening and I was almost about to cry. Then, I told the people there that I wasn’t feeling good for some reason. Then they guessed it was because of the snus and they asked me to spit it out immeadiately. Then they gave me loads of ice water and I was fine within a few minutes after that.
Image Source:BBC. This is how snus looks like. To me they looked like chewing gum on first sight.
I was told later that the amount of tobacco in one snus is equal to the amount of tobacco in ten cigarettes. To prevent air pollution, people in Norway use snus more than cigarettes. Almost everyone uses it here in Norway.
“Touching food with hand.”
In India, it is a common practice to eat with hands and to touch the food with your hands. But in Norway, they consider it unhygienic to touch food with your hands especially if it is out of a tray from which everyone takes food and if your hands are unwashed.
I once went to a bakery and instead of using the tongs to take out scones and pastries, I used my hands. Then the staff member manning the bakery at that time came running to me and said “Please don’t touch those with your hands, use these” and he handed me the tongs that were placed right next to the tray and I didn’t see those.
But, this wasn’t the first time this happened to me. This has happened with me many times. I frequently forget that I am not in India and take food with my hands, only to get told off by people.
But, now I more often than not remember not to touch food that is not mine yet and is for public consumption.
There are several more embarassing moments that I encountered. I plan to write a book about them one day.
China-Russia collaboration
China-Russia relations have become stronger through the collaboration of Presidents Putin and Xi. They have met some 42 times in both one-on-one and virtual formats, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. This contrasts with 17 meetings reported with Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden.
Stronger relations are marked by strengthening economic ties. In September 2023, monthly trade between Russia and China reached a record high of $21.2 billion which is up almost 60 percent from the same period in 2021.
President Xi said that “developing the China-Russia strategic partnership of coordination with ever-lasting good neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation is not an expediency, but a long-term commitment.”
The “long-term commitment” emphasized by Xi underscores a comment that he made to Putin on his visit to Moscow. “The world is undergoing changes unseen in a century,” he said. Putin agreed with the realistic assessment.
President Putin emphasized Russian support to the One China Principle and that Taiwan is part of China. His support for China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity was acknowledged by Xi. “China supports the people of Russia following their path to national rejuvenation and in safeguarding sovereignty, security and development interests of the country,” he said.
The changing international situation
The changes in the international system are indeed profound. The world is inexorably moving toward multipolarity. The Russian side describes the situation as a transition from Western “colonialism”. The Chinese side describes the situation as a transition from Western “hegemony”.
Both Moscow and Beijing stress that there are now new centers of development emerging. The Global South is rising in relative terms. Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America are increasingly factors impacting the general direction of global development.
Thus, both countries recognize what can be called a period of global transition. This period may extend over a decade or two. The challenge is to maintain global economic development and at the same time attempt to bring stability to an inevitably more turbulent world.
It is recognized by Moscow and Beijing that increasing turbulence during the transition era is caused by the United States and West who are attempting to maintain their hegemonic position in the international system.
The international community, however, realistically sees the changing situation and desires to be on the right side of the transition.
President Xi underscored China’s commitment to work with Russia within the United Nations as well as within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Group of 20 (G20). Cooperation in the areas of food, energy, and supply chain security were highlighted.
For his part, President Putin emphasized continuing cooperation with China in the BRICS as well as in other multilateral mechanisms and platforms.
It was noted that the two leaders had an “in-depth exchange of views on the Palestinian-Israeli situation.” Given that the current Middle East crisis could expand into a regional war or worse, the cooperation of Russia and China to stabilize the situation is urgent.
Well my friend, that’s a terrible trap to be caught in, I know that hollow feeling only too well.
But the thing is, as dark as it seems right now, you will get through it..your not the first person to deal with or the last. It can catch up with you really fast. You put one foot in front of the other and you walk. The day will come when you will remember this all like a bad memory. I truly feel your pain, I’m an INFJ, I can’t help it. If you need to talk you can message me on quora. Things will get better, I can promise you that
Within 20 years, Chinese cars will emerge from vaporware into global consciousness.
There will be Chinese jets, helicopters, trucks, maglev trains and many other products traditionally the exclusive domain of the first world economies.
Why am I so confident?
Whatever Japan and korea and Germany can do, China can do better.
Because it has the scale and domestic market.
All the Chinese need is someone to point the way and teach them, and the Chinese market will do the rest.
Whatever emerges from the Chinese market will have gone through a baptism of fire like no other. China class is world class, because the Chinese market is incredibly open for an emerging economy. The winners that emerge pit themselves against the heavyweight champions who have decades of experience before entering the Chinese market.
The other thing about Chinese scale is data. Big user base equals mountain loads of data. And China has many megacities to do experiments in collecting and harnessing big data and ai. What is impossible to test in say, Korea or Germany is a walk in the park in china. Even the US will find it hard because big, dense cities are not that common stateside.
We are entering the decades of Chinese surprises and delights, and they will come one after another.
I’m Getting Married in 2 Weeks, But My BRIDE Was Involved in an AFFAIR, and so was an OnlyFans Model
I was probably 10 11 years old when I was at another friend’s house playing. We were playing in the garage where we were nurses and and the boys were our soldier patients. One of the boys, that I secretly liked, ask for everyone else to leave and let me stay with him as his nurse. I got so flustered I left and went home.
I have heard a few people say this, mostly pompous folks.
But in the mid 00’s I was at a hacker conference, and we were waiting for me to be on a panel. I was helping a colleague with his notes, and apparently I was taken for his assistant.
Another hacker asked me if I wouldn’t be a dear and get them coffee. The panel was about to begin. I said, “I don’t think there’s time to get people coffee — the panel’s on in a minute.”
The guy said, “Well that’s why the people who belong up here don’t have time to get it.”
I realized he thought I was an administrative assistant or something.
He doubled down, “Run now and we’ll be all set and then you can go do whatever people like you do when the tech jargon starts.”
I had worked at that time about 25 years online, and more than that in computer engineering. But being a woman who was not dressed informally meant that I must have some boss who made me dress up, I suppose.
I think that the “Do you understand who you’re talking to?” was justified, tbh. It isn’t always a “Karen” sort of thing.
edit: No, I’m not saying that a support staffer should have been treated like that either, and I was angry at the guy for assuming he could ask anyone to be a dear and get coffee. Condescending AF.
But I really do believe it was raw misogyny, and I wasn’t worried about being personally disrespected. I think he disrespected anyone female, and anyone he thought he could boss around (which was a superset of anyone female, to him).
Some hacker types are just asshats. I try not to be.
About a million years ago, some coworkers said, “John want to go to a concert with us?” I was a grad student, I didn’t know anybody and so I sensibly (and uncharacteristically) said “yes.”
I asked who was playing. They said “Pat Metheny.” Well that’s cool. I don’t know anything about Jazz, but what could possibly go wrong? I’d hear some Jazz from a great Jazz person that even a classical music weenie like me had heard of.
So it’s time for the concert, and I carpool with the others. We get to the stadium, and everybody is excited, and on the banner over the entrance it says “Joan Armatrading.” I growl “I thought we were going to hear Pat Metheny!” and my friends responded, “Pat Metheny, what are you talking about? It’s always been Joan Armatrading!”
Kind of pissed off, and having shelled out about two week’s worth of food in the form of grad student money, I went in.
I co-signed my ex-girlfriends mother’s apartment lease. We were together for 8 years and I knew her mother well. She had divorced my girlfriend’s father and was having trouble getting a lease. Her mom had a stable job and an above average income for the time. I considered her a pretty low risk. I was wrong. Her mom paid her rent for 3 months, then went and traded her paid off car for an expensive two door coup and bought a ton of new clothes. She started going out and missing work the next day and eventually ended up getting fired. The apartment manager contacted me to let me know that she was a month behind and they wanted her rent. I had a discussion with her mom and she explained she’s got a new life and will get a roommate if I could help her with just this month’s rent. I did help her, and the next month it was the same story. I could see where it was leading and had a deep conversation with my girlfriend and her mom. It was like talking to a pre-teen and my girlfriend couldn’t understand why her mother is not my responsibility when I told her she needed to be the one helping her financially. I spoke to the apartment manager and they agreed to terminate the lease if I could find someone to assume the remaining term. I did find a coworker looking for a new place and willing to move in and assume the apartment. When it came time for her mom to move out she refused to leave until the property manager explained to her that if she was actually evicted she would likely never be able to rent again and that she was being done a huge favor. In the end, I lost my longterm girlfriend, I was the bad guy. Her mom ended up living with her son in another state and losing her car. Not what I had wished for her, but that is the result of her choices. I was lucky to escape without an eviction or having to pay her rent for 8 more months. Never again. I don’t cosign or lend money to anyone. If I do help someone out it is with the expectation that it is a gift and do not expect any to be repaid.
Let me talk about the reverse, and healthcare in the US.
I’m British and live in Northern Ireland.
I have a chronic condition called Ulcerative Colitis, its a gastrointestinal condition, I’m seen frequently by my GP (primary care), I’ve also a consultant which I see every 6-9 months. I take a handful of medications every day plus a treatment called a biologic, it comes in an epi-pen injection format, which I collect from the pharmacist each month and inject at home at a time suitable to me.
All this is covered via the NHS via general taxation.
Prior to Covid in my previous job I was given the opportunity to take on a project in the US, before I accepted I investigated how my meds would work for the 4 months inwould be there.
My employer said I would be covered, as did my general travel insurance, and they would pay for everything on the days as needed, this proved not to be the case.
The company sponsored physician was an asshole saying I didnt know what i was talking about (despite having lived with the condition for a decade, and being a patient advocate, a mentor to those newly diagnosed and often asked to be a teaching aide to medical students), attempted to change the medication to what I assume was a medication he got kick backs for prescribing and refused to sign the script, it took a second doctor to give me the usual meds that worked for me.
If that wasnt enough, the trip to the pharmacy turned into a nightmare and a second argument at being forced to use the EpiPen injection there and then whilst being watched in disgust by a crowd of folk each time.
I then got a bill for $1375. This repeated for each of the 4 months,
It then took a further 6 months for me to be reimbursed by both employer and insurance for the costs I incurred which they had to argue for.
It’s a bloody good thing I had savings and a credit card or I would have been stuck.
There is a HUGE difference between the meaning of the two.
—
When you look at “Chinese Communist Party”, the actual noun is the word “Party”. The words “Chinese” and “Communist” are both descriptors of the word “party”. Going more specifically into linguistics, the word “Communist” is an adjective, while the word “Chinese” is an adverb.
Party: noun. Subject of the phrase.
Communist: adjective. Describes the subject.
Chinese: adverb. Merely describes the descriptor.
The phrase emphasizes the political party portion of the phrase. And Anglo propaganda loves to artificially emphasize the Communist part, because they have a raging boner for fascism.
—
But what happens when we do the same analysis for “Communist Party of China”?
China: noun. Subject of the phrase.
Party: secondary noun. A subset of the subject. (Not quite an attributive noun though).
Communist: adjective. Describes the secondary noun
Now the emphasis is on the word “China”. The entity is indeed the political party, but it is merely a subset of all entities that “China” encompasses. The Communist adjective indicates this party is but one of many political parties that China has had, and will have.
—
See how the Anglo propaganda works? Rhetorically the “Chinese” part is but an afterthought, and it can be dropped completely without changing any of the linguistic meaning. “Communist” could also be dropped, as the subject is “the Party.” Of course, Anglos will never, ever, ever forget to say the “Communist” part negatively as part of their overall support for fascism.
In reality, “Communist Party of China” illustrates that the entity is a political party that represents China, advocates for China, and promotes China. It isn’t just a political party performing actions, it is China performing actions. The word “China” is the subject, and it cannot be dropped without destroying the rest of the sentence.
Yes. Yes I have. And my teacher (actually professor, this was my second year of uni) literally said “this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” so I wrote, on my own time, a second essay supporting my assertions, and the next day he told me I “had a good point.”
My essay concerned ethics and morality. Specifically, I said that a lot of what we call “morals” aren’t actually morality at all—theyre custom and practicality.
As a simple example, people who migrate to cold climates need to wear clothing almost all the time to keep warm. After a while, as in generations, people simply become accustomed to seeing others almost always wearing clothing, and a few generations after that, not wearing clothing becomes viewed as “immoral.”
There’s nothing intrinsically immoral about not wearing clothing. Unless you’re out in the cold, it doesn’t cause harm. It certainly doesn’t harm bystanders. But the practicality of wearing clothing makes wearing clothing the custom, and because people get used to seeing others wearing clothing, eventually not wearing clothing becomes viewed as immoral.
The climate causes a practical change, that change gets cemented as a moral value because many cultural moral values are based on nothing more than “this is usually what I see the people around me do.”
So I said in my essay we should, as a society, unpack “this is practical and therefore customary, so not doing it is morally wrong” from “this harms others so it is morally wrong,” and stop labeling as “moral” that which is only practical social custom.
Anyway, unbeknownst to me, he was quite conservative and religious, and subscribed to a very different view of morality, so that caused some friction.
When I was first married to my husband, we attended his company Christmas party. It was a rather small affair but included satellite offices and clients. The boss and his wife were there when we arrived and we went up to them to greet them and wish them Merry Christmas. It just so happened that the boss’s wife and I were wearing the same palazzo pants though mine had a skirt overlay. She looked me up and down and barely spoke to me. As we were drifting away from them I heard her say to her husband: “Well she has a nerve dressing so well when her husband is only one of your truck drivers!” She had no idea who I really was, my background, my education, my past career history, nothing. It was the fact that I was married to a truck driver that made me, in her eyes, less than nothing. My husband had to grip my arm pretty tightly and keep me moving forward to stop me going back and slapping her face. It wasn’t the insult to me that bothered me so much, as the insult to my husband because of the job he had. Sure we didn’t have a lot of money and my outfit which outshone hers in spades was purchased at a thrift store for $10! Apparently it looked expensive to her though! lol
Beware: China’s MASSIVE DF-1000 Missile Is A New Threat To US
China’s upcoming DF-1000 missile has raised a lot of conspiracy recently. Its deployment with the PLA Rocket Force underscores China’s ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region. As regional tensions evolve, the DF-1000’s significance lies in its potential to reshape the strategic landscape and protecting the nations interests while also ensuring regional stability and peace.
Many years ago, over 40 years for sure, my mother and I were driving down an Oklahoma rural highway. It was a windy day, and we were following a pickup truck which had a huge cardboard box in the back. That box was wobbling back and forth in the wind. My mother and I were commenting like, geez, wonder what is actually in that box, because it looks like it is going to fly away any second now.
Well, that’s exactly what it did. That box flew out of the truck and into our windshield! We were expecting the collision to be mild, since the box seemed to be very light weight. Nope, it was a pretty good crash! Wanna guess what was in the box??? A bathtub!! Just a fiberglass bathtub, but still.
But that wasn’t the fun part! The fun part was calling the insurance company about our accident. You know, the one where we are just driving down the road, minding our own business, when all of a sudden we got hit by a flying bathtub!
Brigtsen’s Champagne Vanilla Sabayon
Ingredients
12 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups champagne
2 cups granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, split
Instructions
In a mixing bowl, add the sugar and egg yolks. Beat with a wire whisk until light and creamy (ribbon stage). Add the champagne and vanilla bean. Cook this mixture over a double boiler on low heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture becomes thick and frothy, 15 to 20 minutes.
Scrape the inside of the vanilla bean into the sabayon. Discard the bean.
The Perception value of a Chinese Brand is between 8% to 70% of a German or a Swiss Brand
This means even if China creates the same quality lens as Zeiss , a supplier would not pay more than $ 70 as against $ 170 for Zeiss
Thus China would be unable to compete and would be forced to sell high quality products at a loss
Now that’s fine if these products have a MASS MARKET
They don’t
Thus even after a decade, China won’t be able to expand enough to recoup it’s losses
Yesterday someone gave me a brilliant example of perception
India makes Audio panels, it exports the Audio Panels for $ 60 to Europe
Europe modifies the panel with around $ 20 worth of work and sells these Panels worth $ 110 including Import Duties and inventory BACK TO INDIA for $ 300–340
Indians gladly pay $ 2000 for these full systems (₹1.7 Lakhs) with foreign Brand name
If the manufacturers purchased directly from India, they could sell each system for maybe $ 1300–1400 but then the customers won’t buy as many
The Market Sphere for the 7 nm Chip is $ 88 Billion
China controls 3.1% of this market
The Market Sphere for the 28 nm Chip is $ 273 Billion
China controls 41.9% of this market
So you tell me what makes sense?
Blow Billions of Dollars into a market where no matter how high quality product you make, you can’t control more than 7% or so
OR
Blow a fraction of that money and utterly dominate the 28 nm market with the best efficiency and price and supply chain and use the 28nm to handle it’s potential in terms of maximum and be the BADSHAH
Thus Chinas 7 nm Manufacturing is for SELF SUFFICIENCY entirely
China will never compete in all these areas where the 7 nm is used. Except maybe smartphones
Chinas key for competition is 28 nm , 45 nm and < 100 nm process chips
These Chips run EVs, Flights, Superior Drones, Port Logistics and most aspects of Semblance related AI
When my son was in middle school, his German teacher asked the class if they’d like to do a secret Santa. They were enthusiastic about it. They all had the choice to opt out of they didn’t want to participate. My son picked the name of a female student and I helped him shop for gifts. The limit was $10 but we went over it, finding fun and useful gifts at the mall. He said she was really excited about two of the things he got her.
Day of the party, the teacher hands out gifts and my son got nothing. He said the teacher looked so embarrassed. This was on a Friday. On Monday, there was a wrapped box on my son’s desk. When he opened it, it was filled with candy and the kid that had picked his name said something to the effect of “I didn’t get him that!”
At first, when it happened, I figured maybe the kid’s parents refused to buy something, and the kid was too embarrassed to say anything to the teacher. So, I held no grudge. No, this kid was just an asshole trying to make my kid feel bad. He had bragged to his friends about it.
It was late at night on an Icelandic Airlines flight to Reykjavik (the old “hippy express). Most of the passengers were asleep, the cabin lights were down low. I gazed out at the window and noticed sparks coming from one of the engines. Suddenly it burst into flame.
I turned to my partner and shook her awake. “Do you get nervous on airplanes?”
“Nah”, she said. “I love flying; a piece of cake”.
“Look out the window”, I said.
She spied the burning engine and screamed. The cabin became awake, full of anxious passengers. The engine was spitting long, nasty flames now.
The captain’s voice came on throughout the plane’s cabin. He spoke in a confident, matter-of-fact voice “Good evening. As some of you have noticed, one of our four engines is having a problem. This plane can easily and safely fly on just three engines. You will be completely safe. We will be taking a slight detour to Gander International Airport in scenic Labrador to address our engine problem. Accommodations and food are being arranged. I believe you will have a pleasant stay. If you wish, go back to sleep and enjoy the rest of the flight.”
The engine stayed burning for a while, casting red shadows throughout the cramped the cramped cabin. Most of us settled down for a cold drink or two. My partner’s fingernails dug into my palm. “I hope he’s not bullshiting us”, she said.
She had withdrawn her and my dad’s weekly old age pension from the bank and was leaving the bank when a bloke tried to yank her handbag off of her. Surprising herself and her assailant she twisted his arm into a lock, forced him to the ground and sat on him. When a couple of minutes later the police arrived, he was heard to say, “l’ll come quietly, just get this fat cow off of me”
My mum was 80 years old, a little over 4 feet tall and as thin as a stick. It seems that all the years of watching my brother and I practice Aikido in the garden and sometimes using her, to show the other, how arm locks work had rubbed off on her.
She was affectionately known as the “fat cow” for years afterwards
If you ask this question in Chinese, mainlanders and those in the know will laugh.
And won’t stop laughing.
How does China achieve state objectives?
By getting people to work on them.
1.4 billion of them.
How do the people know what to do, what to expect, in order to reach set targets on time?
By being thoroughly informed.
How are the masses informed?
Through an information blanket.
Through TV, social media, radio, websites, posters, slogans, publications.
You name it, the Chinese have done it. From in-depth, to the lightest of touches.
It is called mass dissemination, and the Chinese are very serious about getting the message to everyone. It costs a pretty penny to get everyone on the same page.
Chinese society has changed so much in the last 40 years it is disorienting. How else do they navigate, much less keep up unless there has been a steady stream of information to guide their decisions and plans?
Learn some chinese. The western world leaves too much on the table when the Chinese generously serve lunch, and dinner to their guests.
They leave the feast untouched, and complain about hunger.
Not everyone does, but for those who do, have some empathy. Many become that way because they are suffering from bodily pain, require frequent trips to the hospital or doctor’s offices. Hard to have a cheery attitude if you hurt frequently.
Others are living in or near the poverty level. Some of these were good, loyal workers but were fired as they neared retirement so that their employer wouldn’t have to pay them a pension. Some people are living on only Social Security. That would sour anyone.
Some are lonely, sad, frightened, depressed. It often goes with aging. Being kind and thoughtful of older people could make a world of difference. I recently read of a young woman who goes out of her way to speak with older people, whether in grocery lines, on street corners, or elsewhere. She says she often sees sadness or loneliness in their faces and wants to help a bit. Yet most young people don’t even see old people. To them, they’re invisible. Try saying a cheerful word to old people you see. It just might make their day!
I have always said that it is really stupid for the American media to spread rumors about Xinjiang.
I am a Chinese, and I have been to Xinjiang (by the way, if you like cycling, Xinjiang has three desert roads across Taklimakan, also known as the Sea of Death, each of which is about 500 kilometers long, very exciting! Super interesting! You must come! During the day, the temperature can reach over 50 degrees Celsius, and at night, it can drop to freezing point! Except for the highway, there is vast yellow sand everywhere. If you dare to leave the highway, if you get lost, you may become a mummy within 48 hours. ! Particularly exciting. Ah, there is also a bicycle highway in China, which is a little more difficult but absolutely safe. It is a bicycle ride from 0 kilometers from the People’s Square in Shanghai to Lhasa. If you are willing to continue riding, the end point is Nepal, with a total length of more than 5,000 kilometers. kilometers, passing through more than a dozen provinces, climbing over 14 snow-capped mountains, and countless sharp turns! It is particularly interesting. Every year, many people in China ride this road. This road covers almost all the scenery in China, also known as: China’s landscape boulevard. Trust me, ride it once and you will come back and thank me! It’s so awesome)
*** Sorry, as a cycling fanatic, I accidentally said too much, let’s get back to the topic…
There are many friends living there, both in the city and in the countryside. The blatant lies of the Western media made everyone feel angry, and then laughed – how could they dare to lie so brazenly?
Do you know what they lost? trust. Even the Chinese who believe in the United States the most believe that the American media is fair and selfless. When praising the United States, we only need to say one magic word: Xinjiang. They just have to shut up because it’s so simple, clear and powerful. If they want to continue to defend the American media – we often say that a person can be stupid or bad – they can only choose to be stupid.
You have to know that there are not many people in the world, and there are even fewer people who care about Sino-US relations. One word, “Xinjiang”, can make 1.4 billion people share the same hatred and create a deep disgust for the American media. How difficult this is!
As credible as they say Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. As credible as those who said earth if flat. As credible as those who believe that Elvis is alive.
I grew up on a farm. There was a small forest, which we called “the woods,” on one end of the farm. Every year, my father would post “No Hunting” signs around the woods. But every year hunters would still come there, as the woods were filled with rabbit, pheasant, deer, and other game. When he saw them, my father would go out to the woods and explain to the hunter that these were his woods, he did not allow hunting, and they would have to leave.
One time, when I was four, my father was with my brother, who was six, when they saw a hunter at the edge of the woods, looking into the woods for something to shoot. My father took my brother’s hand, walked over to the hunter, and said “These are my woods. I don’t allow hunting. You’ll have to leave.” The hunter turned around, pointed his shotgun at my six year old brother’s chest, and said “I’ll hunt wherever I damn well please.” My father slowly backed away with my brother and went back to the house.
A few minutes later, he came out again. But instead of crossing the field that led from the house to the woods, he went to the side, where a chicken coop extended to the edge of the woods. He walked quietly behind the chicken coop, until he came to the edge of the woods, about twenty feet from the hunter, who was still intently looking into the woods for something to shoot. My father said to the hunter “Drop the gun and leave immediately.” Except this time, when the hunter turned around, instead of my father holding the hand of a six year old boy, he was holding a .38 revolver…which was pointed at the hunter’s head. As soon as he turned around, my father said simply “Drop it or die.”
My father passed away four years ago. It had been almost sixty years since the incident with the hunter. When I went to clean out my dad’s house, the hunter’s shotgun was still in his closet.
I actually had a customer – the owner of a similar business with whom we exchanged work where our capabilities dovetailed – come in on a Friday and tell me he’d seen my job listed in that week’s classified ads. He told me to call him on Monday, and when I did, he offered me a job. I worked for that fine gentleman for four years, and when I left, he shook my hand and told me, “It was good enough to hire you to stick it to that bitch you were working for, but even better that you spent every day proving I was right and she was wrong about you. Best of luck.”
Perhaps I’ve missed someone else offering this answer…
In 1911, about two hours north of where I live, a man walked out of the mountains. He was finally too lonely to continue being on his own. He was approximately 50 years old. He was the last of his kind.
Ishi, as he would come to be known, is considered the “last wild Indian.”
In 1871, 4 settlers came along and murdered 30 of the Yahi tribe, approximately 2/3 of the tribe. This was one of many such incidents that are categorized as the “California Genocide.”
As you can see, the Native American population in California declined quite rapidly until it reached its nadir around 1910.
In 1908, what remained of Ishi’s family fled upon seeing strangers. His uncle and sister disappeared. His mother remained hidden at the camp and then died from an illness. Now Ishi was the last of his people. He remained in the wilderness without anyone to talk to for a few years.
Upon descending, he was studied by anthropologists, chief among them being A. L. Kroeber, father to the famous science fiction/fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin
.
Ishi was able to tell anthropologists many things about his people. Unfortunately, he was often ill. About five years after descending from the mountains, he died from one of the many illnesses his immune system couldn’t fight off because he lacked any kind of immunity.
One of the saddest things about this is that Ishi isn’t his real name. We’ll never know what it was. “Ishi” was the word for “man” in his language. The Yati people had a custom that proscribed them from speaking their name unless formally introduced by another of their tribe. As he was the last of his tribe, he could only say, “I have none, because there were no people to name me.”
After 2/3 of your people are killed off, you spend the rest of your life on the run, watching as everyone else disappears, leaving you to be the last among your kind. Finally, too lonely to go on, you live amongst the people who killed your people until their diseases slowly whittle you away. That sounds plenty lonely to me.
But the most dispicable thing and the one that I just cannot ever forgive him for is.
I wet the bed until I was about ten years old and every morning my dad would get up and come straight into my room and rub my nose into my wet patch like I was a dog being toilet trained.
He actually screamed at me.
If you are going to piss the bed like a dog, then I’m going to rub your nose in it like a dog.
He would even give people to belt me if they taught I was misbehaving.
In the end I got up before my dad, stripped my bed, remade it and went to school or a friend’s house
China’s Breakthrough in HYPERSONIC Sector Has Baffled Scientists
Without a doubt, it has become universally recognized that China’s dominance in the field of hypersonic technology is nothing short of remarkable. With each passing breakthrough, China continues to surmount obstacles and unveil groundbreaking innovations that have garnered global attention. In a recent stride, China has once again achieved a significant milestone, firmly establishing itself as the frontrunner in the dynamic realm of hypersonic technology.
When I was five I walked by a toy store with my mother.
I looked in the window, and I saw a plastic model of a car. It was a yellow convertible.
And I well remember myself looking up to my mother, and telling her that she should buy it for me so that I could gift it to my father. I thought, and was absolutely convinced that my father would love the car.
I’m sure that both my mother and father thought that it was so cute. And today, I look back at that moment with fond memories. And to this day, whenever I see a model of a convertible, I think of this particular moment.
I graduated college with this misguided idea that a good degree and hard work would make me invincible. Everyone would hire me and I’d get a raise every year.
All it takes is a company downsizing or a manager that doesn’t like you. Our pay and job security are directly tied to how many other people are willing to do our job. This isn’t an opinion. It’s economics.
You either make yourself indispensable to a company. Or pick up skills and qualifications that make other companies want you more. Otherwise, plan on getting yanked around and low-balled.
As an extreme example, my friend skipped college and worked his way up to senior-level tech support with a camera company.
He spent the best years of his life there. Now, he’s older, his company has gone bankrupt, and he’s out of the job with minimally transferrable skills.
Remember that a business cannot feel emotion or empathy. It is a system, designed to learn, evolve, and make money. Don’t drink the Kool-aid and corporate ra-ra.
You are paid by how expensive you are to replace.
Cajun Shrimp Burgers
Ingredients
1 pound steamed or boiled shrimp
1/4 cup finely diced onions
1/4 cup finely diced green bell pepper
2 tablespoons chopped celery
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup dry bread crumbs
1 beaten egg
Flour
Extra-virgin olive oil
Instructions
Peel and devein shrimp and remove tails. Chop shrimp.
Cook onions, bell pepper and celery in microwave until soft. Drain well.
Yes they can and they should. It makes sense that if the three strongest and most powerful nations find a way to accommodate each others interest and red line. When and if they do the rest of the world are free to move on with their lives and grow their respective economy. I really believed that these 3 powerful nations simply cannot make each other submissive and subservient to the other.
The U.S. tried hard and desperately over the past decade or so without any success at all. Take the U.S. and China trade war. After 5 years straight of tariffs, sanctions and demonisation, if anything China gets stronger and more independent. And the Chinese counter actions. Is hurting the US. And to be fair China prefers to not have this dispute as it slows down Chinese growth too.
The U.S. tried to pinned down Russia militarily and geopolitically too since Biden take office culminating with the Ukraine war. A good 18 months has gone by and Russia is as strong as ever and at best the war is a stalemate with both the U.S. and Russia becomes slightly less strong. But the only thing the U.S. who goaded Russia into this war achieved is to bring world GDP down a notch. What good is it?
China do not mind if the U.S. grow healthily at 3% due to its mature economy and as a result China grow 6% healthily and both nations and the rest of the world pay attention of improving competitiveness and development. I am hopeful that a new U.S. president will see the benefits of collaborating with China and Russia.
The U.S. threw their kitchen sink at China and Russia for the last 2 full years! Has China and Russia been destroyed? Be honest! Nothing substantial happened. And what ever little Russia and China got hurt and harm so does the U.S. at least in the same proportion if not a little more. So what good is it? All the huff, puff and rant for nothing.
Now imagine. All three nations go positive. The world will be healthier, more stable, more peaceful and prosper. That cannot be bad for the world. The U.S. needs a new approach and a new leader that don’t think in hubris but in finding collaboration for mutual good.
Story time. My ex was an irreplaceable worker who needed to leave work 10 minutes early to catch a train that would get her home a good 45 minutes earlier compared to the train she’d get if she left exactly on time. her manager insisted she stay until exactly 17:30. Note that she didn’t do anything worthwhile in that last 10 minutes. Her type of work meant that everything took longer. She also hated crowds, so she got the train to work an hour earlier than strictly necessary, meaning that most days she was 45 minutes early for work (she’d stop somewhere to buy a hot breakfast). Because of the type of conscientious worker she was, and also she was the head of a team of around 10–12 people, and she took pride in her work; she would start working more or less straight away. The boss knew all this, because she was always at work when he came in. He also knew that she was already working because of the dozen or so emails that she had already sent out (to clients, to coworkers with him CCdd, to him directly, etc). When she pointed all of this out to him, he said that “nobody is asking you to do that” and something about any colleague could walk up to her at 17:25 and ask a question or for a task to be done. If you ask me, it was all baloney and the dude was simply on a power trip! (Or maybe someone above him had archaic views and was being unreasonable)
so she gave in her notice and quit to start up on her own (basically to be a freelancer). they couldn’t find anyone else to do the work, and for the first two years of her freelancing career she basically did her old job from home (no commute, working from home, and back in 2015, this was a massive perk, which was unheard of). Hell, the lack of commute alone saved her £3000 per year.
She got paid about 40% more to do the same work she always did, in about 1/2, maybe 2/3 of the time. It took them two years to train someone up to replace her (and stop needing her services as a freelancer).
My Brother was in a car crash and went through the windscreen of the car he was a passenger in.. he managed to get his arms up to protect his face but didn’t manage to completely cover his eyes.. he was cut out of the car and flown by ambulance to Ninewells hospital in Dundee (Scotland) where he spent two years going through in total 35 operations on his eyes. Ninewells had the best Eye Specialists and Dept. in the Country.. After his final operation his Doctor sat down with us his family, and explained that they had tried everything to save his sight but that he would be 100% blind for the rest of his life and that he would need all our help to come to terms with it and to help him adjust to life as a blind man.. after 2 years they released him from Hospital into our care..
I had not prayed for many years. Had stopped going to Mass years before.. but that night I got on my knees and I prayed to God.. I begged him to restore my brothers eyesight and offered to lose mine in his place..
3 days later.. it was a beautiful sunny day and I took him for a walk.. guiding him with my arm.. someone he knew shouted hello from a distance and waved to us. My brother asked who it was and I said the guys name and said that he had waved. My Brother said “I know, I could make out the shadow of his arm in the grass”
I was gobsmacked but didn’t say anything to him about it.. When we got home I told Mum what had happened and She phoned his Doctor who brought my brother in for tests.. the Doctor confirmed his last prognosis.. that he was blind and there was no difference from the last time he was tested.. He sat Mum down and explained that it was his brain playing tricks on him and went into great detail on the damage that had been done and how it was impossible that it could be repaired either naturally or medically..
My brother now has 98% of his vision restored and wears contact lenses.. he actually has better sight than me..
This happened to my best friend. She had left her abusive husband and was living in her own apartment, when he learned where she was, and went ballistic on her. He assaulted her and threatened their one year old. Her new neighbors heard the disturbance and called the police. When the police got there, they asked for his information and he gave a false name. Unfortunately, they believed him. because when they called that name in, they found no record on him. They were about to leave when my friend overheard and gave the police officers her husband’s correct name. Turns out there was an outstanding warrant that she hadn’t known about, and they hauled his ass off to jail.
It gets better. During that time, she got a lawyer and pressed charges, and her neighbors testified in court. His mother and father, who were quite elderly and in poor health died within weeks of each other. Then, when he got out of prison, the city decided to put in a new road and offered his landlord money for the house that my friend’s husband was living in, so he got evicted. He spent the rest of that year couch surfing because nobody would let him stay with them, due to his bad temper.
I was flying out of LA bound for Newark. My flight was leaving at 6am on a Wednesday. My work was finished on Tuesday, around 8pm. I went to a restaurant, had a great meal, dropped off the car and went to check in at around 11pm that Tuesday evening. My plan was to find a comfortable seat, take a short nap, and be ready for my early Wednesday flight.
At the security check point the person checking told me I could not go through because I was a day early for my flight and I’d have to come back the next day to check in. I tried to explain to him that the next day was in one hour and my flight was leaving in six hours. He did not get it and was adamant that I could not enter until the next day.
At that point I asked to see his supervisor. He eventually got the supervisor. When the supervisor listened to me and checked my ticket he told his guy, “Let him in. You need to learn how to tell time. See me later.”
I use to fix street lamps for a living. Once I was about to pull up to a lamp that needed to be fixed when someone pulled into the spot ahead of me. I got out of the truck and explained I was about to pull up to the lamp to fix it and would he please move his car. His response was, “I’m only going to be a few minutes, you can wait “ He then walked onto a store that was right there.
So I pulled up the truck along side his car, and was up in the bucket and started to fix the light. I was still up in the bucket fixing the lamp when he came out of the store and was angry to find my truck was blocking his being able to pull out. He called up to me demanding I move my truck so he could pull out. I shouted down to him, “I’m only going to be a few minutes, you can wait “ and then went back to fixing the light.
Bert was a part of the furniture for many years. He slid silently into his cubicle before most people arrived. The sound of flipping pages and keypad strokes were the only signs of life from his corner.
He evaded unnecessary contact with his colleagues. In meetings and during unavoidable greetings he mumbled and focused his eyes anywhere but on the person talking to him.
Bert drank no coffee and ate a packed lunch at his desk. He evaporated promptly at 4.55 every evening, leaving only an immaculately ordered workspace devoid of any clues as to who he was as a person.
It was impossible to like Bert. His own discomfort with everyone else was awkward and off putting.
At the same time, the only thing to dislike about him was that he didn’t fit in with the rest. Bert’s unseen presence was a low-level annoyance, like a squeaky chair or the smell of an overheated copy machine.
Only two people understood how valuable Bert was. Bert’s boss had known it for years. I learned about his talents when we worked as a team to create technical catalogues. I handled text copy and Bert handled tables, graphs and technical drawings.
We mostly collaborated by e-mail. His PDF markups were always detailed and clear.
When we met in person, I honored his unspoken preference to avoid eye contact. This seemed to comfort him.
For three years we redesigned dozens of catalogs with only rare and minor errors discovered after printing.
I learned to truly appreciate Bert’s talent for finding the needles (errors) in the haystack (multi-hundred-page catalogs). He was quiet, unassuming and provided the company excellent value for his salary.
I eventually moved on, but Bert and others kept producing error-free work. Bert’s methodical proofreading approach guides me still.
When Bert’s boss retired, a new boss found him uncomfortable (like everyone else). He was let go and his job was outsourced to an agency.
One of the agency’s first jobs was updating an existing 800-page catalog. 50,000 copies were printed and some were shipped to customers.
It was only then that the typo was discovered. A technical term had been typed as a sexual one. It was an expensive mistake (mostly covered by the insurance company).
I still have no idea who Bert is as a person. But I know his work reeked of integrity, his written communications were more honest than most people can swallow, and that working together with him was an honor.
Being able to depend on a colleague is more important than liking them. Thanks for the life lesson Bert!
The U.S. used democracy in 2 ways. To elevate the U.S. as the beacon of democracy in the free world, a self declared superlative about themselves by themselves. That no one believes but themselves. Even that is only some white Caucasian, Anglo Saxon, conservative and less travelled and less educated ones.
And to tag countries that refused to be submissive and subservient to them to be “not” democratic. So authoritarian and dictatorial or a host of slurs such as. Communism, Socialism, Regime, Rogue States etc. Simple pea brain people buys that slur over the years to feel good about themselves while looking down and demonising others they did not like after being indoctrinated against for close to a century.
But these are optics or cosmetics. Forcing “U.S. liberal Democracy” is much more sinister. If you are having a political system like the U.S. they can easily manipulate that nation’s political process and place their puppet to do the U.S. bidding for them. Such as align with them and against China or Russia or selling resources to the Yanks at dirt cheap prices! That is what happened to many decades in the Philippines.
US political system is all about popularity and no meritocracy at all. All you need in a poorer developing nation is money to bribed voters. And the U.S. has plenty of printed Green back to throw about. That is the reason they forced nations to failure through the unworkable and inefficient political processes. For the U.S. sake. Not the nation in question sake.
After spending billions it almost always don’t work after a while. Hence Vietnam U.S. still a proud successful socialist nation, Iraq is still a Muslim fundamentalist nation and Taliban Afghanistan became Taliban Afghanistan after tens of trillions spent. Sure Zalensky the U.S. puppet did poke Russia in the eye and see what the U.S. and Ukrainians get for their effort!
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First of all, many guys do go for an “innocent girl.” I’m not one of them, but there are countless guys who totally look for “innocence,” however variously that may be defined, in women.
Why don’t some guys go for an “innocent” girl?
Speaking only for myself, not for any other man: I don’t go for “innocent” women because I like women who know exactly what they like and how to get it. I strongly prefer women who aren’t meek and aren’t the least bit frightened, women who live their lives out loud, uninhibited and unashamed.
Why?
They’re better partners.
They’re more fun. They’re less timid and more adventurous. They understand themselves better. They sample life with gusto. They embrace life in its joy, unworried about what other people have to say. They live on their own terms, which means they are more likely to explore and embrace new things. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, more courageous and more enjoyable to spend time, or life, with.
Ages ago I used to work at a place that had formerly been a large outlet mall. The company I worked for owned one quadrant of the building but there was plenty of parking available. One guy, Crumb E. Parker, had a very nice car and did not want it damaged but rather than park it far away from the building he parked it close by and took up three spots, almost like so but even more perpendicular to the spot.
Now had he done this in the East Jesus end of the lot where nobody else parked nobody would have cared but he had an early shift and parked as close to the building as he could This happened every day for a month and people were sick of seeing it. A couple of us got together and decided this aggression could not stand, man!
Since he did this right by the handicapped spots we made friends with the person that would park in the handicapped spot closest to his car and got them to swap spots with someone who worked a shift until midnight. Then we did the same with an early bird who would park on the other side of him. We had both cars parked so close to him he’d have needed to make an 87,423-point turn to be able to get out. We waited.
Shortly after Mr. Parker’s shift ended there are announcements and emails going out. Mr. Parker is wandering the halls of the office looking for whomever owned the cars that had him blocked in to move them. Nobody is owning up to it. A threat comes out to have towed the cars blocking him which was followed by a near-immediate retraction when someone pointed out that doing so but not towing the guy who parked like crap all the time could be seen as retaliation against a disabled person which would open up lawsuits. The guy ended up having to take a taxi home and back to work the next day and after that he would still park like crap but way out in the furthest parking spots where nobody cared and all was right with the world again.
Worked at Ford Dealership many years ago. I had 45 techs in seven different departments. Of all the people I had, only two were certified to work on the FORD GT’s.
I don’t recall the reason why the vehicle was in for service, but it was minor and didn’t require a test drive afterwards to verify that it was repaired.
I received the repair order and assigned the ticket/vehicle to one of my GT techs. As mentioned, it was simple repair and after the parts arrived, it only took him an hour so.
My GT tech finished the repair, closed out the ticket, sent me the paperwork (hard copy) then carefully backed the car out and drove it outside towards a special area that we kept all high dollar/high profile customer vehicles at.
I was inside my office at the time and watched the big garage doors open as he drove this wonderful-sounding, sexy vehicle outside.
I go to lunch and get back to my office an hour later.
I checked my email – “Come see me ASAP” it read. It was from my Boss.
This was highly unusual. I mean we sent emails back and forth all the time, but never with the subject matter “Come see me ASAP”.
Nonetheless I marched into my Boss’s office and he shut the door.
He looked at me and was pale as a ghost.
“Mike crashed the GT,” he said.
“He TOTALED it.”
…
I couldn’t believe it. Instead of parking this $250,000+ car like he was required to, Mike decided to take it for a spin around the block. Real quick.
He went around a corner too fast, lost control and took out a tree.
#dumbass
He was unhurt for the most part and walked away from it with just a bruise or two (he said).
:[
“GET INTO THE SYSTEM AND MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T DRAW ANOTHER VEHICLE!” my Boss told me. (he wasn’t much of a systems admin guy and needed me to do it). So I did.
To make a long story short, Mike the GT tech finished out another vehicle (a big truck) that he’d been doing an engine on. It took him a couple of days, but when he finished the ticket, he was fired. I’m sure he saw it coming.
The Dealership paid back the GT Owner what he’d paid for it. He wasn’t happy, of course, but what else ya gonna do?
Judging from the economic events that will occur in 2023, I think one of China’s most successful economic policies is “foreign exchange control.”
…
China’s foreign exchange controls include the following measures:
1. Restrict foreign exchange circulation in China
Any enterprise or retailer in China is not allowed to accept foreign currency and must convert it into RMB before trading. I can’t buy anything in any store in China with US dollars or Singapore dollars.
2. Restrict foreign exchange from being freely convertible into RMB
Any foreigner who visits China needs to convert foreign currency into RMB. There are limits on the amount. For example, foreigners entering China can only exchange US$50,000 in cash each year. The foreign exchange received by Chinese companies operating abroad will also be subject to amount restrictions when they need to convert it into RMB.
Foreign companies also need approval to remit foreign currency into China for investment.
3. Restrict the conversion of RMB into foreign currencies
Any Chinese or foreigner leaving China must exchange RMB cash into foreign currency. Or if you want to remit RMB and convert it into foreign currency, you are also subject to the amount limit.
Not only that, if Chinese companies want to invest in other countries and want to convert RMB into foreign currencies, they also need approval.
Simply put, the conversion of RMB and foreign currencies is subject to limits and controls. This makes large sums of money not freely convertible at all.
China is the world’s largest trading country, and it is the largest trading partner of almost all countries in the world. Therefore, the foreign exchange control policy actually has many negative impacts on the Chinese economy, which brings troubles to cross-border transactions, troubles to Chinese companies operating abroad, and a lot of troubles to foreign companies investing in China.
Even so, China still insists on implementing foreign exchange control strategies.
As an employee of a Singapore investment company, perhaps because of my lack of knowledge, I have not been able to understand China’s approach in the past many years. Because this policy often gives me a headache at work and adds a lot of extra workload to our company. The Chinese want to expand trade so much, why do they impose artificial restrictions on currency flows?
I once believed that if China relaxed its foreign exchange controls, China’s imports and exports would see huge growth.
It wasn’t until 2023, after the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike, that I realized the reason why China did this: they took financial sovereignty into their own hands.
As we all know, in order to solve the country’s economic problems and curb inflation. In 2023, the Federal Reserve carried out continuous and substantial interest rate increases on the US dollar.
This operation has greatly increased the yield on U.S. dollar deposits, and funds all over the world want to transfer to the United States to obtain high interest rates. Many people even apply for loans in their own country and then transfer the loaned funds to the United States to enjoy the interest rate difference between the two places.
This caused funds from all over the world to begin to gather in the United States. Investors and wealthy people frantically converted their currencies into U.S. dollars and remitted them to the United States.
This resulted in a series of dire consequences for all other countries:
1. Due to the loss of large amounts of funds, investment in various fields in the country has been stopped.
2. The domestic currency was sold off in large quantities (converted into US dollars), causing the domestic currency to depreciate sharply, while the US dollar appreciated sharply.
3. Lack of investment and consumption (all the money is remitted to the United States) has caused the economy to decline, business is sluggish, and companies are gradually closing down.
4. As the U.S. dollar appreciates, American investors can purchase companies and minerals that are about to go bankrupt in their own countries at very low prices.
5. National wealth shrinks (the national currency depreciates), and people no longer trust the national currency and turn to buying U.S. dollars, causing the collapse of the national currency to intensify.
This consequence is like a domino, which is catastrophic for any country, meaning that the wealth created by this country for decades may be completely harvested by the United States.
In order to avoid this disastrous chain reaction, governments can only take one approach: follow the United States in raising interest rates. This can reduce the interest difference between the two countries and reduce capital outflows. You can take a look at the situation in your country in the past six months. Are banks already raising interest rates?
However, raising interest rates is not a panacea. It also has a serious negative impact, which reduces domestic investment willingness. After all, who wants to invest in business when you can earn a high income by depositing your money in the bank? At the same time, some companies that rely on loans, especially the financial industry and large-scale manufacturing industries, will see their capital costs continue to increase. When the chain breaks, businesses go bankrupt. For individuals, the interest pressure on student loans, credit cards, and mortgages will increase, and people’s lives will inevitably be affected.
Therefore, for most countries, not raising interest rates means allowing the United States to harvest their own wealth; raising interest rates means immediately harming the domestic economy and people;
No matter what you choose, you will get hurt. The rate hike is just the one that hurts less.
But in China, the situation is different.
Not only did the Chinese not follow the U.S. in raising interest rates like other countries, they actually kept cutting interest rates in the past few months.
Aren’t they afraid of massive capital outflows and sharp depreciation of the RMB, which will trigger an economic crisis?
Of course not, that’s why they implemented exchange controls.
Since the RMB and the U.S. dollar are not freely convertible, large-scale conversions are simply impossible.
Bank of China: What, you want to convert 50 million yuan into US dollars? what is your purpose? Transfer money to a U.S. bank? Sorry, this is not allowed.
Oh, you changed your story again and said you were going to the United States to do business. Well, please provide your business contract, investment agreement, and lawyer’s certificate!
Therefore, they are not worried about these problems at all, and the outflow of funds is limited to a controllable range. The United States simply cannot harvest China.
In the past few months, the yuan has indeed depreciated against the US dollar, but has appreciated against other major currencies around the world, which shows the effectiveness of China’s foreign exchange control capabilities.
With low interest rates, Chinese companies can obtain very cheap financial support from their banks, which makes them invincible in the global market. Taking the shipbuilding industry with the largest demand for funds as an example, the Chinese have taken 90% of the world’s shipbuilding orders in the third quarter. In the same period last year, their share was only 50%.
In the face of US dollar interest rate hikes and global currency depreciation, inflation has occurred in various countries, but China’s domestic inflation does not exist at all. They have even begun to worry about “deflation.” Many Chinese friends told me that domestic prices in China are actually lower than last year, and people can buy more goods with the same money.
I was assigned to Police Motorcycles for ten years. I was on a traffic stop one winter day writing a citation to a young man. While writing, the young man asked me if I knew Officer Stone. My heavy leather jacket covered my name plate, and as the only Officer Stone on the force, I found this an interesting question, since I had never seen him before. I responded, “Why yes, yes, I do.” I threw in “He’s really a great guy.” The young man agreed, telling me how they were good friends, and that Officer Stone was close with his family. “Officer Stone comes over to my house on most Sundays for dinner and my mama cooks for him”, the young man added. I said “Why that’s real nice of her.” As I handed the kid his citation to sign, I pulled back my jacket to reveal my name plate, and said “Tell your mama I’ll be over for dinner Sunday at 1:00”. The kid’s face froze, and after a few seconds, he simply responded “Yes Sir!”
My career was spent as the Founder and CEO of a very large company. When a woman disrespected my marriage, politeness went out of the window. Ladies, trust me I’m not God’s gift to women, but I have been hit on! I was once told by a 22 year old (I was 40 something) that she could steal me away from my wife. My response was, “you’re fired”!
I’ve now been married to the most incredible woman in the world for 56 years. I still find reasons to fall in love with her each day.
When I was 17 years old, I dropped out of high school to work full time. I never went in to get my GED (which is the equivalent of a high school diploma).
Since then, my parents (especially my mom) have been begging me to get my diploma.
I’ve put it off for years and years, much to their disappointment.
This fall, my friend finally coaxed me into taking the exams. He assured me that I could do it, he encouraged me, and he was a huge support. I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for him.
November 30th, I passed my final exam and got my GED!
I printed it out, framed it, and wrapped it up for my parents for Christmas.
Unfortunately, I have no chill, so I went to my parents’ house last night to give them their Christmas present early. My mom unwrapped it, read the diploma and…
Oh. My. God.
That reaction was worth every single minute of studying and exam taking.
I have never seen someone cry out of happiness at a present, but my mom did. My dad got teary eyed! Shit, the boyfriend said he even got blurred vision watching my parents’ reaction!
It was amazing.
My dad was smiling and clapping and my mom hugged me so hard I thought she was going to break a rib.
The dogs started barking because they were freaked out at the sudden mayhem.
At one point my dad yelled, “A ROUND OF WHISKEY IS IN ORDER!” and ran off to the kitchen to pour a round of shots.
It was hilarious.
Hands down, being able to make my parents that excited has been one of my happiest moments.
There’s nothing like making your parents proud.
(Oh, and P.S.: I passed with flying colors. I made those exams my bitch.)
Iran Gets Access To Chinese Satellite To Use For Missile Attack on Israel!
“The US must be isolated or sidelined for the benefits of all free nations of the world.”
What pushed me —a United States Astronaut— into retirement? I’ll tell you exactly what pushed me.
I was summoned into the “corner office.” This is a hallowed place, reserved for the Chief of all astronauts. Seated in a chair in front of the boss’ desk, the discussion would eventually turn to me asking, “What are my chances of flying again?” The boss pulled out a long sheet of paper. A sheet known to wannabe fliers as the A/B line chart. It typically shows potential flight assignments well into the future and is used for NASA JSC management planning purposes. After fidgeting and mumbling for a few moments, I heard the words that would eventually push me into retirement. I heard the head of the astronaut office say —in part— “… I have better choices to fly in space than you,” and then, after a brief pause, the boss followed up by saying that I didn’t “… have the temperament for long-duration spaceflight.”
I was crushed beyond words. The career that I had worked so hard for, and had —after 15 application cycles— been selected to do, was being summarily ended. I left the office of the Chief Astronaut and cried … but not before I wrote down everything that was said.
I did not retire immediately. I hung on … performing as a lowly “management astronaut.” Stripped of most of the “fun” stuff (like flying in the T-38), I was expected to go to meetings. The only saving grace I had was that I was made an IA (instructor astronaut) for spacewalking. Something I was very good at, I apparently did have the temperament for teaching neophyte space walkers. Of course, I took that assignment very seriously.
In all honesty, I was hoping for a change. I tried to wait the boss out, hoping they would step down for a more promising assignment. They did exactly that, hoping —but failing— to be named as the first astronaut to spend a year in space. I would then enter the hallowed corner office once again, only this time I was sitting across from the new Chief… and the new deputy.
When I respectfully asked them for a chance to get back into the “active astronaut” and flight-eligible line, the boss gave me an emphatic “no.” Expecting exactly that response, I asked for a more responsible position in the office hierarchy, one that could challenge me more than meeting attendance and effectively utilize my 30 years of NASA experience (15 as an engineer, 15 as an astronaut). Again, the boss said “no.” The Deputy said nothing. I was being dressed down, by two people who would go on to fly again … just like the previous boss.
I was angry … very angry. So much so, that I was bringing that anger home and inflicting it upon my family. Obviously an unpalatable situation, it took the courage of my then 18-year old son to say, “… Dad, this has to stop.”
And stop it did … sort of. My family will tell you that I am still angry … and it’s something I must deal with every single day. I am working hard to lessen the anger, but it’s going to take some time.
I have now been retired for nearly 6 years. During that 6-year hiatus from government service, I have been writing. I write to share my stories with you and, more importantly, because it’s therapeutic. And it’s really a whole lot of fun! I also enjoy teaching part-time at Iowa State University, entertaining as a motivational speaker, and I consult with various organizations in a number of different capacities (listen for my voice sometime or take a Royal Caribbean cruise!).
My wife and I spent a month in Spain and were scheduled to fly home from Paris, France.
The day before we were to leave my wife tested positive for Covid.
I had to to make arrangements to stay longer at the Airbnb, the host was very kind and helpful.
I had to reschedule a number of appointments that were to take place after we were to return home.
All of this went smoothly but when I tried to get ahold of Air France, it took over six hours of trying before I was able to talk to a human. I was informed that they would not change our tickets because we had booked through America Express. It took about two minutes to get a human at American Express who was able to change our tickets for a flight four days later. We were issued new tickets, but when we were at the airport, Air France informed me that there was a $175 charge for the changed flight. I asked why as we already had new tickets and Air France did not do anything for the changed tickets. It was like I was talking to a brick wall. The Air France person could not (or would not) explain what the charge was for. He was rude and acted like I was being unreasonable, but all I wanted was an explanation as what the extra charge was for.
Rwanda
I finally paid the the fee but I will never fly on Air France again
Rwanda, a tiny country in the eastern central part of Africa Rwanda
When visiting Rwanda, don’t bring any plastic bags as they are prohibited in the country. When you try to bring them, they will be confiscated right at the airport. Same goes with throwing waste in the environment, our country is very clean, and throwing any waste would be a shame for you, and the authorities can punish you for that.
Don’t openly discuss ethnic issues. 22 years ago our country had seen one of the most atrocious tragedies in human history 1994 Genocide Rwandan genocide
you shouldn’t go around asking everyone what? where? how? who are you? The good way to learn this history is to try and visit some memorials which are rich in that history and it’s near the main city, Kigali and almost in every other city across the country.
Don’t try to take pictures of everything you see especially people even young kids in the street without first asking. Yes, our country is still under development, you might see poor neighborhood, young street kids or some funny things you can make out of those pictures – taking photos of those vulnerable people without their permission is a sensitive issue in our culture.
You shouldn’t be annoyed or irritated if someone didn’t make it on time. For many people being late “is just okay” one hour or 4 hours would still be okay 😉 so if you are meeting someone either for business or personal affairs just bear this in mind and be patient.
Restaurant and other service businesses. You will be treated really well, in fact a special treatment will be given to you if you are a foreigner (Rwandans are very welcoming and we are naturally good to our neighbours), but don’t take advantage of it or think that they want something from you (i.e. don’t shout or raise your voice when you are not satisfied with the service, there is a good manner to bring the issue at hand).
Rwanda is very safe and secure. Contrary to the popular belief or some perception of a country which has been in Genocide 22 years ago, you can move around anytime you want; even midnight. Don’t expect anyone to understand what you are talking about, even if you speak English or French, the majority of people only know one language; Kinyarwanda. Taxis, local traders, waiters, service providers, etc. they try hard to understand you but make sure when you are traveling to have a local guide with you (this will also help you pay less for everything, because you will not be overcharged cause you are a foreigner)
Don’t bring cats or dogs to public places or smoke in public. This doesn’t mean Rwandans hate animals, it means they respect other people’s views almost on anything. There are also special places reserved for smokers.
When you are a guest to someone’s home, don’t pay (or contribute) for the food or drinks offered unless asked to, this is rude or in some cases disrespectful.
Don’t get annoyed if you are being called ‘muzungu’ everywhere. Literally muzungu means ‘a traveler’ but it is widely known as ‘white people’, even Asians are called ‘muzungu’ 😉 😉 Don’t think they are being racists or are they trying to insult you.
Welcome to Rwanda! The land of thousand hills.
Man Expose His Girlfriend After DNA Test Proves He’s Not The Father Of Their Son.
Probably not the strangest, but the only one I could prove.
An elderly gentleman came into the shop complaining of a brake squeak. I wrote up the work order and my guys pulled it into the shop. After several minutes passed, I heard an explosion of laughter coming from the break room.
It was kind of obnoxious, so I went to see what was up. A mouse had gotten stuck between the brake pad and the caliper. Sadly the mouse had passed away.
I then approached the customer to come see what was causing the squeak. The customer began to hysterically laugh. To the point where he dropped to one knee. I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance.
A tech released the mouse and the squeak was gone. Rest in peace Mr. Mouse. Thanks for the laugh.
Back in day 70s when I got married, I registered for a lovely ironstone place setting from Mikasa. I got 10 and a half place setting for wedding gifts. I went to Macy’s in Indianapolis to buy the rest to make 12 place settings. About 18 months later, I got a box from Macy’s that contained another place setting plus some serving dishes. Upon speaking to the manager of the department, it turned out they were discontinuing the pattern and as I was the last person to buy any pieces, they sent the display pieces to me. I thought that was very nice of them. 50 years later I still have all the pieces and use them when I have company.
I think it’s a great idea. Singaporeans are very intelligent, and have excellent educational backgrounds. They also have the distinction of being Asian in ethnic identity but having the Western influence that Singapore is known for. They have the best of both worlds, and a unique ability to unite Eastern and Western worldviews in brokering investments for the tech industry.
Singapore is also known to be a haven for those with considerable wealth. They may be willing to invest in tech startups that have potential. Especially if that company is close to home and able to benefit Singapore’s economy.
Singapore is also a major trade hub. Second to Shanghai, they are the largest port for transporting in the world. It’s a prime location for new ventures. It’s proximity to other Southeast Asian countries, India, and China make it a good hub with access to millions of people. All in all, I have a favorable opinion.
This is why men needs to have more sex than women…
Yes. And when they arrived for the “noise complaint” I answered the door in my boxers with my 3 year old slung over my shoulder on one side and a long handled fish net containing a bat (as in a nocturnal flying mammal) on the other.
“Can I help you officer?”
“Is that a bat?!”
“Yes, excuse me for a moment.”
Handed off my kid to the rather confused officer, went about the necessaries of releasing the terrified bat from the net, set it down, and retrieved my kid.
“What can I do for you sir?”
“We had a noise complaint (it was two or three in the morning) but I’m guessing I understand. Have a good night sir.”
And then he left. Chuckling all the way back to his car.
Someone on Quora pointed out that Ireland is good at micro-efficiency. If you need to fill out a form, there will be a pen beside it. The security guy at the door can tell you which desk you need to go to, stuff like that.
So I apply this to my life. My bicycle is in the hall, with the lock, lights and reflectors all attached to it. I can grab it and go out the door, knowing I have everything I need. My bike bag contains a can of instant puncture repair and rain gear.
My keyring has only the keys I actually use, plus a small mirror for problems with contact lenses.
I only buy trousers with pockets with zips that will actually hold my phone and keys.
Every coat has a pair of reading glasses in the pocket.
Beside my passport, I keep a small plastic bag with a toothbrush, contact lens case and mini deodorant. If I have to, I can hit the airport with just those and I’ll manage.
I wash the muddy dog in the road outside the house, not the bathroom. She likes it better, the local kids help, and I don’t have massive cleaning up to do.
There is no one hack that does it all, it’s more about finding the most efficient way to get things done.
I worked for a company in Texas for a number of years. After my immediate supervisor retired, a new person from outside the company was hired to take his position. This guy was a complete sleeze bucket, he was really shady. I was given instructions that I was morally unwilling to do. I was given the choice to do it or pack up and leave.
I typed up a letter of resignation effective the Friday of that week and immediately left to visit my job sites in Louisiana and East Texas. On Friday as I was headed back home I stopped at one of my last job sites. The superintendent of the site informed me the President of my company was trying to get in touch with me and the owner of his company told him that if I showed up and did not contact my President, he would be fired.
I called him and he said when my resignation was delivered to the Senior VP in charge of my division two of my coworkers also turned in their resignations. Between the three of us, it represented 20+ years with his company. He and the SVP went to talk to my former supervisor. He was terminated on the spot and the three of us were asked to reconsider our resignations.
Well, this wasn’t actually a person. But it was the best case of ‘you just picked a fight with the wrong one’ I’ve ever seen.
I was at the park walking my dog with a friend and her dog.
Her dog was a rescue but from her brains, looks and behavior she was an Australian Shepherd. That particular day she was off in the distance chasing birds while my dog (also a rescue and at that point still quite timid) was hanging back with us.
Suddenly a pair of huge Great Danes appeared out of nowhere and decided to make a meal out of the Aussie. They started off far behind her but they were 5 times her size, so they closed on her quickly in a vee formation, with the Aussie at the point of the vee.
As my friend and I watched in horror, they gained on her until they were just inches from her, still closing in at an angle. We were sure she was a goner.
And then, just as they were about to grab her, she reversed on a dime and shot back through the narrow gap still left between them. The train wreck she left in her wake as the two clumsy oafs slammed into each other head first was awesome to behold.
We were still laughing when she reached us, trotting back with a grin just like the one in the picture on her face and her tail waving high.
Today feels heavy. I got up when it was still dark, way before sunrise because I wanted to do some work before my main job. I’m super tired. Coffee is like the juice that keeps me going.
In a few more minutes, I’ll go to work. I’ll be there for a long time. It’s supposed to be from 9 to 5, but I always need to stay longer. My boss says that’s what I should do to be a good employee. But even though I work a lot, my piggy bank isn’t getting any fatter, and everything else, like food and rent, keeps costing more.
Did you have a similar experience when you were my age? To me, this makes no sense!
Very frequently, I feel scared because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop working. It bothers me when people suggest we should save for retirement. They make me feel like I can’t manage my finances wisely. This is ridiculous. Savings? Lol, when will it happen?
Meanwhile, everyone seems to be so happy on the Internet. They post pictures with big smiles and seem to be having fun, but I think most are just pretending. Most of my friends are also running this “race” to success. Yet, most of them are also super tired, although nobody wants to say it out loud.
When I get home, I work my side hustle. Why? Because I went to a good college, and now I owe money, a lot of it. So, I work all day long, even when I should be taking a break or hanging out with friends. It feels like I’m on a bike pedaling super hard, but I’m not moving.
I need your help, Hector. How can I make this stop? How can I escape this miserable lifestyle and start making real progress?
Sorry if this was a long email. I hope you have some words of wisdom to open my eyes. I’m hungry for progress. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do, yet I don’t have the results I expected.
This is a tough one… but this is what I answered:
My friend, reading your email hit me right in the gut. I’ve been there, and let me tell you, it’s a tough spot. But you’re not alone, and you’re not the first to feel this way.
The first thing to understand is that this non-stop hustle culture we live in isn’t sustainable. It’s not healthy. Sure, working hard is important, but there’s a point where you’ve got to step back and look at the bigger picture. Are you working smart? Or just hard?
Here’s my answer thinking as an entrepreneur. I’m not saying this is right, so take this with a grain of salt. This is how I would focus my attention:
Health is the first step to wealth: Drop the caffeine and find a healthier way to stay sharp. If you burn out, you can’t make money. Period.
Forget the 9 to 5 myth: If your current job demands long hours with little reward, it’s time to rethink your career strategy. Maybe your skills are more valuable elsewhere. Ever thought about that?
Your net worth is not your self-worth: Stop comparing yourself to the fake TikTok life. Delete it! Focus on you.
Make time for what matters: You’ve got friends you don’t see because everybody’s “too busy”? Cut the BS. Schedule it as a meeting that you have to attend. Work will always be there. Relationships won’t.
Your side hustle: You’re working a lot and not moving forward? Maybe you’ve got a passion or skill you can monetize on the side. It could be anything. To me, your answer is found there.
Learn to say “NO”: This one’s tough but necessary. Set boundaries. Your time’s the most valuable asset you’ve got.
Get a game plan: Sit down and figure out where you want to be in 5, 10, 15 years. Then, work backward to make a roadmap on how to get there.
Take a break: Burnout is real. Sometimes, you’ve got to take a step back to leap forward.
Keep learning: You say you went to a nice college. Great. But learning never stops. There are a ton of free resources out there. Use them. Learn how to increase your expertise and generate extra income.
You don’t have it all figured out yet, and that’s okay. Most of us struggle with this.
Here’s the good news: It’s great that you’re asking questions. Stay open to change and find new opportunities. Keep searching for answers!
Most importantly, make sure you’re hustling in the right direction. The world has changed. It’s all about working smarter, not harder.
What am I missing?
Xi Jinping’s Global South Red Carpet: China’s WARNING to the Neocons
China has been rolling out the red carpet for Global South leaders maligned by the United States. This video explains why this is a stark warning to the neocons that they’re global order is FINISHED.
It’s the story of a mugger named Bob, who had a lot of money, but wasn’t incredibly happy.
Getting drunk and hiring prostitutes just wasn’t really hitting the spot anymore, he felt a little bit empty, he was having trouble sleeping at night, wondering if he was really doing the right thing, questioning the meaning of life itself.
When he spoke to people about it, many suggested changing his ways, no longer mugging people, and doing something else more productive instead.
Bob didn’t like that idea one bit! It sounded like a lot of work, for one. And it implied he had been doing something wrong?!? How dare they suggest that he was anything less than perfect!? Hearing that kind of stuff made him angry, not happy.
But then one day, Bob talked to one of the PR people working for the thieves’ guild, and it changed his life.
He sat there for hours, listening avidly. For the first time, he was hearing ideas that made sense to him, it was like music to his ears.
Bob the mugger learned that wealth is not a zero sum game. His latent feelings of guilt evaporated as he learned that getting money from someone, was actually the same thing as providing that person with a service. Wealth creation! Of course! That made sense!
He felt a bit like a courageous hero when all the risks he was taking were mentioned.
He had always suspected that if there were any issues caused by muggings, it was just because of over-regulation, and that it would all go much smoother if city guards would just stay out of it.
When he was told that he was an amazing person, superior to everyone else, and that people were just jealous of him, and that was why they didn’t like him… Oh boy! It stroked his ego in just the right way! It was exactly what he wanted to hear.
Bob the mugger walked away feeling GREAT! No more doubts, no more guilt, and no need to change anything either! He could go on mugging people, filled with confidence that he was making the world a better place, by caring only about himself.
And he went on to do great things!
He decided that it was time that he give back to the community, by providing some jobs for other muggers. And he didn’t stop there, he had a growth mindset, and built a huge mugging empire!
Bob the mugger became Bob the risk-taker, Bob the job provider, Bob the creator of wealth!
This unsung hero almost died asking himself that very same question:
Why does nobody understand me and my greatness? Why do they not understand that I’m creating jobs and wealth?!? Why do they keep talking about a zero sum game?!?
But then he remembered: They were probably all just jealous. And he died at peace with himself, soothed by his comforting ideology.
There’s a thing called the gambler’s fallacy that many of us fall for in so many situations.
The most simple example is if you are flipping a coin. You’ve landed on heads 10 times in a row. At that point, you might think that you have higher odds of landing on tails. Obviously, that’s not true — as it is always a 50/50 chance.
It happens during card games, sports betting, and all manner of games that we play. If you are playing cards and get five good hands in a row. It’s easy to start thinking, “You know, I’m actually kind of a good card player.”
Your ego gets involved and that’s when things get dangerous for your wallet.
Cajun Salmon Burgers with Lime Mayonnaise
On the table tonight: Cajun Salmon Burgers seasoned with McCormick® Perfect Pinch® Cajun Seasoning, panko, red bell pepper and onion. Top with Lime Mayonnaise for an extra-delicious Lenten (or any season) dinner.
Quora Prompt Generator, who is the “we” you’re referring to?
Are you referring to the U.S. government? Why be concerned? Biden’s been bitching that Apple should do their manufacturing in the U.S. China is now telling Apple’s producers to stay home in Taiwan. This is a good time to remind Apple to come home.
Or are you referring to Apple stakeholders? You should be very worried. Foxconn and Wistron had to abandon India because they couldn’t transplant and replicate their China production to India and are trying to work their way back to China. Apple has no other country that can produce its premiun models and would be in deep kimchi if Foxconn can’t recoup to build back their capacity in China.
Or are you referring to Apple, the company? Yeah, they should be running scared because Tim Cook knows Apple has no Plan B to fall back on. Why do you think he’s been practically camping in in China these past months?
Or is this the “royal we”, the general public so to speak? This should be taken as a good sign. China is doing their due diligence – not allowing any “sacred cows”. Entities like Foxconn should be audited to ensure that they’re complying with all rules and regulations in order that there is a level playing field and market competition for all.
When I was in college, I went to visit my father in Erie, Pennsylvania. I rode my motorcycle to visit him, and parked it outside. I didn’t get along with his wife (my step-mother) and went inside.
On that day, my step-mother was visited by her older brother. He brought his two sons. They were slightly younger that myself, being in High School.
Now, while I was inside with my father, those two kids poured bubble liquid into my motorcycle gas tank. Laughed about it. And of course, the action truly busted up my motorcycle.
…
Sigh.
Anyways… the entire family claimed that “I deserved it” as I didn’t have a lock on my gas tank. Not even remotely true, but I had to grit and take it.
Went without a motorcycle for about a month, while my bike was fixed.
It sucked, but those little snits were able to get away with it.
I swallowed and took it.
…
Sometimes due to situations, you take the hits.
You walk away.
It does not mean that you are weak. It’s just a pothole that you must endure. You learn from it.
My future ex-wife didn’t like Navy life. She met a fellow at work who was a year or two younger, was decent looking, had a new Corvette and a line of shit as long as your arm. She asked me to move out while she “got her head screwed on straight”. A week later, she filed for divorce, and moved in with Mr. Wonderful. “We don’t have anything in common, and you don’t have anything I want”, she said. (Oh, OK). In California it takes 6 months for a no-fault divorce, but both parties must have a financial settlement on the table in order to proceed to “final”. She dragged her heels all the way, saying “no, no, no” to every settlement I put forward, but finally we hammered it out after 8+ months. About 4 months later, she called. “Let’s be friends. We have so much in common.” (Mr. Wonderful wasn’t so wonderful any longer).
I said, “We tried that for 10 years. I didn’t like the way things worked out”.
Strange “Coincidence?” Hong Kong Flu Re-Emerges from 1968 — in far eastern Russia
The first case of Hong Kong Flu since the 1968-69 “pandemic” has emerged in the Sakhalin Region of far eastern Russia.
1968 flu pandemic, also called Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968 or Hong Kong flu of 1968, global outbreak of influenza that originated in China in July 1968 and lasted until 1969–70.
The outbreak was the third influenza pandemic to occur in the 20th century; it followed the 1957 flu pandemic and the influenza pandemic of 1918–19. The 1968 flu pandemic resulted in an estimated one million to four million deaths, far fewer than the 1918–19 pandemic, which caused between 25 million and 50 million deaths.
The 1968 pandemic was initiated by the emergence of a virus known as influenza A subtype H3N2. It is suspected that this virus evolved from the strain of influenza that caused the 1957 pandemic.
Although the 1968 flu outbreak was associated with comparatively few deaths worldwide, the virus was highly contagious, a factor that facilitated its rapid global dissemination. Indeed, within two weeks of its emergence in July in Hong Kong, some 500,000 cases of illness had been reported, and the virus proceeded to spread swiftly throughout Southeast Asia.
Within several months it had reached the Panama Canal Zone and the United States, where it had been taken overseas by soldiers returning to California from Vietnam.
By the end of December the virus had spread throughout the United States and had reached the United Kingdom and countries in western Europe.
Australia, Japan, and multiple countries in Africa, eastern Europe, and Central and South America were also affected. The pandemic occurred in two waves, and in most places the second wave caused a greater number of deaths than the first wave.
The 1968 flu pandemic caused illness of varying degrees of severity in different populations. For example, whereas illness was diffuse and affected only small numbers of people in Japan, it was widespread and deadly in the United States.
Infection caused upper respiratory symptoms typical of influenza and produced symptoms of chills, fever, and muscle pain and weakness. These symptoms usually persisted for between four and six days.
The highest levels of mortality were associated with the most susceptible groups, namely infants and the elderly. Although a vaccine was developed against the virus, it became available only after the pandemic had peaked in many countries.
The H3N2 virus that caused the 1968 pandemic is still in circulation today and is considered to be a strain of seasonal influenza. In the 1990s a closely related H3N2 virus was isolated from pigs. Scientists suspect that the human H3N2 virus jumped to pigs; infected animals may show symptoms of swine flu.
Russia now reports The first case of Hong Kong flu was recorded in the Sakhalin region, according to the website of the regional Rospotrebnadzor
According to the department, the virus is characterized by rapid and sharp development of infection, which lasts a long time and often requires symptomatic treatment. The infection affects the mucous membrane of the nasal cavity and oropharynx, causing inflammatory processes.
Yes. I know a guy who is an accountant. Imagine the geekiest-looking accountant that you have ever seen in your life. Coke bottle glasses, nerdy clothing, white as a sheet. He and his wife were walking down a street in Hollywood, just two nerds out for a stroll. Perfect targets for any street hoodlum. Sure enough some two-bit street thug stepped out in front of the two with a cocky self-assured grin and a knife in his hand, and he ordered them to give him all their money.
Quick as a flash, the accountant grabbed the guy’s wrist which held the knife, gave it a turn, and literally flipped the guy over, breaking his arm in the process. While the guy lay there screaming , the accountant looked down and asked the guy if he wanted some more. The guy just kept screaming, so the accountant let him go and walked on with his wife.
Okay. The backstory on this accountant was that he grew up on a Midwestern pig farm with five older brothers. From the time he was 8 years old he had to carry 50 lb buckets of feed every morning before school. After school he had to work the farm until it was time to go in, do his homework and go to bed. His older brothers were mean. When they weren’t fighting with each other, or getting beaten up by their dad, they were picking on this guy. As a result of his upbringing this guy developed skeletal muscle strength which is hardly ever seen these days. Not only that, he learned to fight guys that were just as tough as he was and who were all bigger.
I have seen this guy working on his own house knocking down walls with a sledgehammer held in one hand. I’ve even seen him lift the front of one car off the bumper of another during a minor fender-bender. To say this guy was strong was an understatement.
He managed to conduct his life in a very civilized manner. He was a great musician and a very talented writer as well, but I have seen more than one guy step out of line around him, and watch The Farm Boy come out. When that happened it usually didn’t take more than a look for everyone to start behaving better.
I was 18 and my girlfriend had committed suicide. I went to my dad and told him what happened. At this point my stepmother and I were at odds, always fighting and never getting along. This had been going on for years. My dad knew this and told her to lay off. The moment my dad left for work, she comes in my room and says that I deserved what happened and that it was my fault she killed herself. I was shocked. I packed my bags and left the same day. I had had enough. I called my dad and told him what happened and that I was leaving.
I haven’t spoken to her since and I don’t want to.
Boudin
Boudin is one of the most famous Cajun recipes. This excellent version has no liver. This is a great dish to make and it freezes well. Many people cut the casing off the boudin before eating it. This dish is a good one to learn because once you have mastered its preparation you can use almost anything in the place of the pork. Some of the most popular are chicken, shrimp, crabmeat and crayfish. Bread is a traditional but not as good replacement for the rice.
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
2 pounds lean pork, minced
2 onions, chopped
1/2 bunch green onions, chopped
1 green or red bell pepper
1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 bay leaves
2 cups water (approximately)
3 cups rice, cooked
20 inch long sausage casings
Instructions
Put pork into a pot along with the onions, bell pepper, parsley, garlic and seasonings. Add just enough water to meet the level of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the cooked rice. Adjust seasonings if necessary.
Tie the 4 sausage casings at one end and stuff them with the mixture. Twist each 20-inch length into three equal lengths. Tie open end.
The boudin can be cooked covered in a little water, grilled or pan fried in a little butter.
I had a manager who said exactly this this to me. He dismissed all my solutions out of hand, as they might cost money. This was a guy who a. stuck me in an office where I couldn’t work, as it wasn’t safe for me to be alone in a building with mental health clients, without an emergency alarm. He refused to install an alarm and so I had to go to work every day for a year with no work to do. Less than a week’s salary would have paid for an alarm. B. He rented and paid for the complete outfitting of an office for the family therapists, with a cctv and so on, despite them telling him it wasn’t suitable. The office reminded unused, the equipment was stolen and replaced TWICE, and they never moved in, in the end -as it just wasn’t suitable.
Come to me with solutions, was complete and utter bullshit from beginning to end.
The only reason I stayed, was it was a permanent and pensionable job, and I was a skint single parent.
We were overjoyed when he retired. I was still so angry with him years later as he’d made my life a misery for so long that I couldn’t attend his funeral. And if you’re Irish, you’ll realise what a big huge bloody deal that is.
Golden spending rule: If you can’t afford two of it, you can’t afford it.
When you’re thinking about buying something you don’t necessarily need, imagine the item in one hand and the cash in the other. Which one would you take?
If you have trouble choosing, flip a coin. While you’re waiting to get the result, your mind automatically starts to wish for what it wants. Then you can choose easily.
Honey does not go bad; if it has gone solid it has just crystallized and can become liquid again with just a little heat.
If you put something down temporarily, say out loud “I’ve put the screwdriver by the microwave” or whatever.
Read the three and four star reviews for the most reliable information on Amazon items.
When moving house, always set up your bedroom/ make the bed first so when you’re exhausted and just had enough you can fall into bed. Nothing worse than being exhausted and having to make the bed before getting into it
If there’s a jar or container you can’t open, run the lid under hot water for about 30sec. Dry it so you can get a good grip, then open. It really works.
Secretaries, tech support, and janitors are the true power in an office. Make friends with them and you’ll be able to get anything you need!
When a friend is upset, ask him one simple question before saying anything else: “Do you want to talk about it or do you want to distract from it? ”
It is important to know when to stop arguing with people, and simply let them be wrong.
If someone offers you something you want, take it. Don’t decline every kind of offer out of politeness.
Bingo truths
The male and female struggle in the United States (West) is REAL.
Many years ago I was visiting one particular North Sea Oil Production Platform as a consultant employed by a specialist contractor. On arrival onboard the platform all the people from the helicopter, who were not regular crew, were directed to heli administration and informed we could not leave without watching a safety briefing video. Some six or seven of us settled down while the helicopter clerk loaded the video player and pressed play.
I was hot and tiered from the early check-in and the long flight. I dozed off after about ten minutes watching the video. I must have been asleep for about five minutes before the clerk noticed. He practically slapped me awake and proceeded to scream in my face. He accused me of being stupid and having a death wish, which was justified, but then began to scream insults and to question my parentage which was far too much.
When he eventually asked if I considered it beneath my dignity to absorb information designed to save my life and did I regard myself above listening to the video that I lost my temper. I stood up without saying a word and marched to the front of the room. I stood next to the video screen and quietly asked him to look at the screen himself.
I will never forget the expression on that man’s face as it dawned on him that it was me appearing on the screen giving the safety briefing. He looked from my face on the video screen to my face standing next to the screen and back to the video just as if he was watching a tennis match. He turned bright red and stuttered an apology.
When I sat down to watch the rest of the briefing he sat at the rear of the room and chewed his finger nails worrying if his job was safe. When the video finished and everyone else had left the room I let him know that he had been correct in chastising me but to tone down his language if anything similar happened in the future.
The War Is Lost – Zelenski Will Leave – The White House Has Failed
That offensive has proceeded at an excruciating pace and with enormous losses, making it ever more difficult for Zelensky to convince partners that victory is around the corner. With the outbreak of war in Israel, even keeping the world’s attention on Ukraine has become a major challenge.
Quoting a soldier on the front of the counter-offensive, the Economistagrees:
“Left Handed”, an infantryman fighting at the front between Robotyne and Verbove, says Ukrainian losses have increased to alarming levels, in part due to the work of drones. The plains of Zaporizhia have turned their back on life, he says. “It’s hellish. Corpses, the smell of corpses, death, blood and fear. Not a whiff of life, just the stench of death.” Those in units such as his own had more chance of dying than surviving. “Seventy-thirty. Some don’t even see their first battle.”
But his convictions haven’t changed. Despite the recent setbacks on the battlefield, he does not intend to give up fighting or to sue for any kind of peace.
On the contrary, his belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic. “He deludes himself,” one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”
Zelensky’s stubbornness, some of his aides say, has hurt their team’s efforts to come up with a new strategy, a new message. As they have debated the future of the war, one issue has remained taboo: the possibility of negotiating a peace deal with the Russians. Judging by recent surveys, most Ukrainians would reject such a move, especially if it entailed the loss of any occupied territory.
The war is lost. They know it. But they are unwilling to give up.
Zelenski’s people put the blame everywhere but on the those who have caused the mess. It was the ‘victory’ messaging by Zelenski and his crew that has led the public into utter complacency.
Strategically, Ukraine is losing the war because of the inadequate perception of the situation by society.
This opinion was expressed by the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Dmitry Kukharchuk in an interview with Channel Five.
He claims that at the beginning of the war, all Ukrainians were ready to defend the country, there were many volunteers. But after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kiev, the situation changed.
“Immediately after that, I noticed that there were theses in the media that we are fighting with homeless people, that the Russian army does not know how to fight, that in principle victory will be in a week or two, a maximum of a month. That first in the spring, then in the summer, then in the autumn, then in the winter, without specifying which winter, we will go to the Crimea. That the victory is basically victorious. So people were put in a warm bathroom. We have broken down the vision of reality. But it didn’t happen in Russia. They began to realize that the war was not going to be easy for them. They realized that they would have to fight for a long time, ” Kukharchuk believes.
He also says that the Russians are “getting stronger” every day, and if Ukraine really fought the “degenerates”, it would have defeated them long ago.
“That’s why we’re losing. They have these processes going on, and their public readiness is much higher than that of our society. And when they talk about a nuclear bomb, a war of all against all, for some reason it seems to me that they are ready for these processes, ” the battalion commander added.
Napoleon, Hitler and several other folks who had sought war with Russia, had to learn to never underestimate the depth of its resources. Now NATO, the U.S. and its European proxies, are learning that lesson.
The cold will also make military advances more difficult, locking down the front lines at least until the spring. But Zelensky has refused to accept that. “Freezing the war, to me, means losing it,” he says. Before the winter sets in, his aides warned me to expect major changes in their military strategy and a major shake-up in the President’s team. At least one minister would need to be fired, along with a senior general in charge of the counteroffensive, they said, to ensure accountability for Ukraine’s slow progress at the front. “We’re not moving forward,” says one of Zelensky’s close aides. Some front-line commanders, he continues, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President. “They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,” he says. “But we can’t win a war that way.”
When I raised these claims with a senior military officer, he said that some commanders have little choice in second-guessing orders from the top. At one point in early October, he said, the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to “retake” the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? “They don’t have the men or the weapons,” says the officer. “Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?”
In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”
Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine has refused to release official counts of dead and wounded. But according to U.S. and European estimates, the toll has long surpassed 100,000 on each side of the war. It has eroded the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces so badly that draft offices have been forced to call up ever older personnel, raising the average age of a soldier in Ukraine to around 43 years. “They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with,” says the close aide to Zelensky. “This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”
The Ukraine’s old problems, foremost corruption, persist:
Amid all the pressure to root out corruption, I assumed, perhaps naively, that officials in Ukraine would think twice before taking a bribe or pocketing state funds. But when I made this point to a top presidential adviser in early October, he asked me to turn off my audio recorder so he could speak more freely. “Simon, you’re mistaken,” he says. “People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow.”
Knowing that the ship is sinking, this its probably what I would do too. Bring anything available onto my personal life raft and prepare for cutting its lines to the mother ship.
The Time piece is a signal. It announces the end of Zelenski’s regime. I am sure that the National Security Council, as well as the State Department, is feverishly looking for an alternative – and for a face saving way to install it.
Someone seems to protect and promote Alexey Arestovich for exactly that purpose (machine translation):
After leaving the Presidential Office with a scandal in January 2023, Arestovich, although he began to criticize the actions of the authorities, nevertheless did it carefully until recently.
But right now, he’s just slamming the ruling team.
Arestovich focuses on two things: the military decisions of the country’s leadership and its domestic policy. … The second version: Arestovich enlisted the support of Americans who want to see more political diversity in Ukraine and are not interested in Zelensky’s monopolization of power.
In favor of this version, they also use the fact mentioned above that the tightening of the rhetoric of the ex-adviser to the president’s Office began after his trip to the United States. Also in this regard, they recall his interview with Gordon in early October, where he says that if the West decides to end the war without reaching the borders of 1991 and Zelensky resists this, then the president of Ukraine will be “changed” in the elections. … “It is possible that Arestovich is supported by a certain part of the Western elites, who care about the breadth of opinions in Ukraine. They say that the country can speak not only with Zelensky’s voice, but there are also different critical opinions, ” political analyst Ruslan Bortnik comments to Strana.
In its grand strategy the White House had sought to pivot to Asia. But the U.S. is – first in Ukraine, in a completely unnecessary conflict the U.S. itself has caused, and, with Gaza in flames, again in the Middle East.
I was hesitant to write this as it is somewhat personal but it might be therapeutic, I’ve already shared so much and I suppose I can without naming anyone:
I went on my partner’s laptop and stumbled across a strange message on her Facebook browser that made me scrunch my eyes —strange.
It was pictures of my partner with another family I didn’t know.
She was holding a guy’s toddler, standing (closely) next to him, and his parents behind them, and she had no wedding ring. Behind them was the Disney Castle.
The direct message was from a woman (his sister) that said “___ told me not to post these on Facebook because things were complicated.”
That was the moment—my eyes widened and I realized something was amiss. “… things were complicated?!?!?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture. That part fucked me up.
Many of you are in relationships. Just imagine the person you love, that you might be sitting next to right now, suddenly appearing in a picture at a theme park (like the above) with another family, “with” someone else. Nobody in that picture you recognize. And everyone appearing to be very familiar with each other.
It would mind fuck you pretty hard, too.
And the more I dug into it, the worse it got.
It was a full-blown affair.
It caused an avalanche on the relationship.
You feel this rush of fury at having been lied to. You are disgusted with the person. You suddenly see all the pieces to the puzzle coming together in your mind, the nights “out with the girls” and “crashing at a friend’s house,” and all the strange subtle behaviors you’d been blind to.
“How could I have not known?”
After discovering the cheating, the sequence of events probably mirrored the same pattern others have experienced.
You confront the person.
They deny, deny, deny.
Finally, they fess up after you wave the obvious evidence in their face.
Then there is this rush of apologies, they are so sorry, they never meant to hurt you, they really want to be with you, the other person isn’t the one, please forgive them, pleasepleaseplease.
As she says this, more evidence and damage seems to rain down behind her. It gets worse with each apology.
From there, it gets ugly fast. The fan is set to max speed. And shit is thrown upwards.
It’s a terrible situation. Because here you have this person that you deeply love. That you have a lot of history with. That you have a shared identity with. And come to truly think of as an ally; a better half.
But now – you have to face a dark, undeniable reality that cannot be ignored, that things aren’t what they once were, and this person isn’t the person you thought they were.
It is the deep, painful cut of betrayal that takes years to heal.
Everything that came before this event gets called into question.
“Were they lying then?”
“What else were they lying about?”
“How did it start?”
“Does this person really love me like they said they did? Then how could they do all of this?”
…
In my case, things couldn’t be reconciled. It went far beyond the realm of repair.
It was a terrible, messy breakup but ultimately it was the right thing. Even though I’ve now come to fully forgive this person, she isn’t someone I could ever trust or be with again.
It sucks, though.
You never think you will be “that person” who gets had in some relationship, who gets run around on and completely duped.
It’s a terrible, hurtful experience and I hope none of you go through it.
I had an exam on English when I was in college, around 19 years old. The night before I had helped my sister prepare for her in-class essay with the same teacher in English. My sister had problems with the course, and I excelled so my teacher suggested I help her.
Anyways, in the middle of my exam my teacher walks up, and without thinking, says “Thank you for last night” and walks away. Everybody in the class looked up at me. It was the middle of an exam, so I couldn’t explain so I just sort of turned around to my friends, gave them the look – look and went back to the test.
I was in traffic court as a witness in another matter. The judge was hearing a case where a 14 year old was driving a motorcycle without a license because he was too young. He was accompanied by his mother. She was small but loud, and the 14 year old was big (looked 18). Throughout the morning she had been nagging him about one thing or another—wasting my time, lazy good for nothing, etc. The young boy was quiet and appeared contrite.
When their time came, the mom again reminded the boy to be quiet and not say a word.
The clerk read the case. The judge looked at her notes and pronounced judgment. “Case dismissed with 60 days suspended sentence on the condition that the defendant does not ride the motorcycle until he turns 16 and gets a license.” This was the least the judge could do.
The mother erupted with anger. “60 days suspended sentence. Are you crazy. He has to go to school. He has to do chores.” Clearly, she did not understand what suspended sentence meant.
The judge then stated. “Are you finished? I could make it contingent on selling the motorcycle.”
Mom: “That’s crazy. You’re nuts.”
The judge: “Suspended sentence contingent on selling the motorcycle and you (indicating to the mom) get to spend the night in jail for contempt of court.”
The boy, who hadn’t said a word all morning. “Thank you, your honor.”
As a teen way back in 1979 I went to work for Neumann Marcus in Dallas. It was still owned by the Marcus family and known worldwide for its service and exclusivity.
our trainer stressed treating everyone, no matter how they looked or were dressed, with the same respectful diligent service. He gave the following example of his personal experience, I don’t know if it was true but it makes the point.
It was a rainy day in downtown Dallas and the store was not busy. He was working in epicure, I don’t know about now but back then they had the most amazing food and specialty kitchen wares. A man in shorts, a wrinkly shirt, baseball hat and unshaven wanders in. His thought was “looked what came in to avoid the rain”.
The man was looking at a very expensive grill and asking questions. He politely answered them but eventually wanted to get rid of him. He asked the man if he had a Neimans card. He said no so he suggested he go over to the Credit dept and they could give him on on the spot.
The man left. When he returned he said “I’d like 2 of these. One sent to my house in LA, one to my house in Malibu.” My trainer was pleasantly surprised. Surprise turned to shock and embarrassment when the man handed him his new Neimans card and he saw the name. “Of course Mr. Sinatra. I will take care of everything.”
The phone rings. My elderly uncle picks up. A young woman is on the line.
“Grandpa?” asks the young woman.
Being a grandfather of 20 children, Uncle answers, “Yes,” then he thinks of who the caller may be.
“Is this Beth?” he asks.
The young woman quickly admits that she is Beth, and then she starts crying,
“I am in Florida with my friends. We get in trouble and I am in jail. Can you send me money for bail?”
My uncle is alarmed. Why is Beth in Florida? What has she done? Before he can ask her a question, the young woman says, “Please don’t tell my parents. They will kill me.” She cries even harder now.
My aunt enters the room to find her husband frantically scrambling for his credit card. She gets suspicious and asks him what is going on.
“Beth is in jail in Florida. We need to send her money,” he explains to her.
My aunt rolls her eyes and grabs the phone from him,
“This is grandma. We are not sending money. Please rot in jail. Bye.”
The cleverness is not the scam itself, but the ability of the scammer to improvise. They prey on vulnerable elderly and toy with the few items they cherish in their twilight years – family, health, and savings. I have a feeling the caller could have swayed the conversation in whatever way was most effective once she identified my uncle as an easy target.
Boudin Blanc with Muenster Cheese
Yield: 24 servings
Ingredients
3 pounds boneless pork butt, cut in 1/4 inch dice
1 pound mixed boneless chicken, cut into 1/4 inch dice
1 pound pork fat back, cut into 1/4 inch dice
2 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 pound Wisconsin muenster cheese, cut into 1/4 inch dice
Kosher salt to taste
Instructions
Grind meats and fat through meat grinder using plate with small (1/8 inch) openings.
Place ground mixture in large bowl of standing mixer and add all ingredients except cheese and salt. Mix with paddle attachment. Fold cheese into the farce.
Case sausages in pork hank, twisting to form 4-ounce links.
Dry for 1 hour in walk-in cooler.
To poach, bring 4 to 5 gallons of water to a boil. When boiling, turn off heat.
Add sausage and cover with lid. Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes or until sausages reach interior temperature of 145 degrees F.
Cool sausages on sheet pan lined with kitchen towels.
Store in refrigerator up to 5 days.
Notes
To reheat: Grill, broil or bake sausage until hot. The sausages can be made into patties and sautéed until cooked through.
The chef serves sausage with Spaghetti Squash “Choucroute” and whole grain mustard.
I most especially like the large shady kinds. As a boy in the 1960’s I used to climb them, and hike through the woods as my adventures would take me.
With each and every event, the trees made my life magical.
The earth was rich and moist, and the air was cooler, with the sounds of the swishing of the leaves from the slightest breeze.
When I moved to Indiana, I noticed that people there did not appreciate the trees at all.
Entire forests were cut down and replaced by either flat farmland or parking lots. And Indiana was a most boring place.
Let me tell you.
When you all have a moment, take the time to stroll in a local woods. Spend the day. Take in the scents. Feel the moist earth. And listen to the birds.
I was night manager of a large resort hotel. We had a spate of thefts. People weren’t locking their doors, and the thieves would walk up the hall trying door knobs. If the door opened, they took a few steps into the room and took what they could quickly find. A lot of guys left they wallets on top of the TV, so that’s what most often got stolen.
The couple were caught, it was a 17 year old girl and a 19 year old guy. The girl turned 18 before the trial, so her juvenile record was sealed. She looked pretty punk when she was arrested (this was in the 80s). She showed up in court wearing a tasteful black dress and looked very proper.
They were both found guilty. The judge said the girl looked like she was “well bred and just got caught up with the wrong people”, and sentenced her to time served. The guy got 12 years.
After the trial, one of the victims told me he worked for the court system and saw her record before it was sealed. She had all sorts of crimes going back to when she was 12. The guy had one arrest. It was unfair, to say the least.
Rio Grande Valley Pink Grapefruit Pie
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
4 medium to large pink or red grapefruit
1 cup granulated sugar
1 3/4 cups water or strained grapefruit juice
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 (3 ounce) box strawberry gelatin
1 (8 or 9 inch) pie crust, baked
1 cup whipping cream, whipped
Instructions
Peel grapefruit, separate sections* and remove from membranes. Place sections in a strainer over a bowl overnight.
Cook sugar, juice, cornstarch and salt until thick and clear.
Add gelatin and stir until dissolved.
Brush gelatin mixture over pie crust.
Chill gelatin mixture and crust.
When gelatin starts to thicken, add grapefruit sections.
Pour into pie crust and chill until set.
Top with whipped cream.
Notes
The grapefruit should be sectioned lengthwise. By slicing the ends off, the fruit can be set flat on the cutting board to make it easier to slice the rind off lengthwise. Use a small, sharp knife to then remove the sections from the membranes.
Oh I let them know I noticed, when I quit. I worked for a Spokane based home healthcare service. I’d been in hospice for a long time and the additional licence for this job was stupid easy. That should have been a clue.
This company has a jaw-dropping philosophy: they provide the barest minimum of service possible without getting sued. That’s it. They don’t give a damn about their clients. I actually offered to give a course in wheelchair safety because OVER AND OVER I’d hear about clients getting dumped on the floor by untrained caregivers. I’ve never dropped a client. Not in 13 years! I was told to “mind my own business.”
The absolute final straw was when I reported bedbugs in a home that had been treated just a few months before. The other two caregivers SWORE there were no bugs. My supervisor told me an exterminator had checked on my day off.
So I came to work that morning and went to make the bed. And it was ALIVE. And when I called the exterminator he said he hadn’t been contacted. So…my employer lied, and broke the law. I sent about 5 minutes of film to dispatch. Live bedbugs. Dead bedbugs. Bedbug and mouse poop. I told them I was reporting them. Well, that got their attention and a state case manager was there in 15 minutes. They got turned in. They got SUED. No job is worth the risk of contaminating my own home or carrying bugs to another client’s home! I’ve never, ever had an employer that literally didn’t care if the clients lived or died. In this case, the clients family had signed her very nice home over to the state to pay for her care. It’s heartbreaking! The state actually wants these elderly clients dead.
Cost have risen so high that labor intensive goods below a certain value are increasingly non-viable in a a growing majority of China’s industrial regions.
The most critical problem of cost, though, is the enforced step change in the price of Chinese exports.
The two biggest factors in the past decade have been the reverse Plaza accord, and Donald the Orange’s illegal blanket tariffs.
The reverse Plaza accord was kicked off by the devaluation of the yen in 2013/14. A top-3 global currency was given the political mandate to devalue 100% in a single decade, pulling most of the third world along, making the yuan more than double against most third world peers this century.
China was singled out as a currency manipulator and threatened with designation to force the PBOC to keep the yuan up.
We live in odd times today. The JPY is a mover and shaker in the immense global derivatives market, but a 100% devaluation has been consistently ignored over the past decade. A 10% devaluation of the yuan, which doesn’t even show up in BIS reports, is exaggerated as a meltdown that will bring the rest of the global market along for the “china collapse”.
Note that the yuan will have to trade north of 14 to the dollar to mirror the yen’s decade-long move from 76 to 150 today.
These conditions created by the first world have sent shock waves rippling through margins and prices of Chinese exports.
Instead of climbing a gentle slope, the Chinese have had to struggle up a steep staircase, due to the speed of the enforced change.
But the biggest driver of long-term change in China is the replacement labor. In the 2000s, less than 10m students took the Gaokao. Today, that number is hitting 13m from a smaller cohort. There are fewer factory workers to go around, and the only answer is automation, and moving up the productivity ladder.
Take footwear. China competes on speed and quality, because there are entire shoe manufacturing ecosystems concentrated geographically that can turn idea into product within mere hours/days. Chinese speed underpins the success of Temu and Shein, which has redefined the fashion shopping experience by affording quality at the very forefront of trends.
In a nutshell, the jobs that cannot be automated away will have to eventually leave China, and the belt and road will be a big enabler. There are Chinese-run business parks in Pakistan, Laos, Vietnam and elsewhere, all enabled by infrastructure that didn’t exist before the Chinese came calling.
China will continue supplying the components, and as skills improve overseas, the lower-margin component lines will also be transferred.
My husband and I were living in an apartment but when we found out that I was pregnant we had to move, our landlord didn’t allow children (it was legal at that time and place). We looked for another place to live and found a lovely little cottage in a small village about 20 minutes out of town.
The day after we moved in, our neighbour to the right knocked on the door holding a plate of baked goods, she didn’t linger, just welcomed me to the village and gave me the goodies. Living there for the next few years, they became the best neighbours I’d ever had. They reminded me of The Waltons, so wholesome, cheerful and friendly. Two of their boys often came over to cut the lawns, shovel snow or to babysit. I’d stop by for visits and we’d share fruit from our trees to make pies and fruit salad.
My neighbour to the left side was a younger couple with small children, so when my daughter was a toddler she played with their children while their mom and I sat and enjoyed a chat and a cuppa.
The entire village seemed to be equally as kind and helpful. At the grocery store they packed my bags and delivered them for me, no charge. The local Ford dealership often fixed my car for no charge or just the cost of parts, and the local jeweler owned several homes that he rented out for low rent. Our landlady was a young woman who’d inherited the cottage, but she was happy living with her mother who worked at the post office, each of them were always pleasant. Generally the entire town looked out for each other. It was nothing like I’d experienced before, having come from an urban area and never lived in the country.
I doubt that it’s still the same, it’s been over 30 years, developers did their thing and it’s no longer a quiet little village. The grocery store has bars up the windows, the Ford dealership is a used car lot now, and the jeweler is probably no longer with us, but it was a very good time in my life that I still think about once in a while.
GERMANY Beg CHINA For Money As They Resume Economic Trade!
Germany should apologies to China and offer tea and stay sorry to China.
Let’s start answering this question by addressing the “elephant in the room”.
If you read any Western press, you will be aware of the “common expectations” of what a war with China, and what it would entail. These are clearly explained in policy papers and popular media. The strongest promoters of this narrative is the legacy media to include Yahoo, CNN, BBC, FOX, ABC, MSNBC and all of Australian and Indian “news” media.
This is a “seeded” and intentionally promoted narrative, and no deviance is permitted on this script. This the narrative popularized by NEOCON publications, the United States Congress, and legacy media such as Forbes, Bloomberg, New York Times, etc.
It is a CIA / NSA / NED narrative concocted out of Langley, Va.
[CIA / NED Narrative]
China continues it’s “provocations”.
And “invasion” of Taiwan occurs.
The USA, through it’s proxy nations, intervene.
Chinese advantage is ONLY with numbers and proximity. And thus the PLA run like cowards to the massive military might of the combined Allied forces.
China does not have the ability to innovate, and are novices in fighting. They fall into the “new Verdun” that the United States constructed. The Chinese leadership is also swamped by plagues, famines, and internal revolts that suddenly cropped-out out of nowhere.
A long, drawn-out war ensues.
It will be limited to the South China Sea, and Taiwan.
All trade with China stops. All BRI are interrupted, and Naval blockades are complete.
It’s World War I all over again, only inside of Chinese territory.
China will pour weapons and men and material into those designated war-zones, and the Allies will do the same from their staging locations in Japan, The Philippines, Australia and South Korea.
Eventually, after a few decades, China backs down and surrenders.
The Chinese people, tired of their pathetic lives, revolt and topple the CCP.
Peace overwhelms the planet and everyone enjoys democracy and freedom under the brilliant leadership of the President of the Untied States.
Sound familiar. It should.
And only an ABSOLUTE IGNORAMUS would actually believe it. Because it relies on a plethora of lies, distortions, falsehoods, in order to arrange and fabricate a narrative that many WISH and HOPE to occur.
That is exactly how propaganda works; it tells lies that you WANT to believe.
…
But, you all know, it’s not really “rocket science”. This scenario has already been “gamed out”. At least the early stages. The United States has been following the well-worn, tired and true playbook for decades…
The United States initiates a provocation.
China refuses to act on it.
The United States the stages a “false flag” event, supported with a media barrage.
China reacts militarily and destroys all belligerents in the area.
What happens next depends on numerous factors, but I will break it down in really simplistic categories.
[Planned Response]
This is pretty-much a rehash of the earlier CIA plans.
This is what the Straussian NEOCON psychopaths want. This is their objective.
The United States now has the excuse for a war with China.
As a result, it starts blowing up Chinese cities, ships and assets. The plan is for overwhelming superiority in aircraft and missiles from numerous nations, Naval vessels, and bases.
The plan is for a victory over China, and the assumption that China would be incapable of fighting back in any positive way.
Now, this is where the NEOCON plans go “off the rails”.
Instead of fighting a conventional war, on American terms, to an American defined timeline, and on Chinese soil, using the well-worn war-playbook, China does something different, and unexpected.
I argue (it doesn’t take too much effort, either) that China would…
China and Russia work together lob hyper-sonic nuclear weapons at key cities and infrastructure in the United States directly. This is done at the same time as China is attacking the invading forces and their staging centers.
Most of the United States population centers, as well as those of the proxy nations, are erased from the face of the globe. New York gone. Los Angles and Silicon Valley; gone. Virginia… all of it…gone.
The dinged-up USA responds with nuclear weapons.
The Chinese shoots most of them down with their laser umbrella.
But even with a hand full of American detonations, the Earth experiences a global catastrophe. North America and Europe, as well as Japan, South Korea, and Australia are radioactive wastelands.
[The USA backs down]
This scenario describes the highest probability event cycle.
This concept of withdrawal is unheard of in the United States and Western media, but historically, this is almost ALWAYS the case. This is the Afghanistan, the Vietnam, the Korean War event scenario. Thus, this is a higher probability of occurrence than what one might otherwise think.
The USA performs a politically motivated war plan. While technically well-gamed out, political considerations force erroneous assumptions.
The plan goes to shit early on. FUBAR occurs, and the entire backbone of the plan collapses.
A period of aggressive losses in manpower and material occur, and Washington disengages from the battlefield(s) under some context.
The American and Western media praise the “Great American Win”.
But the impact of very bad Geo-political decisions ignite a “ticking time-bomb” internally.
American domestic opinion turn against the administration.
A nation-wide American civil war breaks out.
It is a catastrophe for the West, and aligned nations all experience internal violence. Japan, Europe, Australia and South Korea suffer massive changes at all levels.
[USA first strike]
This is the great concern, of the “Global South”; the rest of the world outside the G7 led by the United States. But, personally, I really do not see this ever happening. The American military will not allow it.
The USA launches MAD in the belief that China will stand down. Full spectrum war is unleashed, but unlike the earlier scenario, this one engages nuclear weapons from the start.
The SLBM’s and ICBM’s start flying
The Chinese shoots most of them down with their laser umbrella.
But severe damage still occurs inside of China.
China and Russia launch nuclear weapons at the entirety of the West.
Most of the United States population centers, as well as those of the proxy nations, are erased from the face of the globe. Europe is no longer a population region. The United States glows at night.
The, being leaderless, under the control of “the deep state” and rudderless, the United States continues to engage the world in a nuclear war on auto-pilot.
It is a global catastrophe.
[USA Sanctions China & interrupts shipping]
This is the “China Lite” version of war that is debated within the NEOCON publications and talks. I can confirm that this has a great deal of support as a “war on China” option in Washington DC.
The USA decides to implement sanctions (Russian style) against China, and also starts sinking ships. American piracy, and shipping losses enter billions of dollars in losses.
China readies it’s long-planned counter-actions. And they are BRUTAL.
A period of time passes, while the United States, and it’s proxies tries to ignite a “cold war II” fuze.
The Western media is on a full-war gallop…
The American led provocations are numerous, and dangerous. China continues to avoid all of them.
So far, it appears that this is on-going right now. Which makes this scenario the most worrisome.
Then, during a point in time when all the American “leadership is in one place”, such as during an election, or government event, China launches hyper-sonic nuclear weapons at major American cites. The idea being to completely unleash maximum damage in a very short amount of time.
America is erased from the surface of the planet. There simply isn’t any American government left.
The USA auto-retaliates with a MAD nuclear response.
The Chinese shoots most of them down with their laser umbrella.
But even with a hand full of American detonations, the Earth experiences a global catastrophe. But, the USA is the most destroyed nation on the planet.
…
It is a lose-lose in every scenario.
No one wins.
How ANYONE can advocate World War 3 clearly shows how idiotic, moronic, and deranged the Western “leadership” actually is.
How anyone can think otherwise is amazing to me.
There is absolutely NO SCENARIO where the world becomes a better place. Instead, it becomes HELL, and most people DIE.
…
At this point in time I want to address some misconceptions.
One of the greatest is accepting American anti-China propaganda as truth. It’s insidious, and everywhere. If you get any information about China, make SURE that it is from CHINESE sources in CHINESE. Otherwise you are regurgitating CIA propaganda and disinformation.
As a (now deleted) troll said “China only has 300 nuclear warheads, while the USA has over 6000”.
Oh, really?
And, “China is unable to make more because of <insert technical jargon here>”.
China can build two (x2) 6,000 bed hospitals in ten days.
China can build a 62 story skyscraper in two days.
China can design, manufacture and produce cutting edge IC chips, complete with it’s own OS, operating system, and includes satellite comm ability in four years.
China can lock down an entire nation of 1.6 billion people, with only 5000 deaths…
But it cannot make nuclear bombs.
Uh huh.
Sure. What ever you say.
(Eye roll.)
…
Drinking the American propaganda is dangerous as it is in everything. In fact, nothing is left untouched. Those in the upper (the very top) know its all a lie, but have succumbed to their own hubris; the believe their own lies. Oh man. That is dangerous.
So I have to ask…
How do you know that the United States has 6000 nuclear bombs?
Well it said so in an American report, and in American publications.
How do you know that the USA did not blow up Nordstom 1 & 2 pipelines?
Well, it is investigating the issue. American and Western publications say so.
How do you know that the Apollo moon landing program put men walking on the moon?
Well, NASA filmed the guys doing it, and the American government verified it happened.
It is not that EVERYTHING that the United States says is a lie. It’s just that most are distorted truths… approaching the laughable.
How do you know that America is recovering from the “disastrous Trump administration” and inflation is only a mere 3% today?
Well, the American government announced the latest inflation figures.
Crazy huh?
…
The world is spiraling all out of control, all because a group of psychopathic nihilistic narcissists with delusions of ultimate power. And they all are in a circle-jerk believing their very own lie-machine.
What will happen?
No one actually knows, but we do know this;
In 1995, the CIA remote viewed the year 2025. They remote viewed the world 35 years into the future.
You might not believe in “remote viewing”, or the CIA. But you have to admit, that there is no way, that in 1995 anyone would be able to predict the world we live in today.
The predictions are uncanny.
And, if you think that the future is not going to unfold this way, then you are delusional.
VOA tried to sabotage Indonesia’s new high speed rail opening
Indonesia’s brand new, China-built and financed high speed railway officially opened to the public yesterday, with most Western media being surprisingly fair in their reports. Voice of America didn’t get the memo, apparently, and ran with a story using their typical, blatant misinformation, posting a picture of an old train directly under their headline. I rode the brand new train during a test run about ten days ago and will share some of my experience with you today, including a chat with a local reporter.
What Is Third Wave Coffee?
Coffee has undergone several major transformations in the past century, commonly referred to as “waves” that denote shifts in how coffee is produced, processed, and consumed. Here’s an overview of the progression of coffee waves.
First Wave Coffee: Accessibility and Mass Production
The first wave of coffee began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This era was characterized by the mass production and widespread accessibility of coffee.
Brands like Folgers and Maxwell House emerged, making coffee a staple in households across the U.S. and beyond.
The beans were often robusta, chosen for their yield and price point rather than quality and flavor. Brewing methods were basic, with drip coffee makers and percolators commonplace.
Espresso drinks like cappuccinos were rare outside of Italian immigrant communities. Overall, coffee was viewed as a commodity rather than a specialty product.
Key Features of the First Wave:
Instant Coffee: The invention of instant coffee made it easier for people to prepare and consume the beverage.
Branding: Major companies began advertising campaigns, making coffee a household name.
Consistency: The focus was on producing a consistent taste, often at the expense of quality and flavor nuances.
Second Wave Coffee: The Rise of the Coffee Shop Culture
The second wave, which began in the 1960s and peaked in the 1980s and 1990s, saw the rise of coffee shops and espresso drinks. Brands like Starbucks, Peet’s, and Costa Coffee played pivotal roles in popularizing this wave.
Beans were sourced from specific regions and often single origin. Roasts were lighter to preserve the distinct flavors of bean varietals.
The emphasis was on taste and freshness. While speciality coffee chains drove the second wave, independent cafes also popped up throughout the US and helped fuel coffee connoisseur culture.
Key Features of the Second Wave:
Espresso-Based Drinks: Lattes, cappuccinos, and mochas became popular choices.
Coffee Shop Culture: Coffee shops became social hubs, places for meetings, work, and relaxation.
Variety: Consumers started to become more aware of different coffee beans, origins, and roast levels.
Third Wave Coffee: Appreciation of the Art and Science
The third wave of coffee emerged in the early 2000s and continues today. This wave strives to produce the absolute highest quality coffee through control of the full production process from crop to cup.
There is an emphasis on direct trade, single origin beans, lighter roasts, and freshness. Brewing methods highlight the distinctive qualities of each bean, with pour over, cold brew, and microbatch espresso common.
The barista is viewed as a skilled artisan. Innovative coffee shops focus on the total coffee experience – the aroma, taste, feel.
There is also transparency about sourcing and farming practices. Third wave coffee is complex, nuanced, and treated more like wine or craft beer than a mere commodity.
Key Features of the Third Wave:
Direct Trade: Coffee roasters and shops often build direct relationships with coffee farmers, ensuring fair prices and sustainable practices.
Specialty Coffee: There’s a focus on high-quality beans, often graded 80 points or above on the Specialty Coffee Association’s scale.
Brewing Techniques: Methods like pour-over, siphon, and cold brew highlight the unique flavors of each coffee bean.
Traceability: Consumers can often trace the coffee’s journey from the farm to the cup, understanding its origin, variety, and processing method.
Fourth Wave Coffee?
Some speculate that a fourth wave of coffee is emerging, focused on sustainability and fair treatment of coffee farmers and workers.
But others argue the industry is still deep in the third wave, working to perfect coffee quality and the consumer experience.
Whether the fourth wave coalesces remains to be seen. For now, the focus is squarely on continuing to improve coffee quality.
Potential Features of the Fourth Wave:
Technology: From blockchain for traceability to apps that connect farmers and consumers, technology plays a central role.
Sustainability: There’s an even stronger emphasis on eco-friendly practices, from farming to packaging.
Education: Consumers are not just passive drinkers; they’re educated about every aspect of coffee production and preparation.
The progression of coffee waves shows an increasing appreciation of coffee as a complex food product requiring care and craftsmanship.
What began as a commoditized morning drink is now regarded as an artisanal product that brings nuanced flavor, community, and connection.
The future of specialty coffee promises even more dedication to the bean, the farmers, and the drinkers who savor every sip.
Ukraine SitRep: Bad Demographics – End of Support
Via a Responsible Statecraftpiece I came onto a EU study that tried to predict the future demographics of Ukraine’s population.
The study is from early 2022 and is based on Ukrainian casualty numbers from only the very first month of the war. Their worst case scenario was this:
Our third and fourth scenarios assume that the war will continue for a month or longer so that further casualties and refugees are expected. We assume the following casualties: 5,000 deaths among soldiers and 1,500 civilian deaths based on the current trends. There will be 5 million refugees, which is an estimate by UNHCR (UNHCR 2022a)
The real refugee numbers are twice as high and the casualty numbers, wounded and dead, are of course about 100 times higher than the study assumed. It was thus not worth the money that had been spend on it.
Still, some graphs in it are usable.
Yesterday I shortly discussed the op-ed by the former British Minister of Defense Ben Wallace in which he asserts:
The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40.
He then urges the Ukrainian government to throw more young men into the meat grinder.
The young Ukrainians are gone. They either have fled from Ukraine or are wounded, disabled or died. You can not mobilize what is no longer there.
Unfortunately the real situation is worse then I had thought.
The ‘age pyramid’ in Ukraine isn’t a pyramid. In 2020 there was a huge lack of 15 to 20 years old people. They were simply not there. They never existed. The number of newborns around 2000 must have been horribly low.
The reason for that was likely the serious downturn of Ukraine’s economy after it had separated itself from the Soviet Union.
It took a decade long severe recession for Ukraine to find a bottom for its economy. Bad economic times and low expectations of betterment had influenced the desire of its people to procreate. Two more downturns followed during the global recession around 2008 and due to the 2014 Maidan coup and the civil war following it.
Thus when the war started there were only half as many people of 20 year age than 40 year old ones. It is no wonder then that few of younger age are seen at the front line.
There is still one measure Ukraine might take to increase the numbers of young soldiers. There currently are exemptions from mobilization for those who study at a university. If Ukraine would draft these if could probably find a few ten-thousand additional soldiers. But it would also strip itself of its future elite.
The already bad demographic prediction some 20 years out would then look even worse than they currently do.
Early this year Ukraine’s birthrate had hit a new low:
To keep a population steady, research shows it’s necessary to have an average of about 2.1 babies per family — known as a replacement rate. In Ukraine, fertility rates have remained under that threshold since 1990. Over the last two decades, the rate has often dropped below what experts call a “very low” fertility rate of 1.3, when a population begins to shrink at an ever increasing rate. In January 2021, a year before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the fertility rate was 1.16, according to national statistics.
Birthrates in Ukraine have fallen by 28% in the first half of 2023, compared to the same period prior to the war, marking the most significant drop since Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sept. 25. … Due to the ongoing war, millions of Ukrainian women with children were forced to leave the country, while men aged 18 to 60 were prohibited from leaving. As a result, many couples were physically separated, while others delayed starting families, the report says.
In the first half of 2023, there were 96,755 children born in Ukraine. Since 2013, the country’s fertility rate has been dropping by approximately 7% per year.
The population of Ukraine will shrink further. In 1990 Ukraine had a population of more than 50 million people. Twenty years from now the country will have less than maybe 25 million inhabitants. This even if all refugees return. A large if that this is unlikely to happen.
As Russia has become more bloodyminded, Ukraine’s allies seem caught in their own conflicting boundary conditions. There is no willingness to mobilize to defend Ukraine. There isn’t even a serious effort to ramp up military production to an adequate level to match, let alone surpass, Russia’s output.
And that’s before getting to the fact that Ukraine as a county has become a very costly ward of all its backers.
Yesterday a meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers on further military assistance for Ukraine ended without results (machine translation):
The foreign ministers of the EU countries at today’s summit in Kiev could not agree on the allocation of military assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 5 billion euros for 2024.
This was announced at a press conference following the event by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrel.
The EU’s budget for 2023 was €168.6 billion. €5 billion are peanuts but the EU countries could not unite over it. The senseless generosity has reached the end of the possible.
Earlier, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrel said that the cessation of military support for Kiev from the West will lead to a quick end to the conflict in Ukraine, but as a result, the country will lose its independence.
Look at the demographics and economics above and ask yourself what 30 years of ‘independence’ have done for Ukraine.
To end it could well be the best that could ever happen to it. Unfortunately for it Russia is unlikely to step in and to subsidize its further existence.
Posted by b on October 3, 2023 at 13:30 UTC | Permalink
Something TERRIBLE is happening to me right now!
We are all in the same situation, Tucker is just the FIRST. The agencies will get away with this because CONGRESS won’t stop it.
U.S. CONGRESSMAN: ” . . . IF WE’RE GONNA LOSE THE DOLLAR . . . “
Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaking about the growing BRICS nations engaging in “de-dollarization,” Gaetz told reporters “. . . if we’re going to lose the dollar . . . .”
Does Gaetz already KNOW the Dollar is doomed?
Here is the one minute, fifty second clip, so all of you have context of the Congressman’s remarks:
This off-the-cuff remark by Congressman Gaetz made me sick to my stomach when I heard it. In __my__ view, this validates ALL the reporting I have been doing on this web site and on my radio show, telling my readers and listeners the US Dollar is collapsing and will be rejected by nations around the world as a means of trade.
That would utterly cripple the United States since we don’t manufacture mcuh of anything here anymore; we import most of it from other countries.
If those countries stop accepting the US dollar in trade, how will WE get what WE need?
Stock-up, folks. Food, clothing, medicines, etc.
Get what you need NOW, while it still can be gotten.
If this collapse takes place, I suspect it will happen like a lightning bolt out of the blue.
No advance warning before it all goes to hell.
Don’t let the US fool you: China is AWESOME!
“For a person who have been to China multiple times, I absolutely love and envy China. It’s absolutely a big disappointment when I return to India and hear all the negative news about China. Chinese people absolutely love Indian people and we instead are preaching hatred towards them. It’s a very very sad affair. Even my children are asking why we are always saying bad things about China all the time. They went to China with me too. I can’t answer them. What can I say? ….India afterall is my country and we are supposed to hate China.”
Israel Confesses War Crime
No, not really. Israel did not confess war crimes. It never does. It proudly announced that it will now commit a war crime:
Israel’s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip.
Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, an area of about 365 square km, and home to 2.3 million Palestinians, which has been under an Israeli-led blockade since 2007.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he added.
The Israeli air force has dropped 2,000 munitions and more than 1,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza in the last 20 hours, the army said on Monday morning, having shelled 20 high-rise residential buildings, mosques, hospitals, banks and other civilian infrastructure.
Israel military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the army drops hundreds of tons of bombs in attacks in the Gaza Strip, and —— “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” — Haaretz
… On Saturday they were already talking about wiping out entire neighborhoods in Gaza, about occupying the Strip and punishing Gaza “as it has never been punished before.” But Israel hasn’t stopped punishing Gaza since 1948, not for a moment.
After 75 years of abuse, the worse possible scenario awaits it once again. The threats of “flattening Gaza” prove only one thing: We haven’t learned a thing. The arrogance is here to stay, even though Israel is paying a high price once again.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears very great responsibility for what happened, and he must pay the price, but it didn’t start with him and it won’t end after he goes. We now have to cry bitterly for the Israeli victims, but we should also cry for Gaza.
Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees created by Israel. Gaza, which has never known a single day of freedom.
—
The Israeli government has called up another 360,000 reservists for a total of 660,000 reservists plus the 170,000 in the regular standing forces. Israel’s total labor force is 4.4 million.
This is not sustainable for more than a week or two. With 660,000 mostly young people, 15% of the total workforce, suddenly absent, Israel’s economy will immediately tank. The Shekel and the Israeli stock market have already dropped significantly and the central bank had to intervene to keep the currency stable.
Meanwhile 200,000 out of a total of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are now displaced. Israel bombed their homes to smithereens and they have nowhere to go.
A few days ago Netanyahoo told people in Gaza to leave. The only place they theoretically could go is Egypt. Today Israel bombed the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
A ground invasion of Gaza will be difficult and likely lead to massacres – on both sides. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria would likely see a ground invasion of Gaza as a reason to intervene. It has missiles and drones that are precise and can reach any part of Israel. Israel may then retaliate by attacking the Syrian government. Iran and Russia would thereby get involved in the war. The U.S. of course would jump in on Israel’s side.
This war could really, really escalate and do so soon.
Posted by b on October 10, 2023 at 14:42 UTC | Permalink
First Time in U.S. History: SPEAKER of THE HOUSE — OUSTED
Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job Tuesday in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history, that was forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and threw the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.
McCarthy’s chief rival, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, forced the vote on the “motion to vacate,” drawing together more than a handful of conservative Republican critics of the speaker and many Democrats who say he is unworthy of leadership.
It was the first time since 1910 that a vote has been held on whether to remove a Speaker and the only time such a motion has been approved.
McCarthy is now the shortest-serving House Speaker since the year 1876.
Next steps are uncertain, but there is no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority.
Stillness fell as the presiding officer gaveled the vote closed, 216-210, saying the office of the speaker “is hereby declared vacant.” The Hammer fell at 4:49pm EDT. Here is video of the historic moment:
Moments later, a top McCarthy ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., took the gavel and, according to House rules, was named speaker pro tempore, to serve in the office until a new speaker is chosen.
The House then briskly recessed so lawmakers could meet and discuss the path forward.
Trump Wanted U.S. Out Of NATO!
Among the list of Biden administration accomplishments, the expansion of NATA is usually mentioned prominently by the President’s supporters. And that represents a stark contrast with Donald Trump, who at one point during his presidency declared an intention to pull the U.S. out of NATO entirely. But he soon backtracked, which has led a number of observers to speculate about what might have changed Trump’s mind.
Huawei has established the third truly COMMERCIAL Asian Tech Ecosystem from China and the eighth in Asia after Toyota, Nikon, Canon ,Samsung , BYD, Trina and Xinyi
The Huawei Ecosystem now has
The Chip
The OS
The 5G Modem
The GPU
The Networks
Yet Huawei Ecosystem is fragile because SMIC the manufacturer of the 7 nm Node depends on Advanced DUV equipment from ASML
Now SMIC has stockpiled massive orders from ASML and that will keep SMIC going till maybe 2026
However that’s still dependence, a lot of dependence on the West
So i would say HUAWEI has made a start
Meanwhile people forget the REAL WINNERS of the three companies that have established it’s own dominant ecosystem on which the West is entirely dependent on :-
BYD
BYD has:-
The Chip – The Mature 28nm Chip that only China can today manufacture cost effectively and in huge volumes
The Software
The Satellite Navigation System
The Battery
The Dynamic Unit
It’s completely and entirely Independent from Western Technology
Trina and Xinyi who have :-
The Intelligent Chip
The Micrograde Wafer Panel (That to this day no nation can produce except France but at 87% higher cost)
The Carbide micro layering etching equipment (Chinas equivalent of the EUV Lithography Machine)
The Silicon extraction process into Mono, Poly Crystalline Silicon with infusions
Yes Huawei deserves all the admiration for its clawback and fighting
Yet BYD, Trina and Xinyi actually get Proprietary License Fees from the West which is unique for a Nation that to thia day didn’t kowtow to the West unlike Japan, Israel and South Korea
Huawei to win, needs SMIC to become another BYD or Xinyi or Trina
If SMIC can achieve that, then China truly begins the challenge to the established Semiconductor industry
Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home| REACTION *TEARS*
Oliver Anthony is breaking a spell we’ve all been under with his pure unfiltered honesty. It’s just disarming and appears to allow everyone to drop the mask we put on everyday and speak to each other from the heart. I haven’t not cried yet.
First you ought to understand the issue in the first place. Anything made in the U.S. simply cannot compete and won’t sell. Why?
Your workers demand 5 times the salary and is willing to work half the hours, expecting 10 times more benefits. You CEO wants 100 times their income, your workers refused to be train, your colleges turn out lawyers and bull shit artist and not STEM engineers, your infrastructure is dilapidated, Your government spends all its money fighting wars instead of helping industry. You offend all your prospective customers.
So my friend. You need to outsourced your production. China offers a best value for money. You Choose China. China don’t choose you.
So you want to stop. Can you? Can you ask US workers to get 20% salary, work twice as hard, accept 10% of benefits, your CEO earn 1% it did, you stop fighting wars, making wars and building infrastructure? Can you? I doubt so.
You can’t have the cake and eat it too. Choose one! I think this questioner will choose war because you have been conditioned your whole life to think the U.S. must bomb any nation that refuse to be submissive and subservient to you. Your media and your politicians made you what you are.
ER DOCTOR reacts to BRITISH PUBLIC guessing US healthcare costs | Dr Jmack
Heyo!! Today I’m reacting to the British public reacting to the cost of healthcare in the US. I thought this would be a cute and funny reaction video, but it really turned into something else. I may or may not have ended up ranting for 20 minutes! Topics hit: absurdity of US healthcare costs, does US medicine already have a combined capitalist/socialized structure, do doctors/nurses care that the system is rigged?
When I was in middle school, I took “typing” for all three years of my tenure there, and I never learned to type. I never did anything in the class except draw, use my Gameboy, or shoot the shit with my friends. Somehow I always got a passing grade, like a ‘B’, and I didn’t ask any questions. it wasn’t til my second year did I figure out what was going on….
The teacher always wore a decent conservative business suit, carried a large hard side briefcase (this was the late 80’s), and never really taught us anything. He only taught typing and “computers” and the computer class was the same vibe. Well, I viewed into his open brief case one day to see real estate materials, flyers, business cards, etc. This guy was a real estate agent, that somehow got hired as full-time teacher as a side hustle……..at least he had a steady income and full bene’s as a teacher.
He was always working on his real estate business when he should’ve been instructing! He couldn’t give the few of us that did nothing bad grade cuz that’d ruin his gig. I’m still not sure why he decided to teach, who decided to hire him, and why he seemingly got away with this for years.
However, this did teach me that I can successfully juggle two projects and receive two paychecks!
U.S Senators Travel to China to Beg Xi for Trade Deal !
Engagement and dialogue are essential for constructive international relations. This video examines the delicate US-Taiwan-China relationship, addressing the importance of mutual understanding, compromise, and respect for sovereignty for maintaining stability and trust between nations.
He plays the piano beautifully, and he practices with the children on weekends.
He likened the first world’s iron grip on tech to this little tool here…
It’s called a metronome, and musicians use it to set the beat-rate for sheet music.
I taught myself how to read notes (very, very poorly) as an adult and as an engineer, I couldn’t figure out how sheet music communicated the speed one played the notes.
Until my friend explained the metronome to me.
Pre-2020s, the pace of progress was set by the first world. The standard-defining or cutting-edge tech always came from advanced economies. For cars, we had the S-class/7 series, for computers we had Intel and more recently, AMD/Mac, for planes we had Airbus/Boeing.
In essence, the west defined tech generations. We were stuck with 2G… until the first world came along with 3G. We were stuck with DDR3 Ram, until DDR4 was introduced.
The first world ran the clock when it came to tech, and the rest of the world planned around the schedule.
The most important reason was the monopoly they had on the upstream tools. If we gave the best talent the best tools, different teams will eventually optimize towards convergence. There is only so far one can push the expression of the state of the art, and that is why Airbus models are head to head with Boeing, and Android not too different from iOS.
China is third world.
And for the first time in modern history, a non-first-world country has dibs on the cutting edge. China has established itself as a dominant player in diverse fields such as nuclear power generation, medium voltage power architecture, EVs, high speed rail, TBMs, photovoltaics and many more.
In every one of these fields, China isn’t competing on cost alone, but setting standards, and helping to define the next generation.
Case in point: China is currently the only country to operate a test 4th-gen nuclear reactor that’s plugged into the grid, putting it a good decade (or more) ahead of the competition in terms of commercialization.
Similarly, Huawei, after being kicked out of the Bluetooth SIG, has redefined short-range wireless technology with its Nearlink standard, capable of 1.5Mbps speeds consuming way lower energy. And these are delivered numbers, in physical consumer products available TODAY.
That’s bluetooth 6.x/7.x territory, which is years away from being issued as a standard, never mind consumer availability.
Imagine Huawei, one third world company, leapfrogging the current state of the art Bluetooth by at least 1–2 generations.
The west/first world no longer controls the clock.
Let me repeat, because this is important.
THE WEST NO LONGER CONTROLS THE CLOCK.
Rather, China will continue to pop surprises, just because the country and society is poorly reported by the first-world dominated media.
The educated, and well informed who read ABOUT the Chinese exclusively will repeatedly wake up to head-scratching bombshells in the coming future.
What? The Chinese did THIS? That’s… impossible. Don’t they only know to steal and copy and reverse-engineer?
I won’t be surprised if Nearlink is adopted by Apple and the Android alliance, because it is a transformative standard that can enable brand new ecosystems. What will Huawei do with Wifi, and next-gen navigation, particularly indoor spaces? What will a 5.5G Huawei phone add to the mobile experience?
The Chinese, at the minimum, are turning up the metronome, and playing Beethoven as he originally intended.
Shape up, or screw up, sanctions be damned.
Things a Filipina Fears in Dating Foreigner – Untold Reasons!
Most of you if not all foreigners were really curious of us filipina why we are still single but always wish in the corner to have a foreigner partner. Now you will know the untold reasons and that includes mine. Some of it are very hilarious and might offend one of your pride but let me tell you a word that you will enjoy and learned alot by watching this video.
The Osiris-Rex mission conference has wrapped up, and the newly released pictures of rock samples collected from the asteroid Bennu are leaving everyone in awe.
These samples consist of 250 grams of primordial material, which means they originated around 4.6 billion years ago during the formation of our Solar System.
Within these minute fragments, scientists have detected the presence of clay, water, and even organic material.
Three MORE Aircraft Carriers Leaving Port; 101st Airborne Division Relocating from Romania to Jordan. Target: Iran? Syria? Both?
Most of the general public already knows the USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier and its Strike Group arrived in the eastern Mediterranean Sea near Israel. What few people know is that THREE other aircraft carriers and a NATO Maritime Group are also being deployed . . .
The big media bru-ha-ha over the past few days was the urgent deployment of the USS Gerald Ford and Carrier Strike Group 12.
But the mass media has been almost silent about some other vessels suddenly putting to sea and the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division are all heading out — fast.
If you work harder than everybody else around, you will become more successful.
It’s that simple… at least on a first glance.
But on a second glance, it might be a tiny bit more complicated than that.
Let’s look at an example: Elon Musk.
Elon Musk works 90 hour weeks regularly, although he has been known to work over 110 hour weeks during some parts of his life.
He definitely worked harder than anyone else around and eventually reached success with that.
But the question you have to ask yourself is if that is the kind of life you want to live.
Elon Musk has very little time for anything else in his life.
Since he works so much he only has very little time for friends and family, little time for hobbies and even less time for any other activities like watching movies.
He doesn’t travel much outside of work and is probably not caught up on any of the newest series or movies.
Instead his life is centered around his work and he invests most of his time into it. To him, this is the best place to spend his time.
Before you get all up and about in becoming successful ask yourself first what you are willing to sacrifice to get there.
Elon Musk sacrificed and still sacrifices a lot of family time, hobbies and experiences to give himself more time to work, allowing him experience of being successful. That is what he wants out of life and that is what works for him!
You can definitely reach high amounts of success in your early 20s, but to do that you have to sacrifice many friendships, hobbies, a lot of family time, a large amount of sleep and many other niceties.
You will miss the relaxing cinema experiences, opportunities to engage with friends about the newest series, and time spent on hobbies and other things… but you will increase your chances to be successful!
The question is: Is that worth it to you?
If you are still willing to work for success with that all being said, keeping in mind all you might need to sacrifice, then by all means, go and work!
If your definition of success does not include any of the sacrifices, then go for it! Do what you can, read more books, learn, improve, grow and spend 90% of your waking time grinding away.
If that however does not seem like the life you want to lead, then maybe think about what it is you want instead.
If you want to spend time with your family, want to travel and go on vacations, want to have crazy hobbies, and spend some time chatting about the newest series, then you will not be able to work that much or succeed that fast.
You will have to spend some time every week in these things. Is that okay for you?
Different people have different values in life and depending on them they need to spend their time differently.
While Elon Musk is driven by his work, you may not be, and that’s okay!
It’s not about creating THEsuccessful life, but about creating YOURsuccessful life!
Okay… those were my 2 cents on it; now lets get into the actual How to do it!
Ascertain what “Success” means to you – Depending on your personal definition, the work you do will be different.
Consume Information from People that have reached that Success – The closer they are to your idea of success the better it is. Learn from them and follow their advice! Trust them, as they must have had some right idea to get where they are today.
Produce don’t Consume – Besides the consumption above, you should be grinding and producing non-stop. More work = Faster results. That is the rule of thumb and holds generally true.
Adjust – Every week… no… every DAY you should be looking at what works, what doesn’t, where you struggle and how to get results faster. Keep tabs on yourself and do not allow yourself to get away with less than you want!
Create a System – You have to create a path that goes from your action to the desired result. In finance this is called a ‘Funnel’. How are people going to go from site X to purchase on site Z, for example.
The rest, depends entirely on what your version of success is and how hard you work.
Other than that, if you do steps 2–4 every day, you will become successful in your 20′s no problem.
Just make sure it is really what you want first!
6 Reasons to Retire as Soon as You Can
There is a MAJOR uptick in these kinds of videos about people dropping out of the work-force.
The threat meter is flopping back and forth from zero to pinging at 100%.
The meter is normally at zero.
Then, out of the blue, some NEOCON psychopath does something stupid like slamming their fist on the meter, kicking the table or banging on the dial… and the meter pings to MAX.
Ah.
One day, I’ll tell you what, that ol’ meter is gonna break.
I don’t want to be anywhere near it when the glass shatters and shards of metal start flying.
Pedernales River Chili
This is the chili that was always cooked at the LBJ Ranch in Texas. It was a favorite of Lyndon B. Johnson. He ate this with saltine crackers and a glass of ice cold milk.
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients
4 pounds coarsely-ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
6 teaspoons red chili powder
2 (16 ounce) cans tomatoes
Salt, to taste
2 cups hot water
Instructions
Put the meat, onion and garlic in a large pot and sear until light brown.
Add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, covered, for 1 hour.
The next minute tanks will surround all the the unfriendly embassies in Moscow
Every Diplomat in Russia will be arrested with impunity
Putin will be arrested in an ICC Country and will be in a nice Dutch cell
The US Ambassador, UK Ambassador and others will be in Russian prisons where the probability of their rape in the first 24 hours is 82%
Their families will go out of contact
60–65 Kids will face their lives being risked in an ‘Unfortunate Accident’ where six and seven year olds will vanish
Any Western Leader who flies will face risk of attacks of his aircraft over Europe
Meanwhile Russian Diplomats will face nice European cells and european laws
Russia will then declare war on the ICC Country which arrested Putin
The West will be forced to Release Putin or see their diplomats never come out including the wives and kids
That would cause many diplomats to refuse to serve in 50–60 dangerous nations out of fear that they would be next
So that will never happen
Putin will not go to an ICC country because he won’t embarass the leadership but other wise if they touch him all hell breaks loose
And the Judges will pay
The Judges will face a fate like Prighozin
Nice Ricin Capsules or Novichok
China’s rise and the changing global order | Ben Norton & Li Jingjing
This is pretty good.
Ben Norton, has recently moved to Beijing. We’ve met in person and had a discussion on the rise of China and the whole Global South. We also exchanged our thoughts on Syria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, BRICS, and all the recent events that will change the global order.
Li Yuan is the author of the NYT article. Her article bases its assertions off of interviews with 14 Chinese professionals as well as China’s median yearly emigration as reported by the UN. In terms of claims, she is pushing this line of logic:
Quite a few people I interviewed said, like Mr. Chen, that they had started thinking of leaving the country after China amended its Constitution to allow Mr. Xi to effectively rule for life. The “zero-Covid” campaign, with nearly three years of constant lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines, was the last straw for many of them.
And as for why they aren’t showing up in the US:
Most of the emigrants I spoke to, explaining why they did not pick the United States, cited America’s complicated and unpredictable process for applying for visas and permanent residence status.
This is in stark contrast to Yu Xie et al., who have published a paper in the National Academy of Sciences’ official peer-reviewed publication. Their study has a sample size of 1,229 (or 934 for the federal grant question). In terms of their claims, they point to a steady increase in the number of academics leaving the US for China, and more crucially they have measured out some indicators.
Perceptions and intentions of scholars of Chinese descent. Note: Only past and current grant awardees were asked the question of whether they were considering “avoiding applying for federal grants”.
Their study claims fear is high in the Chinese-American community despite 89% of scientists clearly interested in promoting science in the US. Most dramatically, the study concludes with one data point:
One respondent, self-identified as a US citizen and a former recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, told us that he quit his academic position exactly because of what he perceived as an “anti-Chinese atmosphere”. He then wrote:
If it were not because the COVID pandemic cuts off international traveling and I am a U.S. citizen, my family would have left the U.S. permanently without any intent to come back in the future. What I have experienced at my former institution was not only disgusting, but a system[ic] corruption that I believe [is] illegal. I had never thought of somewhere in this count[r]y to be dark and corrupted like this. If I had, I would not have become a naturalized U.S. citizen, which I regret now. What I ha[ve] experienced not [only] ruined my academic career, but also destroyed my American dream.
Interestingly, Li Yuan makes absolutely no attempt to recognize or challenge the claims made by the paper. While the paper acknowledges weaknesses in its methodology, it notes that it is corroborated by two similar papers, one from University of Michigan, the other from University of Arizona. Instead, she goes for this description of the fates of those headed from China to the US:
But it won’t be easy to stay in the United States. Mr. Zhao has a job offer and will get temporary employment status as a graduate in a STEM, or science or engineering, field. That will last three years. He will participate in a lottery for an H-1B work visa. He did the math: There’s a 40 percent chance he won’t win the lottery by the end of the three years. He might have to go back to school to remain in the United States, or ask his company to transfer him to a foreign post.
Li Yuan’s claims are in my opinion cherrypicked and misleading. She points to data to support her position, but the mild rise in emigration out of China from 2016 until now is something she attributes strictly to political reasons. She makes no attempt to recognize economic factors, such as the well reported glut of graduates unable to find a preferred job, nor any temporal factors such as the COVID opening up releasing otherwise delayed plans due to COVID restrictions and more importantly prohibitive flight costs. Instead, we are left with a threadbare attempt at explaining data with a political narrative.
Li Yuan, and perhaps the staff at the New York Times, are selling a narrative that runs contradictory to peer reviewed science. They are advertising one America, which promises a better life for Chinese, if only America would make it easier for Chinese to migrate into the country. Meanwhile professors at Princeton, Harvard, and MIT are telling us a very different story in which Chinese living in America are doing so in fear of both the government’s actions as well as anti-Asian violence. They have chosen that dramatic quote at the end for a reason— the NSF CAREER award is NSF’s most prestigious award, and many go on to win Nobel prizes.
The NYT and Li Yuan wonder why the US isn’t attracting Chinese scientists. Maybe they should have asked Chinese scientists in the US before making their gloriously nationalist article.
A stray kitten was terrified of everyone and everything and just wanted to hide
There’s something about a kitten’s motor just purring along that makes me melt!
When I was a teenager I would explore all the abandoned homes in my tiny small town. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania; coal and steel was our life, but during this time, the factories were all closing. So the homes would be abandoned. And we would explore them.
One of my friends, not me, was rummaging around in one of the old bedrooms and found an interesting object in an ancient shoebox tucked in the end of top shelf of a closet.
It was a handbook.
He found an operation manual for a biplane! It was a World War I era instruction manual for a Curtiss JN-4. And it was cool as Hell. I loved the illustrations, and the classic format in this small leather-bound book. Totally awesome.
I have no idea what happened to this little jewel of a book, and sometimes I muse what happened to it.
I will never know, but if you see me sitting quietly watching the rain fall down, thoughts of this little book is but one of my many many meandering thoughts.
So after researching, apparently the longest anyone ever stayed awake was this dude named Randy Gardner who did it for a science fair project back in 1963.
He lasted 11 days and 25 minutes without sleep, which is insane. He set a world record, but they don’t do that anymore cuz it’s too dangerous.
We all know that sleep is super important for your body and your brain. It helps you heal, grow, learn and stay sane.
When you don’t sleep, you mess up all kinds of stuff in your body, like your hormones, your metabolism, your mood and your stress levels.
You see, you start feeling the effects of sleep deprivation pretty fast. After just 24 hours, you’re like drunk or high.
You can’t think straight, you can’t remember stuff, you can’t see or hear well, you get cranky and you might even start to hallucinate.
It gets worse the longer you stay awake. After 36 hours, you lose your motivation, your reasoning skills and your attention span.
You might also start to have microsleeps, which are like mini naps that happen without you knowing. You just zone out for a few seconds and then snap back to reality. Imagine this happening while driving.
After 48 hours, you’re in trouble. You might start to have delusions, paranoia and psychosis. You might see or hear things that aren’t there, or believe things that aren’t true. You might also get really emotional or aggressive.
After 72 hours, you’re basically a zombie. You can barely function at all. You might not even be able to stay awake if you wanted to. Your immune system is shot, your blood pressure is high and your risk of getting sick or having an accident is through the roof.
So yeah, don’t try this. It’s not worth it. Sleep is awesome and you need it to live a healthy and happy life.
The average adult needs about 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night, but it varies from person to person. Find out what works for you and stick to it.
Texas Fajitas
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
Fajitas
2 (1 1/4 pound) skirt steaks, trimmed of membrane and fat
16 to 20 flour tortillas, warmed
Marinade
1 cup bottled herb and garlic or Italian salad dressing
12 ounces beer
1 large onion, minced
Juice of 3 or 4 limes
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons minced, fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons lemon pepper
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 bay leaf
Accompaniments
Mild or medium salsa
Guacamole
Instructions
Place the meat in a Pyrex dish.
Combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl, mixing well and then pour over the steaks.
Refrigerate the meat for 6 to 24 hours, turning occasionally.
Remove the meat from the refrigerator and drain off the marinade.
Bring the steaks to room temperature.
On an outdoor grill, grill meat to medium-rare.
Cut the steaks diagonally through the grain, into finger length strips.
Serve meat on a platter with tortillas and serving bowls of salsa and guacamole.
One of my first “real” jobs as a young man was working in a distribution center for a pharmaceutical company. I loaded and unloaded trucks, unloaded box cars and pulled orders, and I found the work to be enjoyable. I was the youngest employee in the place and the older women in the office would dote on me, which I also enjoyed immensely.
The general manager was a former college jock and I became friends with him and would play volleyball, basketball, and softball with him and his friends. After a softball game one summer I overheard him talking to one of his friends and he mentioned that the company we worked for was in trouble. He told his friend that he was afraid the DC where we worked was going to be shut down, and he didn’t want to move to North Carolina, where the company was headquartered.
I didn’t really think about it until I started noticing that the shipments we received weren’t as large, or coming as frequently, as they had in the past. A warehouse than had once overflowed with stock was starting to look barren. That’s when I recalled what the GM hold told his friend and I decided to start looking for another job.
I found a job working in a DC for a wholesaler and gave notice, but the GM tried to talk me into staying. He said I had a future with the company but I still decided to leave. Six months later the distribution center closed and the entire warehouse crew was let go. Some of those guys were in their 60s, so their only option was to take early retirement. I felt bad about not letting them know what was coming, but what if I’d been wrong? I was lucky to get out when I did.
Deserve the world
Tech hegemony name of NSA’s game — Zhang Zhouxiang
Had the Ministry of National Security not mentioned it on its official WeChat account, it would have been hard to imagine that the US National Security Agency, a key department of the US government, had invaded the server of China’s Huawei headquarters in 2009 and was monitoring it ever since.
This was at a time when the US had not even triggered trade frictions with China and “partnership” was the key word defining their bilateral relationship. That was also the time when the US was keeping a tab on allies and imagined enemies alike, such as by bugging the then German leader’s phone, as Edward Snowden revealed.
All these incidents once again prove that even when the US smiles at you, you cannot take it at face value. The US can use one hand for a handshake and the other to point a gun at the person it is shaking hands with.
It’s ironic that despite spying on the Huawei server for 14 years, the US still could not find any evidence of Huawei having “stolen” technologies from it. That is the biggest evidence that the NSA is not at all concerned about the United States’ national security, but about the US’ technological hegemony. Anything called “national security” for the US is based on the insecurity of others.
With this mentality, the US cannot become a worthy leader of the world. It can only arouse the whole world’s suspicion with its actions, as everyone knows that the US gained its current superpower status by cheating, stealing, hacking and blackmailing.
And such conspiracies won’t persist for long because the rest of the world cannot be overshadowed by the US forever. That Huawei has released its new smartphone model Mate 60 Pro, despite the sanctions, proves that the US’ blockade and surveillance don’t work.
It is time the US woke up from its own dreams.
China’s LASER Tech Achieves Yet Another MASSIVE Breakthrough
In a groundbreaking announcement, Chinese military scientists have unveiled a remarkable leap forward in laser weapon technology. The researchers claim to have developed an ingenious cooling system that eliminates a long-standing obstacle – the buildup of excess heat during the operation of high-energy lasers. This achievement, which could redefine the face of modern warfare, promises to enable these laser-based weapons to fire with unprecedented longevity and precision. Today’s episode will cover another breakthrough in China’s laser technology.
Wasting an entire tech budget on peripherals, with no computers to attach them to.
Several years ago, I worked at a school where the majority of teachers and the principal still used overhead projectors. I bought my own projector and used my own Macbook instead. When the principal saw what I was doing, she put me in charge of setting up Smartboards for every classroom.
Apparently, the year before I got there, the principal (an older woman) went to an education convention and got swindled into spending thousands of dollars on new Smartboards. Someone must have had a display where they showed all of the great things you can do with a Smartboard, so she used the school’s technology budget to buy one for each classroom.
They’d been delivered over the summer, before I was hired, and they were still boxed in the storage room when I got there.
Except she didn’t buy the computers or projectors to go along with them.
A Smartboard by itself is useless. It’s basically a large track pad. It requires a computer and a projector to work. The Smartboard is the cheapest part of the equation.
I got one up and running in my room, since I had my own laptop and projector. She was so excited that she had the janitor unbox and hang several others in other classrooms over a weekend, before I explained to her that they only worked when connected to a computer and a projector.
When I came to work on Monday, half of the classrooms looked like this:
They had nice, new Smartboards hanging there, completely useless.
Then I gave her an estimate for cheap laptops and projectors to get the other Smartboards up and running like the one in my room was.
She got mad at me. It’s the first time a principal ever actually raised their voice to me. She insisted that I could make the Smartboards work without buying extra parts, because the guy who sold her the Smartboards didn’t say anything about needing a computer or projector to go with them.
I think she was mad that she’d been ripped off. She spent literally the school’s entire tech budget on those Smartboards.
She raised her voice to me a few more times throughout the year, for leaving to get coffee on my lunch break (I’m an adult and I can do that), not keeping the students busy every possible second (I don’t believe in busy work), and not using the Smartboard in my room enough (It was a bigger pain to use it than it was worth). Basically, she micro-managed and treated me like a student, not a teacher. I left there after just one year. She ended up being forced into retirement after that year too. I suppose a lot of people complained about the way she treated the teachers, and pissing away the school’s money on pointless tech was the last straw.
Whatever your opinion may be about this man, Dan Bilzerian, he said something very true in an interview, and I would like many people to reflect on it.
In the Joe Rogan Podcast (the most famous and most listened-to podcast in the world), Rogan asked him the same question:
Joe: Hey Dan, for the people who are listening to us, and most of them won’t even make a quarter of the money you’ve made, do you think money brings happiness?
Dan Bilzerian: Money, Joe, brings satisfaction. Money can undoubtedly give you a lot of satisfaction, but never complete happiness.
When I go to a fancy restaurant, when I drive a brand new car, when I party at the best clubs, for me, that’s already normal.
But the day I can’t afford to eat at a restaurant of the same quality, or drive the latest car, or go partying, how do you think I’ll feel?
In my case, I raised the ‘satisfaction bar’ so high that I have to maintain this lifestyle forever because if I don’t, I get depressed.
Happiness, even if it sounds cliché, cheesy, or however you want to call it, comes from within, from your person. It doesn’t come from material things. Material things give you ‘satisfaction,’ but they will never give you happiness.
There’s always someone who says something like:
‘Money doesn’t bring happiness, but I’d rather cry in a Lamborghini.’
Now, let me ask:
Wouldn’t you rather smile from ear to ear in a Kia?
Regards.
If I Compare Both – CHINA is The Winner
China’s space program and Elon Musk’s SpaceX represent two major players in the rapidly evolving field of space exploration. In recent years, both entities have made significant strides in rocket development, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of space travel. From the famed Falcon series to the proud and furious Long March family, both players have redefined space sector on their own terms.
The Russian military has launched small attacks along the whole frontline. A major effort is made near Andivka which yesterday was bombed to smithereens:
The headline reads “RF Army has delivered a blow of previously unseen might against the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU)”. What they are describing is an aerial bombing of Avdeevka, the heavily fortified Ukrainian town 14 kilometers away from Donetsk city, which is an urban center of more than a million inhabitants and capital of the Donbas oblast (region) of the same name. Donetsk city has been struck by missiles and artillery shells launched from Avdeevka on a daily basis from the time before the Special Military Operation, and with ever greater intensity during the SMO. Video images of destroyed homes and apartment buildings have appeared on Russian evening news together casualty figures and the testimony of victims.
The attack on Avdeevka came early in the morning when the Ukrainians were attempting to carry out a rotation of their troops. Eyewitnesses said that “the earth shook” in the whole area as a result of the bombing. … The bombing of Avdeevka today, like the reported destruction of a major Ukrainian command post by 1.5 ton bombs a couple of days ago, would suggest the “softening up” phase before a major ground offensive.
That something important was coming up could be seen it the recent Daily Reports by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The ones put out on the 8th, 9th and 10th of October showed relatively few Ukrainian casualties (655, 630, 580) and a reduced counter artillery campaign with only 6, 7 and 8 Ukrainian guns hit on those days. It was a sign that something was coming up.
Today’s report, which includes the numbers from yesterday’s campaign against Andivka and other places show high Ukrainian casualty numbers (895) and hits on some 24 Ukrainian artillery systems.
The Ukrainians seem to fight almost exclusively on foot. Losses of armored fighting vehicles have become rare. Today’s report reports hits on only 7 armored combat systems (including tanks) but also hits on 35 transport vehicles, i.e trucks and pick-ups.
Yesterday’s evening summary by Strana.news described the bad state most of Ukraine’s brigades are in (machine translation):
Reports of the beginning of massive attacks by the Russian army coincided with the appearance of an increasing amount of information about significant problems with the offensive potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
As we have already written, ex-adviser to the President’s Office Alexey Arestovich called on the Ukrainian command to go on the defensive and abandon the offensive, which, in his opinion, is hopeless with the current balance of forces.
Also in social networks, a video from a Ukrainian military man was distributed, who talks about problems in the “Guards Offensive” brigades due to heavy losses and poor organization.
“I communicate with different military personnel from different branches of the armed forces and, in principle, I understand that cp@ka is everywhere. But I did not expect that in the rampant “Offensive Guard” we will meet with those mistakes that even the most meaty brigades no longer make,” says a National Guard soldier in Tiktok.
Then he describes various problems in specific teams. Let’s list the main ones:
Platoon commanders in critical areas, including on the Zaporozhye front, are appointed junior lieutenants without military experience and knowledge.
Many fighters have not received sufficient training;
Coordination at the company and battalion level is almost nonexistent. Maximum-squads and platoons;
Huge losses – “three companies enter, only a few go back”;
“One village took an infantry company in a short period of time. 120 plus or minus people,” says the military man.
The Russian Federation has many times more forces and resources – “no matter how strong you are, you will be stupidly beaten by the crowd”;
In some cases, the assault fighters go on foot – 7 km in equipment for 35 kg.
Other reports have confirmed that the Ukrainian military has long lost its middle officer and NCO corps. Smart kids fresh from senior high school are leading platoons of men mostly in 30s or 40s and 50s. Brigade commanders give direct orders down to platoons because the staff of battalions and companies in between is no longer there.
The Ukraine lacks artillery. The Russian counter battery fire has become more and more intense.
The advantage the HIMARS systems with their 70 kilometer reach had given Ukraine is also gone. The U.S. delivered HIMARS systems, which previously had been positioned safely out of reach of Russian counter-battery fire, are now easy to reach targets.
Russia’s new versions of the Lancet kamikaze drone have destroyed Ukrainian fighter planes on the ground some 90 kilometer behind the frontline.
Smaller Russian First Person View (FPV) suicide drones now come with thermal night vision.
It is pretty much over for the Ukrainian military. The only sensible action it can now take is to shorten the frontline and to retreat behind some natural defense barrier like the Dnieper river.
However, Zelensky still talks of victory and is unlikely to order such a move.
Posted by b on October 11, 2023 at 15:00 UTC | Permalink
On May 7th, 2013, Clevelander Charles Ramsey sat down in his living room, and was about to eat a Big Mac when he heard screaming coming from outside…
He opened his front door, and realized that it must have been coming from his next door neighbor’s house, so he walked over. But instead of his neighbor, Ariel, he saw a woman in the doorway clutching a child. She said that they needed to get out of the house, but that the door was secured and they were trapped. Although hesitant to break his neighbor’s front door, Ramsey agreed, and together they kicked out the bottom panel. The woman and her daughter crawled through…
But that was just the beginning! The lady said that she had been trapped in the house for years and that there were other women still inside! She ran to a nearby house and called 911 while Ramsey did the same on his cell phone. Within minutes, police and press had swarmed the street. What was going on?
The woman’s name was Amanda Berry. She had been kidnapped by the owner of the house and kept inside for 10 years, where she and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, were kept in dismal conditions and sexually abused. They were all rescued and reunited with their families after a decade. The kidnapper, Ariel Castro, was arrested minutes later at a nearby McDonald’s. The whole city of Cleveland, Ohio, was overjoyed to learn that the missing women had been found alive after so long, and the rescue made headlines across the world!!
Ramsey gave an iconic interview with a local news station, just minutes after the news broke, and it quickly went viral.
“I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Dead Giveaway. Something is wrong here.” – Charles Ramsey
His candid demeanor during such a stressful episode caught people’s attention. The Gregory Brothers recorded a song by remixing his statement. Mike Epps parodied his reaction. Drew Carrey, a fellow Clevelander, personally met with him. He was skyrocketing to fame but his big break came on Snoop Dogg’s show talk show.
Snoop Dogg received an audio recording of Ramsey’s 911 call. In it, the dispatcher asked for Ramsey’s phone number and Ramsey gave it, but whoever provided the audio did not mute or obscure it to protect Ramsey’s identity. Snoop and his guest decided to call the number themselves to congratulate him, and Ramsey picked up. But they also broadcast the number to the entire world!
Ramsey received an unbelievable amount of support and praise. From across the world many sent their thanks and Ramsey was absolutely overwhelmed by the attention. As more evidence came to light, Ramsey also had some choice words for Castro and described in graphic detail how he would exact revenge on him. Talks of a reward for Ramsey abounded. He even received several marriage proposals. When a news reporter asked how Ramsey felt about all the congratulatory phone calls and texts he was getting, he replied that he now wished he had paid for an unlimited phone plan, as he had exceeded his allotted data. He eventually solved this by throwing his phone into the Cuyahoga river.
McDonald’s — whom Ramsey had referenced in his viral interview and where Castro had been arrested — gave Ramsey tons of $50 Mcdonald’s gift cards. Ramsey gave them out to children and the homeless, and when McDonald’s heard about this, they stopped giving him gift cards.
Ramsey appeared on Anderson Cooper, wrote a memoir, and since then has sought to avoid the spotlight. He met with Amanda Berry in 2019 on the sixth anniversary of the rescue, and claims that he and Michelle Knight, now known as Lily Rose Lee, sometimes see each other when out walking because they live nearby.
As I was sitting on the beach with my friend Courtney, she turned to me and said, “You know, I really love Landon. I’m going to marry him. But, if he were to leave me, I would be okay.” They had been dating for four years and her boyfriend was asking her dad that summer if he could have her hand in marriage. They were very happy and comfortable together.
It was a stark contrast to my old roommate. In the four years I had known her, she had been single less than two weeks. Every time she became single, it had not been her choice. After each breakup, she had immediately gotten a new man within days. Eventually she settled with a guy who emotionally abused her. She had eventually caught him cheating more than three times and broken up with him, but her fear of being alone had driven her back into his arms after ten days. She married that guy.
Both of these girls are wonderful people who I enjoy hanging out with. But, they have one stark difference. Courtney is comfortable being alone. My old roommate is not.
Courtney dated her share of frogs but was always able to leave if things got bad. She liked being single and was comfortable with herself. So, she found a man perfect for her who added something amazing to her life. She settled for nothing less.
My old roommate stayed in abusive relationship after abusive relationship. Being single scared her, so she’d rather stay with someone who treated her badly than face the world alone. She will depend on someone else for her happiness for the rest of her life and they will consistently fail to provide it.
Being single taught me that you’re not ready to be in a relationship unless you’re truly happy and comfortable being single. If you don’t, you make yourself very vulnerable to abuse and a life of heartache.
Learn to be alone and to depend on yourself. Don’t date anyone before you date yourself. It is the most important basis of a healthy relationship.
Filipino Girls Get BRUTALLY HONEST
As the Philippines welcomes foreign tourists back for the first time since 2020, countless interested bachelors are arriving at the shores of Davao City specifically to find a Pinay to share their life with. Known around the world as amazing women, Filipinas entice foreigners to travel halfway across the globe just to guaranty a match through face to face interactions. As more men dream of romantic connections with Filipino women, solo travel to the magic city of Davao becomes a bucket list item for countless guys.
Davao City plays host to a couple dozen foreigners several times each year who arrive to meet Pinays in one on one introductions or during group speed dating events arranged by local matchmakers. Because dating in Davao remains a foreign affair for Philippine women seeking love beyond borders, foreign guys also interested in meeting Filipino girls are once again solo traveling to this magic city to try and guaranty a match among some of the most stunning ladies in the entire world.
Know to be ultra family oriented in nature, most Filipinas are seeking traditional family life with a good man who seeks the same. While many Western men begin to adopt alternative philosophies towards domestic dating like MGTOW or Red Pill, many are simply seeking a traditional wife or what they call a tradwife within these Red Pill or MGTOW circles. While most Filipino women fit what men use to describe their tradwife, it must be recognized that Pinays are also industrious and independent completely out of necessity in the Philippines.
Most Filipinas find the domestic dating scene in Davao City to be lacking, which leads many towards furthering their educations and/or careers to make a life for themselves. Because most Pinays will want to create a family of their own, dating beyond borders to establish a WMAF ( Western Male Asian Female) relationship becomes a focus for many who are seeking such a life. WMAF relationships in the Philippines have become quite common in cities like Davao where dating often feels like a foreign affair because of the expat population and constant foreign tourists who frequent the region.
While Filipino women dream of lasting connections with foreign men, the ability to guaranty a match in the Philippines via solo travel rather than making a Filipina dating app your cupid has become the go to method for guys wanting the same type of lasting relationships.
There are advantages to dating Filipinas in cities like Davao, where an overwhelming number of Asian women are wholly open to the idea of WMAF ( Western Male Asian Female) relationships. While most marriage minded Filipino men are already starting families by their early twenties, the vast majority of bachelors are single by choice. Because countless Pinays still seek to create a family of their own, dating beyond borders with visiting foreigners becomes the most practical way to achieve the dream of loving connections that can create such dynamics.
WMAF relationships are quite common in cities throughout the Philippines like Cebu, Davao or Manila. Because the majority of Filipino women are fluent English speakers, men who share this language are able to communicate well, which expedites the courtship process for many WMAF couples. As men venture into the Philippines specifically in search of the Filipina pea to their pod, cold approach in the street scenes of Davao can seem appealing, but the most serious Filipino women often find such interactions with strangers to be unappealing.
Sure, Filipinas may say hello to you in the street scenes of Davao if you initiate this interaction, but in the less savory parts of the city, these interactions rarely signal a woman interested in starting a lifelong loving relationship. In the interest of being able to guaranty a match during solo travel to Davao City, more men that ever are partnering with local matchmaking agencies to meet serious Pinays to achieve their dream of lasting connections with Asian women. Matchmakers in the Philippines commonly organize private speed dating events for Filipinas and visiting foreign men who have a stated purpose of finding lifelong love as the key motivation for attending these events.
During speed dating events in Davao, men meet over 100 single Pinays in a matter of hours, with only a couple dozen guys in attendance. The odds of meeting 100+ Filipinas in 4 hours via cold approach becomes less likely, especially when factoring in the pre-qualification process administered by matchmaking agencies like A Foreign Affair. Because more men than ever seek to guaranty a match with Filipinas, dating agencies play a crucial role in creating lasting connections via one on one introduction or the world famous speed dating events held in Cebu and Davao.
The longest recorded continuous firing of a weapon took place in 1963, when a group of British Army armorers decided to put the venerable Vickers machine gun to its most extreme test ever attempted. Having a stockpile of around 5 million obsolete .303 British rounds, they took turns continuously firing a single freshly-rebuilt Vickers for an entire week.
The men took 30-minute shifts operating the gun, with others shoveling the spent brass and bringing more ammo and cooling water, pausing only to reload and change worn-out barrels. Amazingly, in a week of non-stop firing, the gun never malfunctioned a single time, and a follow-up inspection found it to be within design specs in every parameter.
This hardly came as a surprise, as Vickers MG was already legendary for its reliability, having been continuously fired for over 24 hours on multiple instances during WWI. In one recorded instance in 1916, a British machine gun company of ten guns expended a million rounds over the course of 12 hours to suppress a German position, at the end using their own urine to cool the barrels after all available water was expended.
What to expect from Iran’s membership in BRICS
Friday, 25 August 2023 11:24 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 02 September 2023 6:26 AM ]
Iran’s membership in the BRICS group of emerging economies is a significant national, regional and international development, which is important both to Tehran and BRICS members, including China and Russia.
In recent years, there has been a lot of focus on Iran’s membership in global political and economic organizations, institutions and groups in order to spur economic growth and provide a ballast in the face of geopolitical and structural changes.
BRICS has gained a special place in Iran’s foreign policy due to its increasing importance in the international political economy and geopolitical developments.
The Islamic Republic has good political relations with all five main members of the BRICS group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Tehran is motivated by the international prestige, the geopolitical and geoeconomic linkage with the emerging world powers, and the regional and international status which joining BRICS can potentially bring in.
New economic partners are about to come out of the woodwork after membership in BRICS and access to new financial resources, technological findings, knowledge-based production methods in agriculture, food security and trade could enable Iran to better deal with the hobbling impact of sanctions.
BRICS is developing internal institutions for integration and increasing effective economic power in order to support development programs of its members and strengthen their regional and international position.
The establishment of financial institutions independent from Western institutions can be considered the most important success of BRICS in promoting convergence and its most important advantage in the new global economic structure.
Two financial institutions within BRICS are the pillars of the group’s power, which also offer opportunities for Iran.
The New Development Bank of BRICS is the most important economic pillar of BRICS, created with the aim of forging convergence among the members in the world economy.
The bank was established in 2014 with the initial authorized capital of $100 billion to finance infrastructure projects in BRICS countries and other emerging markets. It is headquartered in Shanghai, China.
According to the agreement, the bank “shall support public or private projects through loans, guarantees, equity participation and other financial instruments”.
Another key institution established with the aim of strengthening financial convergence among the members is the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA).
It is a framework for the provision of support through liquidity and precautionary instruments in response to actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures.
Although US financial sanctions make it difficult for Iran to access the resources of these two institutions, BRICS has adopted various methods under its de-dollarization scheme to provide loans and services to members, which can reduce the impact of the sanctions.
The New Development Bank uses methods such as providing loans in the national currency of BRICS powers, cryptocurrency and currency swaps.
Bear in mind that Iran’s integration into the BRICS economic framework is fraught with challenges as regards alignment with the economic policies, regulatory mechanisms and commercial laws and regulations of the main and new members.
Ensuring the coordination and synching of the domestic bureaucracy with BRICS institutions in areas such as customs, tariffs and investment regulations requires time and complex expert reviews.
Nevertheless, the geoeconomic benefits of the membership are so many that any misgivings are roundly misplaced.
As a full member, Iran would have closer economic relations with other member countries, which can gradually lead to increased business and investment opportunities.
This cooperation can include various sectors including energy, production, agriculture and technology and provide access to new markets and potential sources of foreign direct investment.
Joining BRICS would also give Iran the opportunity to diversify its economic partners beyond the current circle.
The BRICS countries have an overall population of more than 3 billion people, which potentially provides a vast consumer market for Iranian goods and services. This diversity would reduce Iran’s dependence on a limited set of business partners and increase its economic resilience.
Membership in BRICS also increases Iran’s regional influence and geopolitical position.
It enables the country to interact with emerging economies and have a say in shaping global economic and political affairs. In addition, Iran can actively participate in regional projects and contribute to the development of convergence in the region.
By becoming a member of BRICS, Iran would access the financial resources of the BRICS Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangements (CRA) to fund the development of infrastructure, energy projects and other potential priority sectors.
This can help to solve part of Iran’s development needs and spur long-term economic growth, even though access to the resources of these institutions under sanctions would be difficult.
Iran is a large producer of oil and gas and its membership in BRICS can strengthen closer cooperation on energy security initiatives.
BRICS countries, especially China and Russia, have significant energy needs. They can potentially cooperate with Iran on energy exploration, production and infrastructure development. This cooperation would improve Iran’s energy sector and provide ways to diversify exports.
Meanwhile, BRICS countries stand out for their advances in technology and innovation in the developing world.
Iran’s membership in BRICS can facilitate the exchange of knowledge, carrying out joint research projects and technology transfer, which could enable the country to increase its technological capabilities and competitiveness in different sectors.
This can help Iran’s economic modernization and reduce technological gaps with other countries.
Iran is facing the most draconian US sanctions, which has limited the country’s access to global markets and financial systems. Joining BRICS can potentially give Iran more leverage in international negotiations and potentially reduce the effects of some sanctions.
Moreover, the collective power and influence of the BRICS countries may provide a platform to defend Iran’s economic interests and reduce trade restrictions.
BRICS countries have forged increasing cooperation on agriculture and food security. Iran, with its diverse agricultural sector, can benefit from the best methods and joint initiatives through knowledge exchange with the aim of increasing agricultural productivity, production and distribution of foodstuff.
This cooperation can help Iran’s food security goals and strengthen its agricultural sector.
Finally, Iran’s membership in BRICS can activate the Russia-Iran-India corridor, facilitating exchanges among the member countries, and provide access to Eurasian resources along the Belt and Road Initiative stretching from China to Russia up to Central Asia and beyond.
In 29 Days The Internet Will Change FOREVER
Through increased legislation such as the Online Safety Bill and Google’s own repression of new emerging competitors, independent media and free speech has a fight on its hands.
“Can I trust you?” she asked me quietly as we walked in the school grounds.
She didn’t even wait for me to reply.
“My father was diagnosed with cancer. Two years ago. Of the prostate. He was under treatment since then, but these days, he’s been getting worse. And we don’t even have that much money, we’re a simple family.”
Sarah was the ‘weird girl’ in the class. Or that’s how the others saw her.
She was always energetic. So much that you’d think she was high on caffeine every day. She had a prominent personality, something so sun-bright that you couldn’t help but notice. And being talkative and making loud, obnoxiously lame jokes were a fundamental part of her.
Sarah was just so full of life. The fullest you can be. The fullest I’ve ever seen someone.
I think that’s what began, slowly but surely, irritating others in a way.
She would laugh at her own awkward jokes and people would roll their eyes. She’s so random and so extra, they’d say.
She became the class clown.
One day, during the sports class, the conversation written above took place.
And I couldn’t help but silently wonder: how/why was she so buoyant and full of life all the time?
A second later, the tone of her voice shifted.
“You wanna know why I’m so cheerful all the time?”
It’s like she read my mind, I swear. I looked her in the eye, then quickly looked away.
But what she said left me open-mouthed because it was completely different than what I expected.
“You know, I believe that you have to create what you want for yourself. As I see it, everyone has to create their own happiness. There is no other way out. I have so many things to be sad about. But that is exactly what I won’t be. I just work like that,” she shrugged.
And suddenly, just like that, I saw her in a whole new light. And I’m not even exaggerating. It was literally like depicted in the movies.
In fact, I felt guilty, on behalf of my class, that we’d been so utterly stupid.
Not to be dramatic or anything, but Sarah taught me things that I have not learned from anyone else.
I’m not gonna lie and say that since that moment, I’ve been the happiest person alive. I haven’t. It’s a slow process. But I see myself getting there very soon.
Sarah reminded me that one has to create their own happiness. You can’t rely on life or its circumstances to do that for you. She was a living example of the quote: “When life knocks you down, smile and stand up taller than ever before.”
China learnt that thinking that it should share a loaf of bread with the west is unnecessary and unappreciated. Well perhaps the west is not matured enough. So why not have the entire loaf of bread themselves.
So why not just produce the very best in everything for China and 7.5 billion earthlings and let the west decide if it wants to be up to date and advance. Or suffer a triple digit inflation and stay backwards.
Like what they say one don’t know how fortunate they are till they lost it for good. It’s a shame. For the U.S. China is willing to be a good partner to help bring about a better world but the U.S. chose its own demise.
The U.S. behaviour befits the 247 years old hoodlum mafia that they are and China need to let the U.S. grow out of puberty. Sure China prefers to work with the west and the U.S. and it will do better with them. But without some say 50–70% of worlds 30% of the market it will still do rather well.
US may need to make a million adjustments just to stay afloat. But heck. That U.S. their problem. It is their choice. They can de-risk on each other for all we care. Essentially the U.S. has decoupled with the world.
My former supervisor came to my wedding and told guests that she felt terrible, but when I got home from my honeymoon, she was going to have to fire me.
I was working at a staffing agency, and my supervisor Snowflake (for her appearance and mental condition) came to my wedding as my guest and the date of my fiance’s friend.
During the reception, she told multiple people that as much as she looooved me, she was going to have to fire me when I got back from our honeymoon. We were gone for a week, and knowing what we would be facing when we got back, her date called my husband and told him the bad news.
Talk about landing the balloon with a crash! At least I could walk into the office the next day armed and forewarned. They transferred me to another department, she was reprimanded, and within months was transferred to another office. I will never trust people like that again, and I feel for anyone who had to be involved with her in the future.
THE DURAN AND BRIAN BERLETIC ON UKRAINE’S DEFEAT SENDS NATO INTO PANIC
I will answer from my personal experience. I do trauma anesthesia and every now and then I will get someone in who has survived a shoot out with the police. I usually talk to the police during the case since they are waiting to hear if the prisoner will survive or not so they can file the paperwork. The truth is they miss more.
Last one was a murder suspect who they rolled up on as he was exiting his car. He pulled out a gun and they unloaded on him. The police expended more than 350 rounds. He was hit 3 times. One hit on the hand which took off 2 fingers, one hit in the meat of the thigh and the one that took him down was a hit directly between the eyes. But he was a lucky SOB. The police were shooting 9 mm. The shot that hit him between the eyes bounced off his skull, traveled under the scalp and exited near the rear of his head. That one knocked him out and probably saved his life.
Shootouts are a very stressful situation. The target is hiding behind obstructions. He is shooting back at you. And the distances are more likely to be 25 to 50 feet. The adrenalin is running high. Even in a perfectly comfortable range with a paper target it is almost impossible to put in precision shots at 50 feet with a hand gun. That is a pretty typical outcome in that type of shooting.
The scary part of all that is that there are 340 plus bullets traveling down range which can strike anywhere.
Unless one is blind, deaf or dumb you can conclude otherwise. Of course BBC, CNN, Fox & Sky News sing a tune that US are popular are needed or or respected. But it is no different from Nazi propaganda selling the Aryan nation and the Nazi’s view on Jews!
But let us stick to the facts. Zero nation in Latin America and Caribbean supported the U.S.stance on Russia! And that is the U.S. closest neighbours.
Take the Beijing Olympics boycott. In 2020. After a year of shuttling around the world. Convincing nations to boycott China and billions invested to demonised China. Only 5 nations agreed to withdraw uninvited officials from the games! Just 40 years ago the U.S. wanted to do likewise in the Moscow Olympics and 65 nations joined them!
US influence? It us a thing of the past. Good riddance Uncle Sam.
Originally Answered: What have you assumed was exaggerated until you experienced it yourself?
Expensive paper towels.
What the hell, Bounty? You think you’re worth twice as much as my grocery store-brand paper towels?
Oh, you’ve got “super-absorbent pockets” that can soak up that entire sippy cup’s worth of juice and then still have room for the drips the other leading paper towel left behind?
Riiiiiiight.
The “quicker, thicker picker-upper”?
Screw your fancy camera tricks and stupid, gimmicky pockets! I’m not going to fall for your crafty advertising and excessive -er-ending tagline!
Oh, what a fool I was.
Enter: the Infant.
Through drips and spills and mud and snot, the infant could take out an entire store-brand roll in a single afternoon. My discount paper towels may as well have been tissue paper against the sticky onslaught of a lunchtime feeding. Spit and mucus passed right through those weak sheets, so much so that I would have been better off just wiping my daughter’s mouth with my own hand.
Oh, “just double them over,” you say?
Ha! The acrobatic, one-handed tear needed to secure a double sheet (while holding a leaking child) would simply rip a corner sliver from those generic towels, leaving the bulk of the sheet flapping wildly off the roll and onto the floor.
In a delirious panic, I’d resort to mummifying the child and letting the mess soak through, sheet after sheet, until she was just dry enough to slip a new shirt on.
There had to be a better way…
I finally caved and bought a roll of the more expensive Bounty brand—they were on sale. I figured maybe I could stick my daughter into one of the “super-absorbent pockets” and just let her eat from there like a quilted, drooling baby kangaroo.
Dear sweet sanitary Jesus.
Those paper towels are amazing.
Yes, they can soak up the sippy cup juice, and the snot, and the milk, and the spaghetti sauce, and the toilet water on the floor, and—why is there toilet water on the floor?!—and the strange brown mess that probably isn’t that, but you’re not going to get close enough to smell it.
All of it.
And double sheets? Ha! Only if you want to clean out a frying pan right off the stove because those babies can insulate like a fiend when you need to wipe hot grease out of a pan.
Bounty paper towels are freaking magical. I buy them all the time now—though I still wait for sales. They are worth every penny, and they are every bit as amazing as the attractive hand models on the commercials imply they are.
On December 9, 1914, Thomas Edison faced probably the biggest test of his life when a huge fire destroyed his lab in New Jersey.
The fire destroyed more than half of the buildings in the laboratory complex, including many original records, prototypes, and valuable research work.
The damage was estimated to be around $7 million dollars at the time, which is equivalent to over $180 million today.
Insurance only covered $2.3 million.
How would you react if your entire life’s work went up in flames at 67 years of age?
History tells that on the night of the fire, as Edison calmly watched his life’s work go up in flames, he told his son Charles, “There is a great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”
Edison wasted no time in rebuilding. In just a few weeks after the fire, parts of the lab were operational again. Within about a year, most of the facilities were fully reconstructed.
To answer your question, what is the best way to deal with failure at everything in life?
We should learn from Edison…
Accept that failure and setbacks are just part of life’s journey.
Be persistent, don’t ever give up. If we ever stop trying, that’s when we let real failure take over our lives.
As Edison put it, “We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish. Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start all over again tomorrow.”
Life will always throw challenges our way. But like Edison, we can choose to get back up and start building again.
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison
When you are feeling unproductive, don’t allow yourself to do anything. This means no entertainment devices, no books, nothing. It is very boring. But if you make this rule and allow yourself only to do only one thing, you will find yourself walking the plank and doing that very task.
It feels like putting yourself in time out. But you’ll find your task beats the despair of boredom.
Meditation is also extremely effective if you can’t get focused. When I’m most distracted, I close my eyes and focus on not allowing in any thoughts. It is in those moments that mental silence is most difficult. My head is full of chaotic energy and thoughts that gust and jerk around inside of me. But in the end, I feel still and focused. I am prepared to work. Start with 5–10 minutes. A little bit goes a long way.
Shoplifting was a regular occurrence at the auto parts store where I worked. Headlights were the most common thing people stole. At least once per day we’d find an empty package for a headlight on the shelf.
That’s how a lot of people shoplift, by the way… Just open the package and take the product. Chances are, if there is some anti-theft tag on it, the tag is in the package, not on the product itself.
Also, the fancy retail word for product loss through shoplifting and internal stealing is “shrink.” Now you know. My store had a pretty high “shrink” rate, because the neighborhood around the store wasn’t all that great. The last time I visited that store, about five years after I quit working there, they’d finally wised up and put most of the products behind glass displays, so you had to ask a worker to get them for you.
We’d catch shoplifters sometimes. They’d usually get loud and try and cause a scene, but then leave. None of them ever got physical. They also frequently worked in pairs… one person distracting the counter guy, while the other walked around the store and cut things out of their packaging and put them in his pockets. I got good at spotting that scam eventually, and would stare at the guy walking the aisles until he got the hint that I was on to him, and they’d leave.
But my best story was the Great Heist of 2008. That’s what I called it when I was telling my coworkers about it after it happened.
I was the opening manager that day. It was six in the morning and there were just two of us there. That was the minimum number of people we had to have working in order to be open. The first few hours every day were always uneventful, especially during the week.
This particular day, a guy came into the store and said he needed antifreeze for his car. We looked up the type he needed. He said he needed four gallons. I showed him where they were on the shelf, and he immediately complained about the price. The type his car needed was expensive… like $20 a bottle, if I remember correctly. He left the store without them.
But he didn’t go far… just to his car. He drove up next to the door, left his car running, ran inside, grabbed four gallons, dashed out the door without paying, and sped off, tires squealing and everything.
Except he grabbed the wrong thing. He stole four gallons of washer fluid:
Not even the good washer fluid either. The cheap stuff that we gave away for free sometimes. It was like $1.25 per bottle, max. This guy made off with $5 worth of, basically, tap water with a little alcohol in it.
I didn’t even fill out a report. To be honest, I felt kind of bad for the guy. I hope he didn’t put it in his radiator. That would be two boneheaded mistakes in a single day.
Unbreakable Friendship
U.N. approves invasion of Haiti, US forces already there
Redacted has confirmed that the U.S. has special forces inside of Haiti as the U.N. is set to approve an invasion. The United Nations will vote today on the United States’ request to invade Haiti with Kenyan troops. The U.S. says that a military invasion is necessary to “conduct joint security support operations as it works to counter gangs and improve security conditions in Haiti.” The force will help secure “critical infrastructure sites and transit locations such as the airport, ports, and key intersections.” The people of Haiti have been pushing back against this rhetoric and begging the United States to stay out of their politics. Redacted correspondent Dan Cohen brings us the story.
There are currently two Foxconn situations regarding India. One is iPhone production and one is a project to build semiconductors.
iPhone production in India is below the output volume and quality demanded by Apple. This year’s production in India will sold only in India and maybe in some other Asian countries. Foxconn will seek to improve the production in future. For now China will remain the primary production location.
Foxconn has broken off a JV with Vedanta on a project to build semiconductor chips in India. Foxconn decided end plans after delays by the Indian government to approve incentives for the project.
Foxconn has operated in India before and left after a few years. It knows the business situation there. It likely is aware of other prospective projects that were to receive government incentives by India that led to years of foot dragging, and decided there are other opportunities. Meanwhile India will look to attract others interested in the project.
It’s the first time this year that you are going on an actual holiday.
You booked the ticket months in advance, and have been preparing for this trip for weeks.
Today is finally the day on which you leave.
You arrive at the airport earlier than you need to, get your luggage checked in and are in front of the gate, ready to go, 2 hours in advance, when you hear this over the announcement:
“Flight 206 to Honolulu has been cancelled. We apologize for the inconvenience. Have a nice day.”
Your heart sinks into your chest.
That was your flight.
You lean back in the chair you were sitting in, stare up at the ceiling and take a deep breath.
Then you pull out your cell phone, grab your carry-on and start walking.
On your way to the information desk you check various’ other flights, check hotels in the area, and when you get to the information desk you ask about alternative, last-minute routes.
Within 20 minutes you have an alternative booked, have gotten your ticket refunded, and are ready to go.
This is the difference between those that will reach success and those that won’t.
The key indicator of those that will be successful later is that they do not let their situation stop them.
They find a way, are solution oriented, and will act a hundred times more often than they will complain.
Stop complaining about your situation and stop focusing on the problem. And look at what you can do now instead.
WW2 From the German Perspective (Full Documentary) | Animated History
Texas Ranch-Style Taco Salad
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
1 head lettuce
1 onion
1 (16 ounce) can Ranch-style beans
1 package Fritos Corn Chips
2 avocados (ripe but not too soft)
2 tomatoes
1 pound Cheddar cheese, grated
1 bottle Catalina dressing
1 pound ground beef or turkey
2 tablespoons lime or lemon juice
Instructions
Sauté ground beef; drain well and set aside to cool.
Tear lettuce into pieces.
Dice tomatoes and onion.
Grate cheese.
Drain beans.
Break corn chips into smaller pieces.
Chop avocado and sprinkle with lemon juice, lightly tossing to coat.
Ability-track students into separate classrooms, starting at around fifth grade.
The frustration for teachers usually isn’t from an underperforming student alone; it’s from underperforming students in the same class, at the same time, as average and over-performing students.
Underperforming (the more PC term is “struggling”) students often take longer than average to learn the same concepts as their peers, and/or require different teaching methods. All of that is fine and easy for a teacher to do, if students like that were all in the same classroom at the same time, with no classmates who were too different from them, learning-style wise.
I have the same issue with my English classes every year. I always begin each year with three days’ worth of lessons on proper comma usage when writing, because so many students struggle with that. About 25% of the students understand how to use commas after the first day of lessons. Another 50% of them understand the concept well enough by the end of the third day.
But about 15% of students need longer than three days to get the concept, and 10% of them will never get it, no matter how long I spend on it. So, what’s a teacher to do? Bore the smart kids? Frustrate the struggling students by leaving them in the dust? Or aim for the middle and hope for the best?
Of course, is all of the smart kids were in one class, all of the average students in another, and all of the strugglers in another, I could spend as much time as I wanted on each concept, without worrying about boring anyone or leaving anyone in the dust. And I could use lesson plans tailored specifically to each group’s learning style.
The classes wouldn’t even have to have even numbers. I can easily teach 50 students at a time, if they’re the “average” students, while teaching smaller classes of advanced and struggling students.
There are a lot of reasons why separating students by ability isn’t popular these days. I’m not saying that they’re good reasons, or that I agree with them. I’m just saying that there are reasons that exist.
Still, it would help de-frustrate teachers to have fewer mixed-ability classes, and more mono-ability ones.
That was me. I worked for a biotech firm that was cutting costs. I was a corporate recruiter. People were being laid off. My only HR colleague left because he had to do all the firing as the big boss didn’t want to do the dirty work, he was also never in the office. That left me having to fire the employees which I hated doing but there was no one else to do it.
I had to fire the finance manager, it was year-end and we had to do merit raises and bonuses. The payroll manager didn’t know to calculate the merit increases based on the allocated budget and bonuses. The company was going to ask Ernst & Young to calculate this but the CEO rejected this as the cost was enormous. The CFO didn’t know how to calculate this so he asked me to calculate this.
this task can be done manually but it would have taken weeks as there were over 200 employees. I downloaded ADP salary data and created an Excel template using formulas to allow scenario analysis as there were lots of changes. (fighting between managers on merit and bonuses) This took a whole week but I completed it on time to pay the employees.
It was yearend and I had to fire most of the salespeople, the new sales manager cleaned house. After I fired the last person my boss called me in to fire me. He said sorry we have to cut costs, you’re a great recruiter but we won’t be hiring anyone next year.
Well, this was the first time in my life to get fired. I was very upset but luckily I found a good job in 2 weeks and I was working. A month later I get a call. They had lost key employees in the IT department and had struggled to find anyone. They wanted me to help. I had started a side business – a staffing agency so I said I will work on commission which they agreed. In 45 days I completed 2 searches and billed my former employer 45K. This took about 40 hours of my time. The fee is 20% of the annual base salary. I made more money that year than any other year.
They wanted to hire me back but I was upset that they fired me in the first place so I did not go back.
At the end of the year, they called me to ask me how to use the spreadsheet that I created. No one could figure out the formulas to change the parameters.
I said no, why don’t you call Ernst & Young?
An unfiltered conversation on why I live in china now, what china is like for indians, college, etc
“Thank you for sharing your insights. I agree with you, China is much safer for walkability and touring. I stayed 1 year in China and nobody ever gave me any problems and everyone was so hospitable and friendly. India tends to be more lawless in many ways compared to China. I still love India though! Jai Hind”
On a somber note, the Israeli destruction on Palestine is a (text book) genocidal event. This is just as disturbing to me as the complete killing off of all the males in Ukraine.
There is something truly evil about the oligarchy that rules the West.
Their “heads aren’t screwed on tight”. They are unhinged and behaving in complete disregard for their fellow humans.
No care towards humanity.
Which means that they have evolved into something NOT HUMAN.
I shake my head in sadness.
As Everyone’s Lοοking At Ιsrael, Something Τruly Unbelievable Has Begun Ιn America
I bought a used coat from a yard sale and months later, when it turned cold, I put the jacket on and noticed a hand written note in the left pocket. It had listed things to buy at Ace Hardware.
It said Lye, ropes, tape and a small shovel.
Next to the list was the actual receipt showing the stores name, what was bought and exactly when.
I thought it seemed suspicious so I took it to the local police and they ran the info I had against an unsolved murder case.
After pulling the archived video from Ace Hardware, it was clear who the man was and after interrogating him and his fake alibi, he broke down and admitted that he was the one who picked up a 22 year old hitchhiker and raped and murdered her.
He forgot about the note and receipt in his left pocket.
He was also left handed. Had he not written it himself, it would not have proved anything, but it matched the handwriting analysis.
He also had no idea his wife sold the old jacket in a yard sale months earlier. That simple task on her part, cost him his life and he sits on death row today.
You just never know what you’re gonna get for three dollars at a yard sale.
A strategic nightmare sneaks into Washington’s political agenda: Global Times editorial
By Global Times Published: Oct 14, 2023 12:38 AM
This is horrifying. -MM
A simultaneous war with China and Russia is a strategic nightmare that sober American strategists such as Henry Kissinger have been warning the US to avoid at all costs, and it is also a topic that some US media outlets have become more and more fond of talking about in recent years. At least from the publicly available information, Washington has never previously addressed it as a formal political agenda, supposedly aware of its seriousness and the terrible risks it carries. But the publication of a report by a congressionally appointed bipartisan panel titled America’s Strategic Posture crossed this “red line” on October 12.
The central point of the 145-page report is that the US must expand its military power, particularly its “nuclear weapons modernization program,” in order to prepare for possible simultaneous wars with China and Russia. Notably, the report diverges completely from the current US national security strategy of winning one conflict while deterring another, and from the Biden administration’s current nuclear policy. It is not a fantasy among the American public, but a serious strategic assessment and recommendation in the service of policymaking.
The 12-member panel that wrote the report was hand-picked by the US Congress from major think tanks and retired defense, security officials and former lawmakers. This report makes us feel that a “strategic nightmare” is sneaking into the US political agenda, but has not drawn due concern and vigilance in Washington, and to a large extent, the American elite group represented by the panel is actively working to make this nightmare come true.
A look at the specific recommendations of this report will send shivers down the spine of those who retain any basic rationality. The report recommends that the US deploy more warheads, and produce more bombers, cruise missiles, ballistic missile submarines, non-strategic nuclear weapons and so on. It also calls on the US to deploy warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and to consider adding road-mobile ICBMs to its arsenal, establishing a third shipyard that can build nuclear-powered ships, etc.
What depths of insanity is the US sinking to? The US’ military spending accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world’s total defense expenditures, and it has been growing dramatically for several years, with military spending in 2023 reaching $813.3 billion, more than the GDP of most countries, but even that is not enough for these politicians. Such a report full of geopolitical fanaticism and war imagery, whether or not it actually ends up as a “guide” for Washington’s decision-making, is dangerous and needs to be resisted and opposed by all peace-loving countries.
According to some American media, the report ignores the consequences of a nuclear arms race. In fact, the report doesn’t seem to consider this at all and doesn’t suggest any measures other than nuclear expansion to address this issue. In other words, it is a reckless approach. Both China and Russia are nuclear powers, and everyone knows that provoking a confrontation between nuclear powers is a crazy idea. Even promoting a nuclear arms race under the banner of “deterrence” is a disastrous step backward in history. Washington’s political elites, who lived through the Cold War, cannot be unaware of this. However, the fact that such an absurd and off-key report is being presented in all seriousness by the US Congress is both surreal and unsurprising. It is in line with the distorted political atmosphere in Washington today.
The motives behind this exaggeration of threats and creating a warlike atmosphere are highly suspicious. The recent outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict caused a sharp increase in US defense industry stocks, while American defense industry companies have also been the biggest beneficiaries of the long-standing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The military-industrial complex, like a geopolitical monstrosity, parasitically clings to American society, manipulating its every move, pushing Washington step by step to introduce and even prepare for ideas that were once considered “impossible.”
The prosperity of the American military-industrial complex is built upon blood and corpses, and carries a primal guilt. Serving the interests of the American military-industrial complex is unethical.
The reality is that such rhetoric is becoming increasingly politically acceptable in today’s Washington. The idea of “preparing for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China,” once a fringe fantasy, has gradually made its way into Washington’s agenda, which is deeply unsettling.
If Washington were to adopt even a small portion of the recommendations in this report, the harm and threats it could pose to world peace would be immeasurable and would ultimately backfire on the US itself.
There is an old Chinese saying: “Those who play with fire will perish by it.” This is something that is worth Washington’s careful consideration.
In 1980 my boss had left the company and had planned to sell his very nice 1970 Buick LeSabre for $500. One Monday I came into my office and the keys to the Buick were on my desk with a note saying that the automatic transmission was bad and that it would cost more than the car was worth and that I could have it for $25 since that is all the wrecking yard would give him.
I picked up the car one evening and was able to make it part way home before the “transmission” problem occurred.
Fortunately, I was near the company parking lot where I left the car. The next morning, in daylight, with the help of my brother-in-law, we discovered that the “transmission problem” was actually the air conditioning compressor intermittently locking up and putting a severe drag on the engine.
Since it was fall in southern California, we just cut off the single belt that drove the AC compressor and the car ran great. Months later, a neighbor was putting a Chevy V8 into a Toyota pickup and gave me the AC compressor, which we installed on the Buick. And the AC worked perfectly.
I told my boss how we fixed the “transmission” problem and offered him $500 for the Buick.
He declined and said I should keep the car for $25.
I told him I didn’t want my wife driving a $25 car, so he agreed to $250.
That summer I decided to install an aftermarket cruise control unit on the Buick and while routing wires under the dash, I noticed a small spring, not unlike the ones in ball point pens, was broken in an AC/heater duct. I replaced that spring (cost was less than $1) and noticed that the AC was coming out of the dash vents where previously it was just coming from the floor.
When I next saw my former boss, he said that he had taken the Buick to the dealership to complain about the AC/heat not coming from the dash vents, and they told him that to fix the problem they would have to remove the dash and it would cost more than the car was worth.
I put an additional 100K miles on that car and only recall replacing the brakes and a distributor, in addition to routine maintenance. In 1992, as I was moving to Texas from NJ, a co-worker asked if I would sell him the car, which I did.
As an aside, my former boss went to work for a company that made high power gas lasers, costing at that time about $25,000.
At my next company, I needed one of those lasers. I happened to mention to my former boss at a conference that I hoped to buy one of those lasers, but didn’t have the budget.
A few weeks later, a high power gas laser unexpectedly arrived on the shipping dock!
I called my former boss and he said if and when I get the budget, let him know and he will replace the “loaner” laser with a new one. Probably a year or so later, I did find the money and paid for the “loaner” laser.
My former boss’s company also made an even higher power laser for $50,000. I later wondered if I had given him $500 for the car if he would have shipped a $50K “loaner.”
I would ask him, but he passed away, way too young, years ago.
Rest in peace, Dean…
Life in URUGUAY! – South America’s Richest and Safest Country
As an Uruguayan I want to make a comment. First, great video, mostly accurate expect for a couple of details.
When you show the ‘gauchos” those look more like people on horses from Bolivia or Peru, or even maybe somewhere in northern Argentina or Chile. Because, first of all, in Uruguay, the gaucho’s “poncho” is usually made of plain dark colors, and most important, we do not have mountains, like the ones you show. About population “skin” color, let me make some remarks.
The original population in Uruguay is around 90% of European descent, and when I say European I mean, from all over Europe, including countries like: Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Russian, Denmark, etc. Not only Southern Europe. So there are a lot of fair skin color people including blonde, blue eyes.
But what has been happening in the last decade is that there’s a large immigration wave, such as from the Caribbean countries, as well as from the rest of Latin America.
So, the demographic is changing rapidly because Uruguayan’s population as you established is very small, so the culture is also changing, including the food and even the language…
2500 Foreigners have been invited to the Hangzhou Asian Games in China
Ordinary Foreigners
From US, Canada, Europe and Japan and South Korea
Fully paid for, Business Class Tickets, Five Star Pampering
All China asks them to do is to cover the Games on their Social Media (TikTok mainly or YT or Instagram)
The result is despite the Western Media almost entirely ignoring the Asian Games, a whopping 673 Million people worldwide are watching the events
This is China’s Strategy to counter thr Western Media
Not launching their own MSM and insanely and making accusations
Instead , they bring ORDINARY PEOPLE and treating them to what China looks like and spreading the message
A Popular Teenager goes home and says “Man do you know China is so different from what we hear in our TV channels”
Slowly this gains traction
It’s a long term plan targeting the 19–24 year olds today and gradually influencing the Younger Generation
The key reason is INFLUENCE
The 12–36 year old US Generation doesn’t view China as an enemy but as a neutral country or as a mutually beneficial country
Yet 36–65 year old Americans, the MSM influenced generation see almost 75% of them view China as an enemy
China is slowly influencing the younger generation and in a way that US simply cannot comprehend
Long term, slow and PATIENTLY
Every year you have 20,000 Vloggers invited to China and cover China positively
They influence around 60 Million -150 Million people
Tourvashu is one of these
He influences 2 Million Indians
Most are 16–20 year olds
More likely to watch Tourvashu than Palki Or Gravitas or Arnab
Slowly the Younger Indians will be influenced and say “Yaar Tune Chaayina ka wo Video dekha. Mast tha”
So you wonder why Apple is not banned. In China?
Same reason
It’s not the Chinese way
These Brash, Useless and Economically unsound tactics are not something the Chinese do
China will encourage Apple, use it as a gold standard to develop their own industry, and undercut the iphone eventually
Take the Chinese High Speed Rail
In 2005, Chinese imported exclusively their Boring Machines (Germany, Switzerland), Engines (Japan, Spain), Software (UK, Singapore, US) and Electronics (Japan, S Korea)
Today nearly 90% of their High Speed Rail Supplies are COMPLETELY MADE IN CHINA with same or better quality
They have decimated TBM markets in Germany with export shares plummeting from 69% in 2000 to 11% in 2023
Took them 17–18 years
That’s how China works
These loser protectionism bans don’t work for China
They COMPETE and UNDERCUT and enhance quality with competition
The Trump Ban begun in 2019
So the key is to see if China will beat the Apple and undercut the company by 2036–2037
I am willing to guarantee that they will
It’s what they do
Kind of their Mantra
Banning is what Losers do
Competing and beating with Economics is what Winners do
When I was a young boy I used to get teased a lot in school and I didn’t have many friends. I was a fat kid and often got called a “fat slob”, “pig”, and “smelly or “stinky”. I took a bath at least once a week, more in the summer, and tried to keep clean so I knew I was just getting teased because I was fat. When I was eleven my best friend’s mom drove us home from baseball practice one day. Out of the blue she turned to me in the back seat and said, “Andy, you smell and you need to bathe more often.” She did not say it in a mean way but in a stern businesslike manner. My best friend was horrified and said nothing.
When I got home I immediately took a shower and wondered about what was going on. Obviously, I’d been sweaty from practice but she must have known that. As I thought it over, it also dawned on me that my skinny little sister often got teased as “smelly” too. I’d always assumed she got it from association with me, not because she smelled. So I told my mom what happened and asked her to tell me honestly if I smelled. She said, “no” and started to get a little upset about my best friend’s mom saying that to me.
I went to play outside and saw one of my classmates across the street. We had an on-again/off-again friendship up to that point. I guess we were what you might call “frenemies” today but at this point in time, we were more on the friendly side. I decided to get his opinion believing he wouldn’t hold back. In fact, he had teased me before about being smelly. So I asked him straight-up, “Do I smell?” He answered very matter-of-factly, “yes”. “My sister too?” “Yes, her too,” he replied. Then I asked him what we smelled like. He then told me that this had actually been a subject of discussion among his family who did not want me or my sister in their house because of our smell. He said his parents said we smelled like “old books”. Immediately, this brought to mind the set of Encyclopedia Britannicas I had in my bedroom closet. I immediately went home to check them out. Not only were they covered in mold but vast sections of my closet and room had mold. In fact, I found it throughout our home. But it didn’t smell to me. I was used to it. We all were. We lived in the woods surrounded by soggy tree pools so our home was often damp. We had no AC nor did we need it. This was back in 1972 before the internet and all the scares about the dangers of mold.
I told my mother what I’d learned and was able to convince her this was what was causing my sister and me to smell and probably her too. We cleaned everything with bleach, aired out the house, and bought dehumidifiers. From then on I showered every day. My friends all told me I no longer smelled. That following summer I also worked my ass off to get physically fit. I don’t know how many more years I might have suffered but for this very simple and brutally honest admonition from my friend’s mother. To this day, my best friend of 58 years still tells me how embarrassed he was that his now-deceased mother said that to me. And I always remind him she did me one of the greatest favors of my life.
Flip Flop Cherry Cobbler
Yield: 6 to 8 generous portions
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
8 cups cherry pie filling
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Instructions
Coat a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture alternating with the milk; mix until well combined.
Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.
Top with filling and sprinkle with sugar. Cover and freeze.
To bake: Thaw completely in refrigerator.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 40 minutes or until browned.
Mighty China Remove All Iran Sanctions Placed By U.S and E.U
In this eye-opening video, we explore the shifting dynamics of power and influence between Iran, the United States, and China. With the U.S. imposing stringent sanctions on Iran, China steps in to form a strategic alliance, challenging the global power balance. Learn more about the economic, political, and strategic implications of this trilateral relationship and how it could shape the future of global geopolitics.
Going anonymous because it is a part of my life that not even my closest friends are aware of.
This is from the time when I was 12 years old. My mom had a problem where her breast would develop lumps which would have to be removed surgically. This problem started before I was born and she would undergo these procedures every couple of years. We lived in a small town with limited access to advanced medical facilities, but the doctors always told us that the lumps were not malignant.
When I was 12, this one lump was growing very big. My dad (who is a doctor himself) decided to take her to Delhi to get some tests done. I have two elder sisters and we (me, my sister and my parents) live with my grandparents.
So, my parents were away in Delhi and my grand mother would spend the day on the phone talking to relatives, spreading rumors that my mom actually had cancer and saying that we three are a burden on them and that they just want my parents to come and get us off their head.
My sisters, who were older and more mature, would mostly stay in their room, but I, by nature liked to be outside with my mom and in her absence, my granny. Hearing these things used to hurt me, but I wouldn’t tell my sisters since I knew they’d be hurt even more.
I started taking up house-work with my granny (though we had help by my granny used to crib that we 3 were a burden)-cooking half meals, helping with washing clothes. All this I did without my sisters’ knowledge (or they’d never have let me do it).
This was a time when mobiles didn’t exist in India and fixed line phones were the only means of communication. News from my parents used to reach us with a lag. We just kept praying that our mom comes back safely.
After tests at AIIMS (top hospital in India), our parents returned awaiting results and my granny immediately left for my aunt (her daughter’s) place citing she needed “rest”.
Results came in-the growth didn’t seem malignant but needed a fairly complicated medical procedure in Chandigarh. These were times when my dad was under a lot of financial pressure (though my grandparents were well-off and my dad was the only son). My dad requested my granny over call that they need to leave immediately and that though he had applied for their life savings-their FDs to be broken, but if it doesn’t happen on time, if my grandparents could lend money till the FD money could reach home.
Unbelievably, my granny just didn’t come home! She made my aunt call in saying she would stay longer at her place and that my parents can leave for the surgery! I still remember my dad almost crying, not sure if he would be able to arrange money on time to save his wife (the tumour had grown visibly big). By God’s grace, the FDs broke a day before they had to leave and they left us alone, at the trust of the neighbours who were more helpful than my grandparents!
It was a long, painful time when my mother received treatment-a surgery which lasted 9 hours, where doctors almost gave up hope, where she was on ventilator support for days. All this while, I kept hearing from my granny’s conversations as she invited friends over, that it was certainly cancer, that such complicated surgeries could only be for cancer. It kept on making the 12-year old me scared as I knew cancer is something bad, it is something that can take away my mom.
We first got a chance to speak to our mom after 35 days when she managed to call from a hotel after her discharge. Those 35 days had been a struggle beyond my imagination for my parents (which they told me much later when I was around 20). With just my dad for company-he had managed everything from sleeping on hospital floors to washing my mom’s clothes.
My mom has recovered fully and still prays everyday for the doctors who cured her.
My dad still hates my grand parents, and I don’t feel any love for them wither.
My grand dad passed away a few years ago and we still live with my granny because my mom still thinks its our duty.
But, the pain is still there, the fear that the 12-year old felt is still there ,the betrayal is still feels fresh when I see my granny.
I grew up in those 2 months, chopped off my hair because I had long hair and my granny wouldn’t help manage them.
I hardened, realized I only have my parents and my sisters who will stand by me, and I will stand by them till I die.
I realised the world is cruel, looking at my relatives’ behaviour in that period.
“Hector, I retired before you were born,” he laughed.
Confused, I asked again, “Be honest, Dad, I mean, when will you stop working?”
His response was simple, “Working? What’s work? I don’t know what work is.”
“OK, Dad, forget about it,” I said as I assumed he wasn’t willing to talk about this.
“Hector,” he said, “what you know as my job is not work for me. I enjoy architecture so much that I could do this 24/7. This is who I am. Architecture is my life.”
So, to answer your question, why do rich people work even after they become rich? Why don’t they play?
My father lived to be 91 and worked until his body gave up on him. He was a passionate architect who found joy in his work. That’s what kept him active and full of joy every day. His passion for architecture was infectious, and it taught me this valuable lesson about work as a lifestyle.
So, if you ask me about retirement or work-life balance, I’d say it’s better to find what you love and make it a part of your life. When you find that, you’ll stop working and start living. We achieve a balance not by separating work from life but by integrating what you love into your lifestyle.
Today, this is how I see it: It’s not about working less; it’s about loving more what you do.
That’s the secret to a fulfilling life. As my father always said, “The day you find what you love is when you will stop working.”
Heavy Rain forced Mother Cat to Carry her kitten in Streets, but No One Opened the Door for Them!
In the pouring rain, we spotted a soaked cat seeking shelter. Feeling sorry for her, we followed as she led us to her hidden kitten in the woods. We gently petted the mama cat, who had braved the relentless rain. The tiny, wet kitten needed our care, so we wrapped him in a warm blanket. Back at our home, where rescued cat families and foster cats live together happily, we ensured both mother and baby were dry and well-groomed. A vet visit ensured mama cat’s health, and we even gave the kitten a bath, revealing his adorable charm. The heartwarming reunion between mother and kitten was filled with playfulness and bonding, showing the strength of family ties.
Here’s one example, regarding myself: I was working as a bouncer at a bar in Erie, Pa one night and some guy, about 24 years old or so was making quite a bit of trouble, harassing customers, pushing some, bullying others, etc.
He was somewhat high, but not drunk, and it seemed he was there just to harass and embarrass/humiliate some who were there with a date. He was pretty big, about 225 pounds and about 6 feet and acting like a real bully. When I was told about some guy doing these things ( He wasn’t near my door, but farther inside ), I went in to see what was up.
When I got there he was harassing some poor kid who was clearly scared and was with his girlfriend. As I approached, a few people pointed at this guy and said, “get him out if here, he’s an asshole.” .
I got up to him and very nicely told him to leave the kid alone and that he’d have to leave because he was causing too much trouble.
He looked at me, stood up as high as he could (I hate when they do that, like it matters), and said, “Who’s going to make me?” I said, simply, “me.”
He told me to get lost or he’d beat the shit out of me.
I said, “Well, let’s go outside and see who comes back in, and, if it’s you, you can stay.” He smiled, said,”I’m gonna enjoy this” and said, “let’s go” and we walked outside. By that time, everyone, including the other bouncer at my door knew what was going to happen.
The other bouncer, Tommy Williams, just stood at the door and smiled while we walked outside. Well, when we got out about 15 feet from the door, the moron suddenly turned and tried to hit me with a roundhouse kick which I not only blocked, but grabbed his leg and picked him up by the leg and threw him to the ground, saying, ”I don’t think karate is going to help you here.”
He jumped up and said, “how about this, asshole? and then tried a double leg takedown, as, apparently, at some time he was a wrestler. I actually laughed and said, “oh, you want to wrestle, huh?” and then as I countered his sad attempt, the other bouncer, who had heard everything, shouted out: “Wrestle? well you picked the right guy, he’s the National wrestling Champion……”
I just said, “You picked the wrong guy you moron,” and, as my friend, Tommy later said to me, I literally swept the parking lot with him.
I never saw him after two of his friends ended up taking either home or to the hospital.
He was a bully.
He got to feel like those he had bullied before.
I was NOT kind to him.
No regrets, but I bet he was kinda surprised when he heard the other bouncer tell him who I was, and he had no escape, as even as he said over and over, “I quit, I give up.”
I told him that it wasn’t up to him, It was my call and I wasn’t done yet.
That is a scary thing to realize, that you can’t quit, that it’s up to the guy beating the crap out of you. But I believe it has led others like that guy to never bully anyone again. Jeff
Sat in a bar in South Pattaya one Sunday afternoon in 1991 I noticed a fairly fit looking bloke dressed only in flip flops and shorts. He suddenly ordered everyone a drink then turned to me and said “I see my friend that you are interested in my tattoos.” I wasn’t that interested but I wasn’t going to argue and let him tell me. One he’d got for some work in the Philippines – the other some thing in the Mekong Delta. A mahout then came by with a large elephant which the man went across to look at saying they’d always fascinated him. So I asked him where he came from – American Samoa he replied. And what did he do? He worked “for the government”.
He then stepped back and ordered another drink for everyone in the bar. I thanked him and he turned and said “Let’s eat and drink for tomorrow we may be dead”. He then looked me in the eye with the coldest eyes I’d ever seen and said “ You know it is very easy. I pick up the gun, I pull the trigger and they are gone.” It was evident he wasn’t bullshitting.
That evening I saw the bar owner – who comes from Texas – and mentioned this guy. “Oh yes that’s so and so – he’s a US Navy SEAL. Bad news when he’s drunk.”
Guess I can be thankful I met him whilst he was sober!
Atheist Overdoses; Shown Soul’s Process Of Pre-Life Planning (NDE)
Her story is powerful. All of her words should have been heard and none bleeped out….
If you are offended by profanity, best skip this response.
I, too, am in the top 1% of wealth holders in this country, albeit, on lowest rung, yet minimum wage at my small Inn is higher than it is at this billionaire cunt’s company. I have no problem finding employees. This piece of shit motherfucker sits on his yacht sipping pina coladas while his employees need a second job to just pay the bills to live their day to day lives.
This asshole supports the Republican Party with massive amounts of money, and as a wealthy person, I can tell you a thing or two about how tax laws work in this country. For those of you who make less than $250k a year but still vote Republican, your economic misery is your own fault. The Democratic Party has LOTS of problems, but one problem they don’t have is trying to make life better for the average person and if you stopped watching your choice of right wing media, you’d soon realize that. It’s people like this cunt who are destroying America and contributing NOTHING to it.
What did this prick do? He built a fucking store, massively exploited his workforce by grabbing all the loot for himself and then whining when ordinary people have had enough and don’t want to work for anymore. Fuck him, and his fellow cunt billionaires.
When I was doing my B Tech, there was a Professor Talukedar who used to teach us ‘Mechanics’.
His lectures used to be very interesting since he had an interesting way to teach and explain the concepts.
One day, in the class, he asked the following questions,
What is ZERO.
What is INFINITY.
Can ZERO and INFINITY be same.
We all thought that we knew the answers and we replied as following,
ZERO means nothing
INFINITY means a number greater than any countable number
ZERO and INFINITY are opposite and they can never be same
He countered us by first talking about infinity and asked, ‘How can there be any number which is greater than any countable number?’
We had no answers.
He then explained the concept of infinity in a very interesting way, which I remember even after more than 35 years.
He said that imagine that there is an illiterate shepherd who can count only upto 20.
Now, if the number of sheep he has less than 20 and you ask him how many sheep he has, he can tell you the precise number (like 3, 5 14 etc.). However, if the number is more than 20, he is likely to say “TOO MANY”.
He then explained that in science infinity means ‘too many’ (and not uncountable) and in the same way zero means ‘too few’ (and not nothing)
As an example, he said that if we take the diameter of the Earth as compared to distance between Earth and Sun, the diameter of earth can be said to zero since it is too small.
However, when we compare the same diameter of earth with the size of a grain, diameter of earth can be said to be infinite.
Hence, he concluded that the same thing can be ZERO and INFINITE at the same time, depending on the context, or your matrix of comparison.
The relationship between richness and poverty is similar to the relationship between infinity and zero.
It all depends on the scale of comparison with your wants.
If your income is more than your wants, you are rich.
If your wants are more than your income, you are poor.
I consider myself rich because my wants are far lesser than my income.
I have become rich not so much by acquiring lots of money, but by progressively reducing my wants.
If you can reduce your wants, you too can become rich at this very moment.
I came home very sick with flu one day, went up to my bedroom, my husband was in my bed with the mail lady. I told them both to get the fuck out of my house. He argued that he needed sleep cuz he worked overnights. He needed his clothes and stuff. I told him all his clothes would be alongside the garage by Monday. It’s where the garbage is kept. Take a shirt and stuff he needed for tonight and get lost. Take a shower at her house or work. I packed up his stuff in garbage bags along with the topper to our wedding cake, some mementos from our honeymoon, I was being passive aggressive I agree, but how dare he sleep with her in our bed, in our home. We had a 2 year old and a 6 mos old. He was just wrong. He showed up a month later crying to me that she had broken up with him. I told him too bad, I didn’t feel bad for him in the least. I got the house( and mortgage) in the divorce. It was ok cuz I wanted the kids to stay in their home and school and I made more money, the root cause of the problem. He felt inadequate cuz I was a senior manager and he was doing maintenance work. This was no issue for me, just for him.
When I first got married, we would be passionate everywhere, if you know what I mean, bed, floor, couch, where ever. We would do things for each other. And we enjoyed each other’s company. She was from Japan I am white american.
I learned to speak Japanese and we lived in Japan a few years and life was good. We had kids together, but over the years things grew cold between us.
They say that people change and you grow apart. I don’t think either of us changed. I doubt that most people change. What I suspected happened was that I would base my love on how much she loved me and visa versa. If she did something nice for me, I would do something nice for her. Or if I did something nice for her, she would do something nice for me.
That all sounds fine and dandy, but I think in practice, it doesn’t work. When I do something nice for her, I expect something of equal niceness in return. However, often is the case that you don’t perceive what is done in return is as valuable as what you gave him or her. So the next time you do something, you feel less inclined to do something as nice. And so the love kind of fizzles.
You basically stop caring because you perceive your partner as not caring. And chances are your partner feels the same way about you. Neither person has changed. They are both the same person, but the love isn’t there anymore. They let it spiral into nothingness.
That is what my wife and I did. After 20 some odd years of marriage, there was nothing. I really had no desire to do anything for my wife, because she wasn’t going to do anything for me. We didn’t hate each other. We helped each other when needed, but that is about all.
I was unhappy with the marriage. I either wanted out or I wanted it fixed. But after 20 years of marriage, I knew that she wasn’t going to try and fix the marriage. I knew that she thought I would not change so why should she have to do anything special and if I did change, it would only be temporary and things would go back to how they were, so why even try. I knew this would be her mind set.
So I had 3 options. Divorce, stay in the lifeless, sexless marriage, or take a chance and do something about it.
I thought perhaps divorce would be the better way. Start anew. She had given up on me and didn’t care.
But I decided to give it a try anyway. I completely revamped my approach. I decided that I would try for one year to fix this. I would not require her to do anything. I would just do these things on my own. If these things wooed her back then she would be back on her own terms and not mine.
So I did the following.
I committed to get into shape… better diet, exercise
I committed to do something special for her everyday regardless of whether we were getting along or not.
I committed to do at least an additional 30 minutes of house work every day.
I committed to pay her a sincere compliment at least once per day.
I committed not to fight with her and to only have calm arguments with her.
I decided to fix her dinner and breakfast as often as possible.
In essence I decided to love her every day.
As I thought, I got essentially no response from her day after day. I mean she would sometimes say thank you, but that was about it. After about four months she started to change. I kept at it. She continued to change. Ok.. she didn’t change. She was the same person, but she saw that I was trying. She saw that she was important to me. She saw that I wasn’t giving up. She wanted to be loved.
She started doing things for me again. We started talking a lot more and doing a lot more together. We started dating again and going on trips. It was almost like we were newly weds again, but with less passion, but it felt great. Sometimes I would just hold her in my arms for 30 minutes.
Love can be revived. It is not easy. True love takes work. Making the decision above to love her regardless was the second best decision of my life. The first of course was to marry her. Our marriage is not perfect, but I look forward to seeing her every day. She is an awesome woman. She is basically the same person I married. We just let our love die. We were lazy lovers. She asked me one day what got into me and I talked with her about my plan. I think it was a pretty good plan and so did she. And yes, we are still married, but much more happily now.
I knew our love couldn’t be one sided, but I also knew it needed to start somewhere and why not me. Ask yourself, why not you? Do you want the love back? what kind of sacrifice are you willing to make to have the love back? If I had decided that she needed to do something while I was doing something, then we would have been right back to where we started. You can’t base your actions on what the other is doing in return. You need to commit to love regardless of what is done in return. That is the sacrifice and that is where real love will begin.
Edit.
I can’t believe how many people have read and liked this. Someone mentioned the 40 day challenge. I found out about that several months after I started on this path. There is a movie out there along these same lines called fireproof that is worth a watch.
For me things didn’t change around in 40 days. It took quite a bit longer. But you have to ask yourself is divorce really the better way out? Yes, sometimes it is. But infidelity doesn’t have to be the end of life as we know it.
I look back on these events and they seem like a distant memory, the hurt and pain. like a forgotten dream. But it really wasn’t that long ago. I am a better person because of it. She has become a better person as well and we are definitely a better couple.
6 REASONS WHY AMERICANS ARE OBESE. WHAT IS CAUSING THE RISING OBESITY IN THE USA?
It’s no secret that obesity in America has been an ongoing issue and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.
In fact, according to Harvard University; about 2 in every 3 adults or 69 percent of the population in the US are overweight while1 in 3 adults are obese or 39 percent.
It has to make you wonder how the most powerful and advanced nation in the world can be so obese especially when compared to countries in Europe and Asia, it’s not like we don’t have the means as a nation for healthier lifestyle and better-quality food.
Or maybe Americans are meant to be obese, and they want us to stay that way? Sounds controversial right, well in this video we will expose 8 reasons why Americans are so obese compared to other countries.
Our country born with troubles since its independence.
Have you ever heard about the Burma Campaign in World War 2? It is quite thorough and one of the most destructive campaigns largely forgotten by Western Powers and historians. The entire infrastructure of the country was destroyed during the course of the war. By the end of the war, the country was totally in rubbles and a massive number of firearms were widespread even in the village level which was left behind by warring powers. The situation was ripe for armed insurgencies.
The country was never been administered as a whole before British arrival. The region out of central Myanmar was usually administered by local petty chiefs with vassal-high king relationship which never need any direct contact between different cultures (except a few tributary missions and merchants). There is no large-scale internal trade and the transportation was also difficult. Different cultures and ethnic groups suddenly came into contact under British rule. As usual, the British exploited the situation by creating a divide & conquer strategy by favouring ethnic minorities over the Burmese majority. This led to extreme Burmese nationalism.
Due to economic disaster in the 1930s and later devastating war, the country is under very hard economic conditions which was a natural breeding ground for communism. The Burmese Communist Party which never believed in British plan for independence already went rebellion even before independence.
Then, the world’s longest-running civil war began.
In the 1950s and 60s, the civil war lost momentum and Burma came under the spotlight of international relations due to its leading role in third world nations, one of the founders of the non-aligned movement. The country was also the only real democratic nation in Southeast Asia with regular elections. The country largely recovered from the war at the beginning of the 1960s and hopes ran high. A federal system was proposed by the ethnic leaders and the government agreed.
All out of sudden, the coup came. At first, people weren’t serious as they already seen a short 2 years long military rule which stabilized the country and the coup ended with the mostly free and fair elections. By the time they realized that the military is no longer intended to give up the power this time, the civil war gained intensity and all the things we achieved in the last 10 years were gone.
The military junta slowly transformed themselves into businessmen by laying hands on the country’s economy entirely. The Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) ran by the military alone control nearly 40–50% of the country’s economy directly or indirectly. With the lack of a proper banking system, the ordinary people have no access to much-needed capital for investments. Small and Medium scale businesses have no chance to grow unless the monopoly of military elites and their relatives were removed.
So he responds in self-defense and you teach him that if the attacker is female he’s supposed to just sit there writhing in pain getting injured? And she got off scott-free?
What’s next? She stabs him and he gets tossed in a closet and fed gruel and water? Because you might as well.
If you knew she attacked first, you should have punished HER. You discipline all parties that have transgressed, not just the ones who have a penis. Having a vagina doesn’t magically bestow immunity on a person.
If you confiscated all his devices, you should have confiscated hers as well. For his month of grounding, she should have received two.
There’s a big difference between a slap in the face (which stings but quickly dissapates) and kicking someone in the jewelies (which could cause irreparable damage).
No. You’re punishment wasn’t good enough. You half-assed it due to sexist reasoning. Go back and discipline your daughter as well.
Who Wants To Be A WARMONGER?!
Inspired by the war hawks that run the West, it’s the game show that always ends badly!
Even though this was a relatively small thing, it affected me profoundly.
On my lunch break from work, I went to a fast food place. A homeless man came in. He was absolutely filthy, with long, greasy hair and dirty hands, dressed in raggedy clothes with a piece of blanket wrapped around him. He smelled bad. He didn’t seem able to talk and he went from table to table, sort of chittering at people, like a rat. People were pretty horrified and either gave him a quarter or just ignored him.
There was one table with 4 Mexican day laborers. These are guys who often are in the U.S. “illegally” and who hang around outside home improvement stores, hoping to pick up jobs. They don’t make much money and sometimes people cheat them, knowing the laborers can’t go to the authorities. A lot of these men may live in one house so they can save money and send it back to their families in Mexico.
When this homeless man came up to their table, they asked him, “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” Then they gave him all of their food, packing it up for him so he could carry it away. Then they didn’t go and buy more food themselves (they probably couldn’t afford it), but simply cleared the table and walked out. They knew what it was to suffer, and they very likely would suffer a bit from their generosity. But that didn’t stop them; and they were the best example of kindness I have ever seen. It was over 30 years ago, and it still affects me.
The night my daughter died in a double hit-and-run in Colorado, a stranger stopped to help her and was witness to the second car that hit her, ending her life. He had been trying to help her though; he called for an ambulance and although it was ultimately unsuccessful, every effort was made to save her life. That stranger is a hero as far as I’m concerned.
The man who tried to help was very traumatized by what he had witnessed and had to change jobs so that he no longer had to daily pass by the place where my daughter died as he went to and from work. Unrelated to the accident, he and his wife got rid of their landline when they moved. I wanted very much to thank him but although I had tried every way I knew, his job had changed, he no longer had a telephone I could call 411 for and he no longer lived in the same place. I finally decided that simply being grateful would have to be enough, even if I couldn’t tell him myself.
Two years later, I’m sitting at the dinner table in a hostel in London and strike up a conversation with a guy also having dinner there. He was from the same area as me. He remembered my daughter’s death not just from it being in the news, but because the husband of one of his co-workers had stopped and tried to help the young lady.
OMG.
To make a long story short, he put me in touch with his co-worker and I was able to email her and express my thanks and gratitude for her husband’s efforts that night. She emailed me back and said that although her husband was desperately sorry he couldn’t save her, he was grateful that she didn’t have to die alone. He is a hero in my eyes and I’m so glad I got to let him know how grateful our family is. May he and his loved ones be abundantly blessed.
China Reveals HUGE Sanctions On US Tech Giants Due A STAGGERING Unpaid $1 Trillion
The direct consequences for the implicated U.S. tech companies are potentially disastrous. China is a significant market for many of these entities, and the sanctions could drastically affect their revenue, stock prices, and global operations. Companies like Apple, which rely on China for both sales and a vast portion of their supply chain, could see significant disruptions. The same goes for firms like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, which have invested billions in capturing the Chinese market and establishing a supply chain nexus.
Furthermore, these sanctions could also impact hundreds of smaller U.S. tech firms and startups that might not be direct targets but could suffer collateral damage due to the intertwined nature of the tech ecosystem. This isn’t just a bilateral U.S.-China issue; the sanctions have ramifications for the global tech industry. Supply chains across the world are intricately linked, and disruptions in China could lead to ripple effects impacting tech manufacturing globally. Countries and businesses that rely on these tech giants for critical infrastructure, software, and hardware might find themselves caught in the crossfire.
The European Union, India, Japan, and South Korea, among others, will be closely watching the developments. Any prolonged conflict could force these nations to recalibrate their tech dependencies and alliances. On the diplomatic front, this escalation further strains an already tense U.S.-China relationship. The last few years have witnessed a hardening of stances on both sides, with trade wars, tech bans, and territorial disputes. This new development might just push the diplomatic ties to a new low.
As the news of China’s unprecedented sanctions reverberated across the globe, key stakeholders began weighing in, highlighting the vast complexities of the issue. Major international business councils, traditionally silent on political matters, expressed deep concern over the possible long-term disruptions to global trade. Wall Street responded predictably, with significant declines in tech stock prices. Investor sentiments seem to mirror the broader fears. If China and the U.S., two of the world’s largest economies, can’t resolve their differences amicably, what hope is there for the stability of the global economic order?
Moreover, experts in international relations also sounded the alarm. The escalation of this magnitude in the U.S.-China tech conflict marks a deviation from conventional trade disagreements. The integration of geopolitics with business is not new, but the scale of this rift indicates a deep-seated power struggle reflecting ambitions, fears, and strategies beyond mere economic interests.
One of the most pressing concerns for the sanctioned tech companies and the international community is the verification of China’s claim. How is this enormous one trillion dollars figure reached without transparent documentation and a clear breakdown? Suspicions linger over the validity of such a vast sum. The call for a neutral third-party audit has gained traction in various quarters. International bodies like the World Trade Organization could potentially mediate, ensuring that claims and counterclaims are examined impartially.
While the U.S. government has not yet announced any countermeasures, there’s widespread speculation about potential retaliation. Would the U.S. respond with equivalent sanctions on Chinese tech companies? Could there be a broader economic response that targets other sectors of the Chinese economy? Such a move would undoubtedly lead to further escalation, intensifying the trade war and potentially causing harm to global economic stability.
As an immigrant, one thing that always spooks me is paperwork and all related things to immigration process.
One day, I was outside working on my garden, when I came back inside, there were four missed calls. Just like a habit, I copied and pasted the phone number to Google search, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection – Corpus Christi Border Patrol Station popped up.
I started panicking. Why? Why they called me?!?? So, when the phone number appeared again a few minutes after that, I picked it up.
A woman on the phone let me know that there was someone used my identity to cross the border, tried to traffic drugs into the country. She told me that this could happen because I traveled outside of the country recently (which was correct). I was nervous. Then the woman proceeded to tell me she ‘would help me to verify and straighten things up’. Then she asked me my full name, DoB and Social Number.
At this point, I started smelling B.S. I told her, wasn’t it an identity thief case? Shouldn’t she have those information already? She got furious and told me, she was ‘trying to help’ and I needed to ‘cooperate’ or else I would ‘end up in jail’.
I decided to cut off the call, told her I would contact my lawyer and said goodbye then hung up.
I did some searching, then I decided to call back the phone number. It went to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection – Corpus Christi Border Patrol Station for real. I talked to an officer. He told me I was right hanging up the call and told me scammers nowadays gets really aggressive. They can hi-jack the phone number line like that, so the Caller ID looks like it’s legitimate from government offices. He also told me: If the government wants anything from you, they will send snail mails, they don’t call.
When I was a young boy, perhaps in first grade, my father had a business trip up into New Foundland. And there, he did some work and (apparently) attended a local festival.
When he came back, he had a special gift for me.
It was a full Scottish kilt ensemble.
And I, well I wore it with pride, and being the photo buff that he was, took a zillion pictures of me wearing the outfit.
I don’t know what ever happened to the outfit, or the pictures, but I do remember that time, and how I felt being parading about in Bridgeport Conn wearing that kilt.
…
My dad was kind of silly. But he was cool in a strange way. And this little event is one of my best memories.
The U.S. have a right to adopt or adapt any any stance it wants. Or behaves as obnoxiously and despicably as ot wants too! But China will act swiftly in its own path forward to protect and defend and its own territories including Taiwan. And the world’s 99% will be behind China solidly. The Taiwan issue is totally and absolutely none of US or anybody’s business except the Chinese people and the Chinese authorities. Get that through your think skull once and for all.
You can talk as much shit, or stir as much shit as you want but touching an inch of Taiwan and we all go to war fully and comprehensively till the world as we know it will be change forever. If that is what you want. Let that be absolutely clear even a single U.S. marine parachute into Taiwan and China will without a doubt take drastic and immediate action.
No go back to asking shit like this and waste all your time. If you want. China don’t gives a shit about U.S. stupidly and waste fully sailing 10 thousand miles blowing a billion gallons of fuel to aimlessly flex your muscles a million times. We don’t mind if you to go hang yourself if that is what you want. You can have a million discussion in Washington for all we care but the business of Taiwan is decided in Beijing.
FLASH TRAFFIC: GERMAN ARMY TANK CREW CAUGHT OPERATING TANK IN UKRAINE, ATTACKING RUSSIAN ARMY
This is FLASH TRAFFIC: It appears World War 3 has officially begun. Saturday morning the Russian Army engaged a German-supplied Leopard Tank operating for the Ukraine army in Zaporozhye. The Russians hit the tank with an anti-tank guided missile. The tank blew up. The tank crew evacuated and were captured. The crew identified themselves as ACTIVE DUTY GERMAN ARMY TROOPS.
Thus, the actual Army of Germany has now been caught waging actual war against Russia inside official Russian territory, Zaporozhye. The image above is the actual tank involved in the actual incident this morning, 23 September 2023.
Hal Turner Remark: It appears, on its face, NATO has just started World War 3; using the active-duty German Army to attack Russians.
More as I get it . . . .
UPDATE 10:14 AM EDT —
Details are emerging. It is now CONFIRMED a Russian Army reconnaissance team destroyed a German-supplied Leopard tank of the Ukrainian military but manned with a crew comprised of Bunderswehr soldiers. The Bunderswehr is the actual active duty Army of Germany.
This took place in Zaporozhye this morning.
A member of the actual Russian Recon team directly and personally involved in the incident has stated the following: “When we curbed another offensive and ATGM-ed [destroyed with an anti-tank guided missile] the Leopard, we moved out to the burned vehicle hoping to seize the ‘tongue.’ Then we saw that the crew’s driver-mechanic was severely injured and the others were dead. Once he awoke, the mechanic started yelling ‘nicht schießen‘ [“do not shoot” in German],” the head of the reconnaissance team said.
“The mechanic repeatedly stated that he was not a mercenary but a Bundeswehr serviceman, and that he and the rest of the crew were members of the same unit of the German army,” the Russian fighter said, adding that while receiving medical aid, the German soldier named his brigade and its dislocation site.
The tank’s driver died from wounds minutes after he was found despite efforts to save him.
Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
1 pound thinly sliced sirloin steak (or deli roast beef)
8 slices provolone cheese
4 large green bell peppers
1 medium sweet onion
1 pound white mushrooms
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher or sea salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
Slice a thin piece off each pepper lengthwise, remove ribs and seeds.
Slice onions and mushrooms. Sauté over medium heat with butter, olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Sauté until onions and mushroom are nice and caramelized, about 25 to 30 minutes.
Salt and pepper the steak and sauté in a little olive oil until just not pink, about 5 minutes.
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Add steak to the onion/mushroom mixture and stir to combine.
Line the inside of each pepper with a slice of provolone cheese.
Fill each pepper with meat mixture until they are overflowing.
Top each pepper with another slice of provolone cheese.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the cheese on top is golden brown.
Back 20 years ago my 8 year old son and I went to the bank. When we walked in the only customer was a lady filling in forms at the bench. We walked up to where the lines started, identified by some silver poles with plastic chains showing the flow of foot traffic. We waited while the teller finished doing her task.
As we waited a few people came into the bank and lined up behind us. The lady at the bench then walked over and pushed in front of us stating that she was in the bank first but had to fill in some forms. I commented that she should take her place at the back, and again she said she was in the bank first. My son looked up at me, knowing that her behavior was rude but he had a glint in his eye. I should have known better.
Silently, without anyone noticing, including me, he picked up the end of the plastic chain from the top of a metal pole and hooked it into her handbag.
As she stepped forward in her self importance her snagged handbag then pulled 4 or 5 poles onto the tiled floor with such a loud clatter. As she spun around to see what had happened she pulled another 2 poles over.
We slipped past, went to the teller and on our way out saw that she had been passed by most of the line and was still picking up her paper, pens and other things that had spilled from her handbag.
On my next trip to the bank the teller told me that was the funniest thing she had ever seen and presented me with a savings book for my son with $20. Each teller donated $5 because no one liked that lady.
One day it will be you.
Twice this week, I have watched an elderly individual, fade into the busy life in which we all live. One man just needed Panadol for his wife but the shop assistant simply said it’s in ‘6’.
But he struggled to navigate the supermarket and as I watched him go in the wrong direction, I left all my groceries and took him where he needed to go.
Today, I watched an elderly man struggle in the heat, who had obviously had a fall with a huge scrape and blood on his leg. He walked past people in the cafe, while he slowly made his way to his car. Not one person stopped. Or looked.
Or acknowledged him. I took him to his car and checked he was ok. He told me he had a fall and wasn’t sure how the air con worked in his car so he just didn’t use it. I sat with him, until his air con kicked in and heard him talk about the old frail body that he is in, that fails him now, every single day.
When you see an elderly person walking down the street, searching in the supermarket or struggling to their car, take a minute out of your busy schedule and ask them if they need a hand. Think about your grand parents and your parents and how pissed you would be if someone didn’t stop to help them. But more, think of them as you.
Once upon a time they were you. They were busy, they had work, they had children, they were able…. Today, they are just in an older body that is not going as fast as it used to and this busy life is confusing. They deserve our utmost respect and consideration.
One day it will be you, it will be us. I wish more people gave a sh*t about them and acknowledged them for their admirable existence and geez I hope someday, not that far away, someone does it for me.
Full-Time RV Life: The Quitting Has Just Begun – Why Many Have & Will Come Off The Road
Notice these trends that are going on in the United States.
Chinese people are consistent with Japanese people, only one enemy is japanese imperialism and chinese national scum. – Mao zedong, 1941.5.15 (This was at a time when Japanese imperialism was invading China)
Likewise. Chinese people are consistent with US people, only one enemy is US imperialism and chinese national scum.
The Chinese national scum includes Taiwan independence elements, Hong Kong independence elements and overseas dissidents funded by the US government. not elaborated here.
The point is: who represents US in the world? Is it the US people, or is it US imperialism?
No other country in the world has invaded the United States. Even if Bin Laden had created 9/11, it was not an act from the military of any country.
It’s not US politicians or capitalist who die on the battlefield, it’s you! idiot! In war the politicians give ammunition, the rich give the food and the poor give their children… When the war is over the politicians get back the leftover ammunition, the rich grow more food and the poor search for the graves of their children.
The US people need to pay more in taxes and lives for the war of aggression waged by the US government. Obviously, the U.S. government has launched a war of aggression against all countries in the world, which goes against the interests of the US people.
Do you think it is in the interests of the US people for the US government to go around the world invading?
It is not in the interest of the US people, nor is it in the interest of the Chinese people, who are simply generating profits for the capitalists of the US military industrial complex.
Because US is a capitalist country, capital controls US politics.
The US has more than 240 years of history, only 16 years without war.
So, Does the US government represent the interests of the US people, or the interests of US imperialism?
Do you represent the interests of the US people, or the interests of US imperialism?
Biden did not tell the US citizens that he wanted to invade China, only “to defend Taiwan”.
So, I ask, how does the US plan on doing that? with some sort of video game competition?
I mean, in order to “defend Taiwan”, you have to have military troops pertorming military actions, aka combat inside of China.
And that’s because Taiwan is in China.
So currently America has soldiers in Taiwan, which is either illegal, or at the very least gray area because that’s part of China.
And the government of China doesn’t approve of that and hasn’t allowed it.
So that’s the current status.
If US start performing military action, that’s an effort to militarily conquer at least China or push them back inside of China.
That‘s called an invasion.’
Sorry, everybody, if you don’t agree with this definition, but that’s what it is.
So US is yet again confirming that it will invade China if China attempts to continue its reunification by using military action.
So this is a very, very dangerous game that US are playing.
George Carlin – It’s A BIG Club & You Ain’t In It!
Lots of bullying stories. Here is mine. My son (autism spectrum, language disabilities) had a chum who happened to be a boy-crazy girl. Dating wasn’t his thing, but she was pretty smart and he liked her and they looked out for each other.
Another boy in the class was a little behind on his social skills, and was doing some low-end bullying of her. Calling out to her “Hey— coat rack!” or similarly stupid things. She was annoyed, but it wasn’t quite so bad that teachers noticed or disciplined him.
Anyway, we got a phone call from school that my son finally lost his temper and pushed this kid against the wall, telling him to knock it off and never do it again. It was pretty clear that regulations about bullying required us to be told of his inappropriate response, so they were following the rule but they weren’t too concerned.
When I told the program director of his previous school about this, he high-fived me. It never would have happened when my son was overwhelmed with sensory overload, so it was a real sign of progress.
China Destroyed US Sanctions Whole Car Industry in Big Trouble
Historic times!
Patrick Lawrence: The Real Threat From China: They’re Better at Capitalism Than We Are
The Biden regime’s robotic procession to Beijing proceeds apace. Following Antony Blinken’s fruitless visit in mid–June, we have paid Janet Yellen’s airfare for another fruitless visit, and following Yellen it was the same for John Kerry. This week it is Gina Raimondo’s turn. The secretary of state, the Treasury secretary, the chief climate envoy, and the commerce secretary: What is the point of this parade?
I cannot but wonder whether these officials are dispatched across the Pacific in descending order of competence. Raimondo, who previously flopped as governor of Rhode Island—except for her plan to cut civil service pensions, an unfortunate success—is mediocrity made flesh. The Chinese must be wondering, with chagrin or amusement or both, who the Biden regime will next send their way.
The assignment in all these cases is the same: It comes down to “two seemingly contradictory responsibilities,” as The New York Times’s Ana Swanson put it in a curtain-raiser last week. She described “a mandate to strengthen U.S. business relations with Beijing while also imposing some of the toughest Chinese trade restrictions in years.”
This is succinct, although we can live without the “seemingly.” Proposing to conduct routine business while sabotaging China’s competitive position in advanced technologies is prima facie a ridiculous idea. But The Times must have its “seemingly,” because it is imperative we pretend the Biden regime thinks sensibly and means well in its relations with the People’s Republic.
Blinken got nothing done, Yellen got nothing done, Kerry got nothing done, and in Raimondo’s case it is hopeless. The final item on her itinerary is a visit to Disneyland in Shanghai, and you have to credit the secretary’s scheduler for the parting reference to dreams and fantasy. An English friend observes that we Americans are doing a lot of blinkin’ and yellin’ across the Pacific these days. Fair enough, but I think it is more of the former than the latter for the time being. This administration simply has no idea what a sound China policy would look like.
What is this all about? For a long time now I have concluded that Biden’s foreign policy people match the definition of insanity commonly but mistakenly attributed to Einstein. These people seem to be doing the same thing again and again while expecting a different outcome. But with Raimondo’s visit to Beijing this week I have to revise this assessment. Those running Biden’s national security policies are unimaginative ideologues petrified of diverging from the neoliberal catechism, yes, but they are not insane. I start to see in their dealings with Beijing a diabolical design to which the Chinese are very right to object.
The Biden administration’s China strategy comes down to parrying, in a word. All the pointless talk is intended to obscure a concerted effort to undermine China’s economy because we cannot compete with it in various strategic sectors, while—part two—buying time to move maximum U.S. military hardware as close to the mainland as possible under the program the Defense Department named a few years ago the Pacific Defense Initiative, the PDI.
At the horizon, we are likely to see Washington’s trans–Pacific military ambitions trump longstanding trade and investment relationships. This is what “decoupling” and now “delinking” are all about. They are warnings to the corporate and financial sectors that their interests, which came first in the decades after the Dengist reforms of the 1980s, will no longer take precedence as the new Cold War Biden constantly denies provoking destroys relations with the mainland.
, the financial news network, that more or less announced the Biden regime’s intention to subvert key sectors of China’s economy. She was about to address something called the U.S.–E.U. Trade and Technology Council and told her interlocutor, “If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe.”
It is useful once in a while to have dumbheads such as Raimondo in high positions, because, without meaning to do so, they can tell you so much more than you are supposed to know. Slowing down China’s impressive advances in high-technology sectors was precisely Washington’s intent by the time Raimondo spoke. The Commerce Department under her direction has since imposed a wide variety of restrictions on U.S. exports to China of semiconductor chips, software systems, and the machinery used to produce both. As Ana Swanson reports, Raimondo is likely to pile on more of these as soon as she returns from Beijing.
The Biden regime dresses up this profoundly undignified conduct as “narrowly targeted” to technologies that could be of use to the Chinese military. Jake Sullivan set the tone for all of these visitors to Beijing in a speech at the Brookings Institution last April. “We are imposing necessary restrictions on specific technology exports,” he explained, “while seeking to avoid an outright technological blockade…. The administration intends to maintain a substantial trade relationship with China.”
This is what Raimondo and all of those who preceded her to China say when explaining their intent: Washington’s sole concern as Raimondo imposes her regime of restrictions is national security, and all else can proceed rosily. It is hard to think of a flimsier dodge. By this standard, she would have to restrict sales of Juicy Fruit gum to the Chinese. What the Biden administration is doing comes down to securitizing the economic relationship. If you have ever doubted that the United States is a failing imperium unwilling to accept 21st century realities, I offer this as proof of the proposition.
The Chinese know this and have said so many times. I no longer think Blinken, Yellen, et al. have any thought of persuading them otherwise on these journeys. That only looks like their intent. Their true purpose is in the way of theatrical, and Americans are their true audience: They must make sure we do not understand Gina Raimondo’s efforts to punch the Chinese well below their belts for what they are: an uncompetitive nation’s attempts to hold back a rising economic power.
interesting for what he left out as much as for what was in it. There was not a single mention of the U.S. military buildup at the western end of the Pacific.
Talk about elephants in the living room. The Pentagon is developing the Australian–British–U.S. alliance known as AUKUS, there is the Quad group, comprising the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan, there are these recently and assiduously fortified alliances with Seoul, Tokyo, Manila, and Canberra, and none of this, we hear again and again, has anything to do with surrounding China or providing for the movement of U.S. military capabilities westward toward the mainland. This is only “seemingly” the case, as The Times would put it.
It is the same as with Raimondo’s projects on the technology side: Neither the Chinese nor anyone else in Asia believes these silly explanations, and no one expects them to do so. Beijing knows very well there is a point to all these apparently pointless visits U.S. officials insist on making. The Biden regime is buying time as it remilitarizes the western end of the Pacific. The only people who are supposed to understand otherwise are Americans. We are not supposed to watch as Washington provokes and prosecutes Cold War II before our eyes. We are supposed to watch as American officials—reasonable, constructive, well-intended—make all efforts to talk to the Chinese in the face of their stubborn reluctance to cooperate.
This is my revised take on the Blinken–Yellen–Kerry–Raimondo cavalcade across the Pacific. These people are not clods. They are purposefully malicious and, it should go without saying, are making the world even more dangerous than it already is.
There are two things to think about here. One, the Biden regime’s efforts to obscure what it is up to at the other end of the Pacific is a straight reprise of the first Cold War, which now resides in all but the most important history books as the responsibility of the Soviets. We have a responsibility to render and defend an accurate record so that this does not happen again.
Two, there is this administration’s immense betrayal of Americans as it aggresses in the Pacific, along with the numerous lost opportunities of which American are deprived. You will find in that Jake Sullivan speech grand and plentiful references to the revival of the American middle class, bipartisan unity, and other such elevated thoughts. Read the speech and then ask: What is this nation’s leadership doing in the cause of a competitive America?
Are we redoubling efforts to educate our people or are we, diabolically, shutting down access—see the University of West Virginia—to liberal arts education? What are we doing to produce the doctors and scientists we need to find our way in the 21st century? What are we doing to bring the dispossessed into the economy, address drug addiction, and all our other debilitating social ills? What are we doing—seriously doing, I mean—to repair and build out the infrastructure we need? Nothing or not enough are my answers.
The Chinese challenge could and should be understood as a chance to reinvent America by way of a Great Mobilization, cap “G,” cap “M,” of New Deal magnitude. There is, of course, no more than lip service to any such idea. We are instead sacrificing this historic opportunity to the military-industrial complex, the greed of corporations, and the ambitions of political leaders who lack all principle or any thought for the commonweal.
Maybe you think, as I do, that none of the Biden officials flying off to Beijing is serious about the true work to be done in our relations with China, or is competent to do it. We must consider, bitterly, that they are perfectly representative of our circumstances as defined by a leadership that is more or less across the board unserious and incompetent to meet the great challenges of our time—China merely one among many.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has held “candid” talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malta this weekend, as the world’s two largest economies seek to stabilize troubled relations over trade and militarization of the Pacific.
During the two days of talks on Saturday and Sunday, Wang brought up the issue of Taiwan – a self-governing, democratic island that China claims as its own territory – as a “red line that cannot be crossed in Sino-US relations”. The US has vowed to defend Taiwan against possible Chinese aggression.
“The United States noted the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” said the White House in a statement, adding that the two officials “committed to maintain this strategic channel of communication and to pursue additional high-level engagement”.
A Chinese government statement on the Malta meeting largely echoed the US version, saying “the two sides conducted candid, substantive and constructive strategic communication”.
China has accused the US of weaponizing tech and trade issues under the guise of national security while Washington has warned Beijing against its military ambitions in Taiwan and the Pacific. The US has forged security alliances in the Pacific to counter growing Chinese influence.
Sullivan’s meeting with Wang was the latest in a series of high-level discussions between US and Chinese officials that could lay the groundwork for a meeting of US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.
Sullivan last met Wang in the Austrian capital Vienna in May.
Why I Gave up on the American Dream
Huawei is full of surprises
Huawei has made an interesting discovery about the Kirin 9000s processor after a recent software update. Previously, this processor was thought to have an 8-core architecture, but it turns out it actually has 12 cores. This revelation has attracted significant attention, as it brings a substantial boost in processing power and performance for devices using this chip. It’s always exciting when technology surprises us with hidden capabilities, and this discovery could have a positive impact on the performance
of devices powered by the Kirin 9000s processor.
Huawei has released HarmonyOS 4.0.0.116 for its Mate 60 series and Mate X5 smartphones. These devices are powered by the Kirin
9000s chipset, which is a new processor developed by Huawei. This update brings the latest features and improvements to these smartphones, enhancing their performance and user experience. It’s always a good sign when manufacturers continue to support their devices with software updates, ensuring that users can enjoy the latest innovations and enhancements.
There seems to be a discrepancy in the reported core count of the Kirin 9000s chipset in the Huawei Mate 60 series. Initially, phone information apps and Geekbench indicated that the chip had an 8-core architecture. However, after a recent software update, these sources are now reporting that the Mate 60 is running a 12-core chip. This is indeed an interesting development, and it could indicate that Huawei has unlocked additional cores in the chipset
through a software update, potentially improving its performance. It’s a noteworthy change, and users may experience enhanced performance as a result of this update.
in the meanwhile … see Huawei new Cloud Service
I gave up on the American Dream|And you should too
My mother did. I moved out at 18 because of physical abuse (beatings). I didn’t talk to her for about 10 years. She called me one day and asked if she could see me. I said no. She started crying and begged me to see her. I agreed. We met and talked for awhile. She told me how sorry she was for the way she treated me growing up. She apologized and begged my forgiveness. She told me of the abuse she went thought from both her parents. Like burning her tongue with a red hot knife for lying. And the beatings that left her bloody. By the time the evening was over, we were both crying and hugging. After that we had a more loving relationship until she passed away.
Years ago, pre-Covid, I went on holiday to Hong Kong with my mother and aunt. I was a teenager at that time, so most of the time, I was roped in to become my mother and aunt’s ‘pack mule’ when we weren’t sightseeing, and they were shopping like no tomorrow.
So one time, we passed by a shop that was selling jewellery and my aunt wanted to take a look. One of the shop attendants take one look at us and spoke to her colleague in Cantonese.
Now, I live in Singapore, and me, my aunt and my mother are all Singaporean Chinese. As such, we are bilingual and Cantonese happened to be one of the languages we can speak and understand.
Essentially, the shop attendant is telling her colleague to not serve us or just show us the cheapest items they got as ‘we can’t afford it anyway’.
Oh geez, I wish phones have the video function at that time, as the dressing down my aunt and mother gave to that shop attendant is GOLD! Not to mention her very impressive imitation of a fish out of the water!
6 Major Culture Shocks After Returning to the US From Europe
The world knows better. China will absolutely take over the entire chip making process, production, business and industry. The U.S. can make some chips for its military equipment. At 1000 times the cost of a Chinese equivalent to fool themselves that they are in charge if that is what they want. That is their right.
But there is no way China will stop till they make their own stuffs. And they will get it done faster, better and cheaper. They always do. The U.S. export control will end the U.S. involvement in 99.9% of chip business losing them trillions of dollars over time. It is too bad. It is not what China wants it is what China is forced into it by the U.S. excesses and U.S. obnoxious and despicable behaviour.
I grew up in a poor family from a small, poor village in Vietnam.
I don’t know why, but to me when I was a small kid, a globe being displayed on the top shelf of a glass cabinet in the living room was the symbol of wealth. A family had that thing, they were rich – that was my silly logic. I liked the globe a lot, but I knew I couldn’t ask my parents for one – because we’re poor.
In my neighborhood, there was a decent family. The husband was a math teacher. He liked me, because every time when I had a tough math homework, I would bring it to him, asked for his guidance, listened and tried to solve it. I also played chess with him. I liked him, because, well, he was nice but also because he had a globe.
One day, after finishing a chess match with the math teacher, I stood there in front of their cabinet, looked up to the globe with my widening eyes. I guessed that he noticed it. He opened the cabinet, took the globe down, then he showed me and asked, “Do you know which country is The land of the Rising sun? Do you know why they said The empire on which the sun never sets?”. I shook my head. Then he told me stories about countries, and the world. All of my dreams were condensed into two things: traveling the world and owning a globe.
I grew up. My dream about traveling around the world is still an on-going dream. But I do own a globe now. A very traditional old school style globe. I don’t display it in a cabinet. I have it on my dining table.
Every day, during dinner, we play a game called Where am I now?. Each of us will take turn to pick a country, then others will ask questions, ‘Are you in Asia?’; ‘You border the ocean?’;… and try to guess which country is it.
Why I Left the USA (Again)
The consumerism here in the USA is ridiculous. And people’s self worth is all determined by what they buy and their social media reels. So sick of it.
In mt early 20’s I had a cute little expensive sports car that I had worked multiple jobs to afford. Some idiot rear ended me and did a lot of damage to it and it should probably have been totalled. Insurance adjuster comes to my house, reeking of alcohol, and decides it can be saved.
Trying to take advantage of my youth & sex, he tells me that he can help me out by referring me to his buddy’s shop to get all the work done. RED flag #1 And that I needn’t worry about getting ripped off. RED flag #2. And that his friend would gladly send a flat bed to my house that afternoon, free of charge, to pick it up. RED flag #3. He gives me his friend’s business card
He then proceeds to hand me a pre-written “letter” from my insurance company, that he has personally signed, that authorizes any & all work to be done. RED flag #4. I read it and realize that nowhere in the paperwork does it state that I have to use his friend. Actually, it is an authorization for me to go anywhere.
I sign it, get my copy and quickly usher him out, implying that I need to call his friend and get this in the works. He leaves smiling. I call my buddy who owns a high end exotic & sports car repair shop and read him the letter. He confirms what I thought and arranges to have a flat bed sent ASAP.
My buddy does the accident repairs, plus a few other custom things that I wanted done. Ends up costing 40% more that a brand new version of my car. Pissed off insurance company contacts me to find out how this all went down. I explained about the adjuster being drunk, pushing his friend’s business, the pre-written letter he showed up with etc.
Ends up the adjuster was getting kick backs from his “friend” and gets fired. Plus the insurance company sued him & won a judgement requiring him to pay the full cost of my car’s repair. And I got my car back in better shape than when I bought it.
I was in Michigan with a bunch of Canadian students on a SERVE trip. Our host, the pastor of a church, complained that when he retired all he would have was “‘Obama Care, like the health insurance you Canadians hate so much.”
I said,”Whaaaaat?”
He insisted we Canadians hate our health care system with its delays and problems. He ‘knew this fact’ from TV and articles he’d read.
I told him, “There’s not a single politician I’ve heard of in Canada who would publicly say he would get rid of our health care and replace it with an American system. Not one. He or she would never be re-elected.”
“Whaaat?” he asked me. “How about heart attack victims who never got treated in time and died? I read about a guy…”
“You have to start reading Canadian newspapers and watching Canadian news channels. We love our health care system. Sure, there are delays, but usually serious cases are treated quickly and families are not bankrupt when they have a medical emergency. You can thank Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather…”
“Who?”
“Tommy Douglas, grandfather of Kiefer Sutherland, the actor. First Canadian leader to initiate universal health care in his Province.”
“His what?”
Finding True America: Why Americans have left the U.S.
Putin cares about the security of Russia preserving the Russian motherland and it’s glory
He cares about RUSSIA and he will choose his future based on what is best for Russia
Putin has no ideology
He is a crisp man of logic and reasoning
Here is why he won’t trust the West again:-
They are LIARS – They promised no eastward expansion of NATO, They made promises with Minsk 2 – eventually they lie and lie and lie some more.
They are steeped in Ideology – They are insane. The leaders are. They are steeped in ideology equivalent to Hitlers. They have caused death and devastation of millions of people in the name of human rights and freedom.
They HATE RUSSIA – The West hates Russia. It’s as simple as that. They want Russia balkanized. They want Russia broken up and swindled of all it’s resources by the Evil Coalition of the West
Putin may do business with the West in the future but he will never trust them or come on their side
Now let’s see the track record of the West :-
They nuked Japan and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people
They destroyed Vietnam, a war where they had no direct causation
They destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and Syria all for some demented ideology and flooded the world with migrants plus Al Qaeda plus ISIS
They haven’t helped a single country fruitfully towards Independence and Strength
They throttled Japan single handedly in the Plaza accords
China is where the USSR should have been and that rankles Putin
Yet he is enough of a realist to understand that China is a giant and the only major economic bulwark to the USA today
So it’s a mutually beneficial partnership
China has no interests in Europe and Russia has little interest in the South China Sea
They have territorial peace now
Russia has the Military Capabilities and the Energy Resources & Raw Materials and China has the High Intellect People and the Manufacturing and the Economy
Together these two nations form a strong bulwark against Western Sanctions & Bullying & Restrictions
They have the largest pliable land area on earth now and they can route bulk of their energy and trade by land and entirely bypass blockades
Plus China has never let down it’s friends at crucial times nor caused color revolution in any of it’s friendly countries nor interfered with any such country
It’s always been TRADE, TRADE and TRADE
It’s why Putin and Xi are teaming up
It’s the only way to form a bulkwark against Western Hegemony
Get Iran into the picture and maybe Saudi Arabia and that would be a very powerful alliance
Ranch Steak
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 to 2 pounds round steak
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup beef broth
1 tablespoon Ranch dressing mix
1/2 cup sour cream
Instructions
Heat oil in large heavy, nonstick skillet.
Fry onions until limp. Remove from pan and set aside.
Cut meat into serving size pieces. Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. Dust lightly with flour and beat it into meat with edge of a saucer. Brown on both sides, adding more oil if needed.
Return onion to pan with meat. Add beef broth, cover and simmer for 50 to 60 minutes or until meat is very, very tender, adding a little more broth if needed.
Combine Ranch dressing mix and sour cream. Remove meat to platter.
Stir sour cream mixture into meat juices. Heat through until bubbly. Pour over meat and serve.
This is not true. Since poverty was wiped out in 2020, 800 million Chinese entered into the middle class, that’s 2.5 times US entire population. Half of rural population moved to cities for better education and healthcare. China has 4 times the US population, but less homelessness. Wealth is concentrated in 1% of population in the US, trillionaires like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, and the middle class is shrinking, many without healthcare. “Middle class” as defined by 96% literacy rate in China, people with basic needs of food and shelter, healthcare and old age benefits.
Russia Retaliates for Sevastopol; Hits Kremenchug Airport Where Missiles were launched
Just days ago, Ukraine fired either French-supplied “SCALP” or British-supplied “Storm-Shadow” missiles at the Russian Black Sea Fleet HEadquearters in Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia, killing what we are now told was 34 high-ranking Russian officers. Now, Russia has retaliated.
The Kremenchug Airport, launch site for the cruise missile attack upon Sevastopol, has been hit by a significant Russian missile barrage.
NO AIR-RAID WARNING WAS SOUNDED PRIOR TO THE ATTACK, with locals suggesting Russia utilized low-observable, KH-50 cruise missiles for the retaliation attack.
Both SCALP and STORM SHADOW missiles, which were stored at the Kremenchug airport, along with the Ukrainian SU-24M/MR bomber aircraft which fired those missiles, have been destroyed.
A substantial number of fire-fighters and ambulances have been dispatched to the airport. We are told there are “significant casualties among pilots, ground crews and even NATO personnel, including Polish troops, who were involved in coordinating the operations and maintaining the missiles.
After my first year at university, I ended up working for McDonald’s, where I made a number of friends and several lovers, and even met my first wife.
I generally worked the night shift. The night shift is quite a lot different from day shift: the average age of the workers is slightly higher (at least when I was there, this was decades ago), and the workload is different.
During night shift:
We spent a huge amount of time cleaning. We deep-cleaned the lobby, dismantled and cleaned the shake machine, and deep-cleaned cooking trays and food prep utensils. (We didn’t have an industrial dishwasher, this all happened by hand.)
We cleaned the grills, a rather tedious process involving lots of scraping with a dedicated tool that was basically an aluminum handle with a stainless steel blade bolted to the end, another tool with a wire mesh pad on the end, and a special cleaning solvent that would take the hair out of your nose.
We changed deep-fryer oil.
We received the supply truck.
We snuck off to make out in the walk-in freezer. Yes, I’m serious. I had several rather delightful makeout sessions with a lovely woman whose name I sadly no longer remember.
We played with the helium tanks that the cDonald’s kept on hand for birthday parties. I will never forget working the back drive-through booth one evening when my friend Henry filled a garbage bag with helium, walked into the booth, and pushed it out the window. We all just kind of stood there watching it float away…including the customers in the drive-through lane.
We played practical jokes on day shift, like stacking the trays the hamburger buns were delivered in all the way to the ceiling, so you actually had to take the entire stack outside to remove the top tray.
At closing, we’d disassemble and clean the various bits of equipment before we locked up. Then we’d go across the street to the 24-hour Perkin’s, which back then was called Perkin’s Bar and Grill (this was before they re-branded as “Perkin’s Family Restaurants”). We called the place “Perkin’s Brawl and Grill” because it would usually be the scene of at least one or two knock-down-drag-out bar fights a month.
Long before I even heard of a “Chicago pizza”, I would make these pizzas that my brother and I referred to as “swamp pizza”. What I would do is take a “off the shelf” pizza kit and raise the dough extra long. And instead of flattening it out in the standard pizza shape, I would use it to line a deep Pyrex dish.
I would then fill it with the sauce and cover it up with cheese. Sometimes I would add meat and mushrooms, and always I would cover with lots and lots of cheese.
It’s been decades since I made these little Swamp Pizzas. But every now and then, I get a hankering for a swamp pizza on a lazy afternoon, and a black and white vintage science fiction or film noir movie. I will tell you that it is perfect for spending a snowy Winter day alone.
Today…
Doggie story
“My dog gave her life to save my son.
Cindy, my dog, was six years old and she was the most home-loving and obedient dog. I loved her and she knew it. When my son was born, she was immediately very protective over him. She’d sit beside his pram for hours, popping her front legs up onto the pram every now and then to make sure he was ok.
My son was almost three years old. We lived near a busy road and we were super vigilant at always child-proofing the front door – without exception. My son, as young children can be, was into everything. We’d often find him in the kitchen at 4 am with a concoction of cereal, milk, dry dog food, eggs, etc all mixed up on the kitchen floor. He was that kind of child – into everything. He also watched everything we would do and try to mimic us in his own unique way, often with highly amusing consequences.
One morning, again around 4 am, he somehow managed to ‘escape’ through his bedroom window. To rewind a little, Cindy knew not to go outside (apart from the garden) without us. We could have left the front door open all day (when my son was visiting with grandparents) and she’d never venture out. She also knew that our son wasn’t allowed to go through the front door without us, evidenced by her pushing at him if he fiddled with the front door handle. She didn’t know that it was double locked. This day, she followed my son through the window.
At 5 am, the police woke us knocking on the door. Their words were – “your son was nearly killed but your dog copped it”. They then reiterated what the lorry driver had said…
He told them that he was driving along in the dark and in the distance, he could see something ‘light colored’ moving on the road. As he got closer, he could see a dog at the side of the road barking and barking at the ‘light colored’ something. At the last moment, he realized that this was a child and was about to swerve. He said he could see the dog, still barking and glancing between the truck and the child. While the driver was braking, the dog ran out into the road, jumped at the child’s back and threw him out of the path of the lorry and at the same time, the lorry hit the dog and killed her.
According to the police, the driver said that he’d never believe what he saw unless it was with his own eyes. He said that the dog definitely knew the danger which is why she was barking so anxiously. He said “that dog just saved that kid’s life and it knew what it was doing.”
That was 39 years ago and I still miss Cindy every day. She was a rough collie (a lassie dog) and I can understand why this breed was chosen for the movies.”
School Bus story
“I drive a school bus and have a 6 grader who I would like to talk about.
Last week he was talking about an elderly neighbor not leaving her house for weeks. I tried to explain how hard it could be for her to do things. On Tuesday I pulled up and he wasn’t at the stop waiting. I looked over and saw him shoveling her porch. I was early so I waited for him. The other kids asked why I waited. I said anyone helping someone deserves a few extra minutes. All the kids started asking him questions about his neighbor. The next day 7 children got on the bus with blankets, food and cards for the elderly woman. I delivered them after worked. Now everyday she stands on the porch and the whole bus waves good morning. I am so proud of him for stepping up and doing the right thing. He taught all the children something important. I smile with pride in my heart because of the extraordinary children I have on my bus.” .
A Secret Global Coup Has Happened!
Let’s say there are 10 people. 1 is a sociopath and 2 are brutish thugs. The sociopath will use the two thugs to keep the rest in line using violence. The other 7 people will be forced to work long and hard so that these 3 can live lives of pleasure and privilege. This is the story of human civilization ever since the agricultural revolution. Countries are people farms; most humans have become farm animals and are treated as such.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Leonard
Matthew Leonard, born on November 26, 1929, in Eutaw, Alabama, embodied the spirit of service from an early age. Raised in a segregated society, Leonard attended Ullman High School in Birmingham, Alabama. He was not only a student but also a Boy Scout, instilling in him the values of honor and duty.
As a teenager, Leonard took on a job at a local drugstore, earning a modest $15 per week. This hard-earned income was dedicated to helping his mother meet the family’s financial needs. Even in his youth, Leonard demonstrated a deep sense of responsibility and commitment to those he cared for.
In 1947, at the age of 18, Matthew Leonard enlisted in the U.S. Army, beginning a remarkable journey that would span nearly two decades. He dedicated himself to a life of service, embracing the challenges and responsibilities that came with it.
Leonard served as a drill sergeant and trained young recruits at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. But as the war in Vietnam broke out, Leonard’s wife said he struggled to watch those young recruits, who weren’t much older than his sons, go to war and die. So, even though he was close to retirement, he volunteered to deploy in the hope of making a difference.
On February 28, 1967, in the heart of Vietnam, Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Leonard, serving as the platoon sergeant for Company B of the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, demonstrated unparalleled bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
Sgt. Leonard’s valorous journey unfolded near Suoi Da, Vietnam, where his platoon suddenly found themselves under a hail of enemy fire. The enemy, armed with small arms, automatic weapons, and hand grenades, vastly outnumbered Leonard’s platoon. Amid the chaos, the platoon’s commander and several key leaders were among the first to be wounded, thrusting Leonard into a position of leadership.
With remarkable composure, Leonard rallied his platoon to repel the initial enemy assault. He swiftly organized a defensive perimeter, redistributed ammunition, and bolstered the morale of his fellow soldiers. Even in the midst of battle, he exemplified unwavering leadership.
As the enemy’s assault intensified, Leonard’s selflessness and bravery shone brighter. When a wounded soldier found himself outside the safety of the defensive perimeter, Leonard risked his life to rescue him. It was during this act of heroism that Leonard himself was struck by a sniper’s bullet, shattering his hand.
Undeterred by his injuries, Leonard refused medical attention and continued to fight. He moved tirelessly from position to position, directing counterfire against the enemy, who had positioned a machine gun that threatened the entire perimeter.
Just as the situation seemed dire, Leonard’s own platoon’s machine gun malfunctioned, adding to the peril. Without hesitation, Leonard crawled to the malfunctioning weapon, determined to get it back into operation. During this critical moment, the enemy machine gun began strafing nearby soldiers, hitting Leonard’s gunner and others.
Summoning every ounce of his strength, Leonard rose to his feet and charged toward the enemy gun. Despite suffering multiple gunshot wounds, he managed to eliminate the enemy machine gun’s crew, silencing the threat.
Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Leonard’s indomitable spirit and unwavering commitment to his comrades and mission endured until the very end. Despite being gravely wounded, he propped himself against a tree and continued to return fire until he could no longer carry on.
His incredible sacrifice and valor were acknowledged with the Medal of Honor, a testament to the extraordinary dedication and courage he displayed in the face of adversity.
Poor Cat Left To Decompose While She Is Alive | Rescue Before And After
Back when I was a young teen (more moons ago than I can count) I worked as a law clerk during the summers at my father’s office in downtown Chicago. Mostly it was busy work, matching mail with files, pulling files for court and some light typing.
On occasion I would go with him to court when he argued cases before the industrial commission (work related accidents).
One of these cases involved an individual who claimed his shoulder injury was so bad he was permanently and totally disabled from working ever again. He was a Russian immigrant and so his lawyer had to use an interpreter to question him during the hearing.
What they didn’t know was that my father had been a Russian Interrogator for the Air Force during the Korean War, and spoke fluent Russian. He had been teaching me conversational Russian while I was growing up, so I was able to follow along for the most part.
When his lawyer asked the question : “Mr. Petrovitch, how high can you lift your right arm” their interpreter actually said “Raise your right hand a small amount and act as if you are in severe pain” to which the man raised his hand a little, groaned and grimaced, squinting his eyes.
On cross-examination, after a laundry list of standard questions (through the interpreter, of course) my dad said in fluent Russian “HANDS UP OR I’LL SHOOT!” The man immediately raised both arms and stretched them towards the ceiling, showing no limitations or pain behavior at all.
Of course the other lawyer started shouting his objections, the interpreter yelled at the petitioner (plaintiff) that he was stupid and the judge covered his face with his hands to try and stop laughing out loud.
Go to the school and demand the phone back immediately. Having a phone is not illegal. If they balk at giving it back and spew some nonsense about not allowing phones at school tell them your child doesn’t have his phone in class but you as his parent require that he carry it with him to be able to track him and reach him as needed. There are many tracking apps now. Calmly, Demand they hand over the phone immediately. If they do not, call the police right there from the school office to report a theft. Get the names and positions of everyone witnessing this. Tell the school that if you don’t get the phone by the next day you will be buying a new phone and your attorney will be in contact with the school regarding the school paying for the new phone plus the old phone plus the attorney’s bill. Ask when the next school board meeting is and suggest you will be attending to discuss the dismissal of all involved, on charges of petty larceny.
You Won’t Βelieve What Τhey Have In Stοre For Us Next..
Let me see if I got this correct. The tax payer now pays for Gov stores and also pays to fill those stores with food and other items again using tax payer money. Then the tax payer goes to buy the food in the Gov store and gets tax on top of that. Crazy times we are living in!
Prison food is not great. It is not served on fine china or plated to be visually pleasing to the eye.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are seldom served.
For five years I went twice a week to spend time with inmates as we worked together on a book project for at risk kids.
We were all volunteers for our community, as we sat on opposite sides of the table.
One evening when I entered the men’s dormitory, where we met, an inmate handed me a small cardboard box.
He said, “We do not have anything to give you to thank you for coming here and treating us with respect. We want you to know we appreciate your giving value to our lives by using our stories to help others.”
I felt humbled and astonished when I saw the contents of the box. It was a red apple, some popcorn, and another small edible item. On the side was a handwritten note with many signatures.
Anyone who has spent time in prison knows fresh fruit is like gold. A thank you in any form is not to be taken lightly.
Inmates sharing their food with an outsider is not common. Sharing food that is fresh and seldom served is momentous.
Their gifts were not only humane. They were risky. Giving gifts was not in the rule book. I looked over at the nearby guards who also chose to be humane that day and let me know they understood the importance of what was happening.
They looked at the hardened faces of the men in my class, whose softened eyes were asking permission. The guards nodded while I fought to keep back the tears.
In all my years of teaching and rendering service to others, I have never felt such gratitude for the priviege as I did that day.
Years later, seeing a red apple stirs my spirit and reminds me, humane and selfless acts still abound.
In unexpected places, gratitude can still civilize us when we least expect it, for both the giver and the recipient.
P.S. The book is available to be borrowed for free through Amazon Kdp select. It is titled, “Redirecting Kids for Success” Prison Prevention…for at risk kids grades 9-12.
Breaking! China just dealt a DEVASTATING blow to U.S. Dollar Dominance
Breaking news on this Monday out of China where we have new data on the dumping of U.S. treasuries and what this means for the U.S. dollar dominance. Saudi Arabia also dumping U.S. treasuries at an increased rate over the past few weeks. What is going on?
Xi changed nothing. You’ve been listening to Western propaganda garbage.
Nearly the entire Global South is behind China. More than 40 countries have expressed a wish to join China-led BRICS and SCO. More than 150 countries have signed up to the BRI and wish to receive Chinese assistance.
China has treated America, Britain and EU with utmost respect. The reverse, unfortunately, has not been true. China is sick and tired of their arrogance and Cold War mentality.
Why did the West change their attitude towards China? Riddle me this.
She’s lying. She has no idea what to do. What she’s trying to selli is the idea that she does.
Here’s the problem. Americans want fentanyl. Enough Americans want fentanyl as to make it worth the enormous risk of smuggling either it, or the raw materials to make it, into the United States. Capitalism 101. And there is no way to stop that. None. Every attempt we’ve ever made to stop drug use by prohibition has been not only an utter failure, but has caused us more trouble than the actual problem we were trying to fix.
There’s a deeper problem. Fentanyl is a symptom, not a cause. And that cause is the utter hopelessness and the lack of resources for the poor in the US. We’ve literally criminalized poverty. We have the weakest social safety net in the industrial world, and we’ve decided that a tax structure that makes it possible for a handful of men to amass fortunes that can buy them freedom from the law, is a good thing even if it leaves 20% of the country living below the poverty line in an information and resource vacuum that leaves most trapped.
Preying on the poor is hugely profitable, and the capitalists have risen to the task. We choose to look away and complain.
HarmonyOS 4.0 reaches over 60 million Huawei devices in less than 2 months
Hauwei unveiled HarmonyOS 4.0, the latest version of its operating system, on August 4. The new iteration brought several changes to the user interface, as well as new features and improvements. Huawei has been quickly rolling out the new software to eligible devices. Earlier this month, we reported that 10 million Huawei smartphones and tablets were already running HarmonyOS 4.0. And today, the company confirmed that the OS has now made its way to over 60 million devices.
Huawei announced 60 million installations of HarmonyOS 4 on Huawei smartphones and tablet devices at its Autumn 2023 Flagship Product Launch event today. The company said it added an average of 1.2 million new users each day. This is just after less than 2 months of the formal announcement of the software.
HarmonyOS 4.0 comes with several notable changes, including a variety of rich theme templates and stylized layout designs. You can select the colors of your app icons and set emoji wallpapers and home screens by choosing your favorite emoji.
It also lets you better manage your notifications by clustering them together and sorting them by importance. The notifications for the same app are now stacked into dynamic cards so you can see more information about each notification without having to open it. HarmonyOS 4.0 also lets you identify text and images by double-clicking and then long-pressing to select them.
Huawei had a busy day today. It launched half a dozen new products in China, including a Huawei Mate 60 RS Ultimate Design smartphone with satellite calling and a ceramic body. In addition, the company unveiled the FreeBuds Pro 3 as well as the Watch GT 4.
U.S Sanctions Failed As China’s Shenzhen Imports Integrated Circuits From All Around the World!
“We see the “US of Amurdikkka is fastly declining in to a third world company/country/corporation.” Fall Babylon fall, youve destroyed so many. Now enjoy the ride down, you’ll never rise again.”
I’ve been wondering whether or not to answer this… The “wrong person” is my daughter (stepdaughter really,but I’m Daddy now and forever so that settles that) and the people doing the “picking a fight”were her ex boyfriend and his father.. I didn’t personally witness this because I was in Iraq at the time,but believe me I sure heard about it.
Daughter is tall and not a delicate flower even though she has all the requisite standard equipment to attract stares and suchlike, including a startling resemblance to Gal Gadot ,and I always emphasized to all my kids the importance of self confidence ,so she carries herself with a certain pride. She has Blackfeet blood along with Irish and Norwegian and who knows what else, girl has a temper too,what can I say..
Anyways,ex boyfriend and father spot her walking down the sidewalk one weekend night and follow her,asking her to get in and go for a cruise.. She says no,but they apparently don’t want to take no for an answer and pull ahead and stop, ex BF Gets out of the car and grabs her elbow and pulls her towards the car,she pulls away and he grabs her again, by this time she is almost in the door. I had taught my kids to avoid punching someone and use their elbows if the person was close enough, which ex BF certainly was unfortunately for his dumb ass, because Daughter proceeds to elbow him repeatedly in the face with backswing strikes on her way away from the car, dislocating ex BF‘S jaw and shattering his eye socket and breaking his nose, and naturally stopped any hostilities on his part, but ex BF’s dad was pushed by this time and ran around the car and accosted Daughter, catching a 50 yard field goal kick in his balls for his troubles..I taught my kids well.
Well, as an American woman, I would recommend that China’s leaders maintain a strong and unyielding stance against the outright bully tactics of my country’s government. To be fair, the US isn’t the only country upping their anti-China sentiments but it is the country I am from so that is what I primarily speak of.
I would say to China, you have more than paid your dues and earned your right as a superpower in world affairs. Hold your heads proudly because you have every right to. There is no need to hide your strength anymore. It is time to let it be on display.
You are one of, if not the oldest country with 5000 years of continuous history. You don’t need to bow to anyone. You don’t need to apologize for being great. You don’t need to sell your technology to the US. You don’t need to accept blame for a virus that was not your fault. You don’t have to back off of your initiatives because other countries don’t approve. You don’t have to take acts of aggression from our spy planes flying in your airspace. You don’t have to tolerate the blatant disrespect to your consulate that was closed in our country. Your people don’t have to accept racism when they come to the US to attend college, work in research, or just visit as tourists.
Please don’t let anyone else push you around anymore. Never again. Let that be your motto from here on out.
Germany Freaks Out – China, PLEASE Buy Our Cars!
“As a European, I am so ashamed of our political class and what they have turned the Eurozone into. If the european project is just a facade for American hegemony, then let it die and this is extremely hard for me to say, because I see the eurozone and union as a great idea but ONLY if we have autonomy both strategically, economic and militarily. These two years have shown we have none of it and this is why I write this. It is mindbuggling/unbelievable stupid what is happening right now.”
Let me tell a story about a Clerk who worked with me who made me believe that The Godfather (Book) theory that The Simplest and most humble man can avenge himself against the most powerful of men with patience
We worked in a Branch where i was temporarily in charge of recovery. The branch was a Scale IV Branch but for some reason a Scale V AGM had been deputed to the branch for a temporary basis due to some shortage or something.
This Asst General Manager who had a chip on his block. You had a good natured thirty something old clerk who worked in the department and who was a pretty good guy. He owned a family business as well and would very often give us discounts. I went on many recovery missions with him and he was always a cheerful and happy go lucky type.
Our Old Branch Manager was a good man but once he retired – until his replacement came- this AGM was posted and he was a PRIG. He was angry at working in a Scale IV post and showed it on people.
Now our Clerk always went from 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM to pick up his daughter, take her to the family business premise, drop her there, have tea and return. The lunch ended at 2:30 so he would always be around 45 minutes late which he would make up by working from 5:30 to 6:15 in the evening. He would help a lot of us.
This arrangement was unofficially agreed upon by the Old Branch Manager. The New Prig did not agree . He believed it was against Bank rules and decided to take the clerk on. Now the clerk requested the AGM to give him the time off but the AGM refused. He decided to run the department efficiently (Instead he made it highly inefficient). He refused to repair a water filter (Back then Aquaguards were rare) and calculated the cost of Pens and White Paper.
One day – the wife of the clerk came. The clerk was away for recovery and the peon took her straight to the AGM. She told the AGM that she had to go to her mother and requested that her husband pick up the child as usual. Back then there were no cellphones or SMS and the lady had come to the office for the first time. The AGM was preoccupied with something and forgot (I believe this. Others say he deliberately did what he did but i believe he was preoccupied)
Bottom line – the message was not conveyed. It was 2:50 PM or so when the Peon told the clerk that his wife had visited. The Clerk was puzzled and walked into the AGMs office but the AGM was not there. The Clerk shrugged and continued on with his work believing that his daughter had picked up the child. It was 4 PM when the brother of the Clerk called the Office and asked where the child was? The Clerk was stunned and believed the child would be with his wife but Myself and few others decided to ask the AGM (Bank Hierarchy especially PSU hierarchy is a big thing. Approaching an AGM when you are a Scale II officer is a scary prospect) but the Clerk was out of the doors.
The Good thing was that the Child was a clever girl and simply sat outside with the Watchman of the School and was relieved when the father picked her up. The Father brought her to the branch and he was hugely relieved.
What happened next was straight out of the Malayalam Movie Drivers License
The AGM who saw a child and commotion – shouted at the top of his voice. He abused the Clerk in the loudest words calling him inefficient and moron. The Clerk also raised his voice and talked about his wifes message and the AGM said “I am not your messenger or Postman”. By the time the others separated them – the Clerk had literally been abused in front of his girl who was watching the whole thing (She was in Class IV i think)
The Clerk silently took his daughter home burning with humiliation. The local association leader told him to stage a Dharna but the clerk refused. He told me “God will take care” and i thought it was the usual sentimental nonsense. He remained on his desk, never asked for any leave from the HC, did his work and we all presumed the issue was finished.
Then An Opportunity came
Back then there was no Core Banking. A Customer came with a Fixed Deposit Receipt for Rs. 6 Lakh and wanted Cash. The Officer in question looked at the register and saw that the FD number was not mentioned (No Computers also. Back then we had Ledgers where FD numbers would be mentioned and recorded). The Customer was known to the AGM though and the AGM told the Officer to go ahead and encash the FD.
However it was after Lunch and the normal officer was gone for the day. I am a law and recovery officer and have no role to play so there were no officers. The AGM promptly asked the Clerk to encash the FD and pay the cash (Highly irregular) and the Clerk said “Sir the FD number is not on the ledger”. The AGM arrogantly told him that the customer could not be made to wait and so the Clerk paid him.
Once the Customer was paid and left, the Officer returned the next day or so and searched in every register but could not find a trace of the FD record. He told the AGM and the AGM called the customer but the customer was gone (It was a honest explanation. The Customer did not cheat etc. He just was away somewhere else). The AGM was now sweating beads. The Clerk shrugged. “I am just a clerk. I follow instructions. You instructed me to encash the FD” – he said and pointed at a few of us as witnesses.
The Officer was told by the AGM to give a few days but the same evening the clerk told him “Sir…if you report this today then you are clear but if you take a few days then they may think you are also involved”. The Officer decided to not take chances and reported it.
What happened next was unbelievable. The Big Boss arrived personally and blasted the AGM. Then some people came to go through the ledgers and found Rs. 6 Lakh shortage (A Huge sum back then) and told the AGM he had to make the amount good or they would report to the cops. The AGM was shivering but nothing could be done. The cops arrived and took him to the station. Now the Clerk was a local and the cops were locals. The AGM was an outsider – so they sweated him, threatened him, took him to his house in a jeep in front of his wife and children, talked to his neighbors etc. I was asked to be there at the station as a lawyer and the cops took iron rods and torture devices in front of me. When i said “What the hell is this ??” – the SI laughed and said “Sir! We are not mad. This is just for getting him to talk”
The poor man stayed the entire day at the Station. The next day the Customer returned. He had presented an FD receipt for another branch of our bank so the number was not in our ledger. He gave the FD receipt of our branch and the ledger confirmed the number and everything was okay.
But the AGM was finished. He was humiliated in every way possible. He took leave for 4–5 days and asked for a Transfer
It was then that the clerk told me “Sir. On that day itself i saw that this FD receipt was from a different branch. Had he been a better man – i would have told him then and there. I would have told the customer itself. None of this would have happened”
I told him he had been too cruel but he said “There is nothing worse than being yelled at in front of your child for no fault of your own”.
The AGM who was destined to become CMD – resigned from the bank unable to bear the humiliation of the incident (Though it lasted exactly for 14 – 15 hours after which it was all over). He joined Madura Courts and his career was never the same. He later began to sell Reuters Screens on a commission basis.
The Moral of the Story is – Humiliation by your boss unjustly will always come back to bite the boss. This Clerk who was such a good man that when i was transfered – he travelled in a lorry with my furniture to ensure that the local packers dont take me for a ride. Yet he never forgot his humiliation and destroyed the life of the AGM.
If you are a Boss – Never humiliate your underlings. Call them separately and tick them off but never in front of others. Easiest way to make enemies.
True for all fields.
Pizzeria Uno Chicago Deep Dish Pizza
This is a clone recipe of the best Chicago-style pizza you will ever eat!
Servings: 8
Pan Dough 1 cup warm tap water (110-115 degrees F) 1/4 ounce active dry yeast 3 1/2 cups flour 1/2 cup course ground cornmeal 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt 1/4 cup vegetable oil
Pizza Topping 1 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced thin 1 pound Italian sausage, removed from the casing and crumbled 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained 2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced 5 fresh basil leaves, chopped fine 4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
Pour the warm water into a large mixing bowl and dissolve the yeast with a fork.
Add 1 cup of flour, all of the cornmeal, salt, and vegetable oil, and mix well with a spoon.
Continue stirring in the rest of the flour 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. Flour your hands and the work surface and knead the ball of dough until it is no longer sticky.
Let the dough rise in an oiled bowl, sealed with plastic wrap, for 45-60 minutes in a warm place, until it has doubled in size.
Punch it down and knead it briefly.
Press it into an oiled 15-inch deep dish pizza pan until it comes 2 inches up the sides and is even on the bottom of the pan.
Let the dough rise 15-20 minutes before filling.
Heat the oven to 500 degrees F.
While the dough is rising, prepare the filling.
Cook the sausage until it is no longer pink and drain the excess fat.
When the dough has finished its second rising, lay the cheese over the dough shell.
Distribute the sausage and garlic over the cheese.
Top with the tomatoes.
Sprinkle on the seasonings and Parmesan cheese.
Bake for 15 minutes at 500 degrees F, then lower the temperature to 400 degreesF and finish baking for 25-35 minutes longer.
Lift up a section of the crust from time to time with a spatula to check its color. The crust will be golden brown when done.
Serve immediately.
Cat Sisters Meet After 9 Months Apart – Do They Recognize Each Other?
The Ukraine War was one of the worst miscalculations of the West and the Stupidest
The aim was to
Weaken Russia and destroy it Economically
Weaken Russia Globally and make it a Pariah
Give China a strong message and frighten China into following the Biden Doctrine
What’s happened is:-
A resurgent Russia that has something to fight for at last and has grown stronger every day
A Russo Sino Alliance that is fast becoming a nice power bloc with many nations with resources and heavy sanctions now drifting to them
Loss of Confidence in the West by 80% of the world and belief in a Multipolar world
Waning Western impact of Sanctions
Ensure China knows it’s War and prepare for it instead of catching them off guard
Today, Ukraine has been brutalized badly
It has lost 33.7% of pre SMO population as Refugees or now Russian Citizens in the Donors region and Kherson and Zaprozhye
It has lost its entire production capacity and it’s own weapon reserves have been brutally depleted and it relies on western arms and money which is dwindling every day
The West has spent $ 130 Billion so far on Ukraine and most of this money has been salted away due to severe corruption
Ukraine is sending more and more men to die
Russia meanwhile is happy with it’s grind and move strategy, minimizing casualties and enjoying the growth of their own industries in the MI complex
Scenario 1:-
The West want to FREEZE the conflict
Russia said No
Maybe Russia would be incentivized to do so like say offer to remove sanctions on Russia or maybe persuade China to convince Russia
Bleak chance of this happening
Scenario 2:-
Ukraine is destroyed
Russia decides to move from SMO to war and start hitting and destroying Ukraine like US did to Iraq or Afghanistan
Zelensky would flee and most leaders would flee then and Ukraine would capitulate
Timeline: 2025 March or April
Biden will not be President. He may not even be nominated as the Democratic candidate, so he will vindictively carry this till 19/1/25
Scenario 3:-
Trump is elected
Trump only has one term left and knows once he is elected, he has no more fears and no need to worry about voters again
He may make a deal and force Zelensky to surrender and make a deal with Russia and China
Unlike 2016, he won’t have the fear now because he can’t stand for any more elections
Scenario 4:-
The famous BAKYAN scenario
Poland moves into West Ukraine on invitation from Ukraine and forms a protectorate for West Ukraine
Central & remaining Ukraine is given security guarantees akin to Article V by Poland (Proxy by USA) and formally remains as the NEW UKRAINE
Donbass, Zaprozhye, Kherson are abandoned by Ukraine and Poland but not recognized by the West or UN as part of Russia and only as break away republics
However in reality, those territories will never return to Ukraine again along with Crimea for a long time
Russia will declare a cease fire to avoid clashing with Poland, a Nato power
Zelensky will be mostly arrested due to corruption and replaced by someone else
Timeline :- 30/6/2024 , a clean 4–5 months before the US Elections
The Destruction of Los Angeles | 2012 (John Cusack, Morgan Lily, Liam James)
I have not, but an interesting backfire happened with a close friend’s father, George.
Meet George, he is a PhD Astrophysicist and works in a very specialized field for the United States Department of Defense through a Defense Contractor. He has developed a number of unique solutions over his career that solved some very big problems for some very expensive black projects.
After over 30 years on the job he had moved to the top of his career path, he led a sizable group of physicists and engineers, but was not in management. Following a reorganization, George and his band of merry eggheads found themselves under a manager that had very little experience managing. When budget cuts came down, the green manager started reviewing the personnel files and, unsurprisingly, George was the highest paid person in the department. George was given the option to take an early retirement or be laid off. He was getting close to full retirement age and taking early retirement took a large chunk out of the pension he was counting on. He even offered to give up salary or work part time to address the budget needs. The manager would hear nothing of it.
Once George’s retirement was announced, a number the physicists and engineers approached the manager to warn him that there were solutions that only George fully understood and if there became a need to update or change some of the solutions, they may not be able to do it. George gracefully retired from the company and headed off to teach at the local university. About a year later, he heard from a number of his former team that there had been layoffs and terminations from the team by the same manager. A contract had come in to the company to modify one of George’s unique solutions and the remaining team was unable to make it work. The manager was under the gun to deliver and when it wasn’t working, he was accusing the team of being lazy and incompetent.
Not too long after, the Manager contacted George and asked him if he would come back on a short-term basis, George declined because he was happy teaching at the university. The manager continued to pester George until he finally agreed to come into the office to talk about what it would take to bring him back. George told the manager that he would come with his terms and that the meeting had to include the HR Director and the department Director.
George’s terms:
The company take back his early retirement and bridge his service so he could reach full retirement. (The manager groaned, but grudgingly agreed.)
Any of the team that was fired or forced to resign would be offered the option to come back. (The manager was furious, but George demanded that he had to have his team to be successful, so the manager agreed)
He become the manager of the department. (The manager threw up his hands and said it would never happen, there was only one manager of the department.)
The department director agreed to George’s last term.
We have A guardian Angel his name is Harry Kim.
Kathryn Janeway was a mother figure to almost ALL the crew … the clear exceptions being her first and second officers … but she ESPECIALLY was so to Harry Kim.
Oh my god, no. God, no… no no… I’d rather they stay dead.
Jesus, the mere thought of it gives me anxiety and stress.
My father died very suddenly last year. It was like my aunt talked to him on Friday, and he died of a heart attack on Sunday in his house.
For a few months, I kept thinking if I had any regrets. If I knew he would die, what would I say to him, or what would I want to do with him?
I came up with nothing.
It’s not like I don’t have anything to say. In fact, I have a LOT to say, so much so that I had therapy for years so that I could process and perhaps recover from all that childhood trauma from his abuse and neglect.
Would I say that to him? No. Because he wouldn’t listen. Not only he wouldn’t listen, he would turn it around and make it my fault. He would make me feel that I somehow wronged him, that I should feel guilty and ashamed and beg him for forgiveness and ask him how I can make it better. He’s an emotional manipulator, and he will never change. Not even in death.
He had, in his own domineering kind of way, made some attempt to mend our relationship after his 3rd wife died. But I couldn’t help but think he was doing that not because he genuinely wanted to fix our father-daughter relationship but because he did the mental calculation and realized with his wife dead, I was the only person who would take care of him if he couldn’t care for himself. It’s all about him. Never about me.
After he died, I wondered if he’d come back and haunt me or if he would come visit me in my dreams. Not that I believe in such things, but my aunt said her father (my grandpa) had visited her several times. And I thought, “Oh, you want to come and haunt me? Go ahead. I have something I want to scream at you. So come and haunt me and see how it ends for you, Dad.”
I’ve never even dreamed of him once since he died.
Having him back to life for 24 hours is not going to change anything between us.
The same goes for my mom, who ran off with some artist when I was 18 months old. The same goes for my grandma, who had raised and abused me…
You all better stay the fuck dead because you ain’t gonna like what I have to say to you.
Quit Your Job In 2023, This is my way out
No more 9 to 5 job for me. Do you also struggle with not having time for more valuable things in life than your work, do you spend too much time working for others? Are you feeling frustrated and stressed about not having time to live your life to the fullest, this is my story of how I realized my dream of living a simpler and less stressful life by quitting my job and stopped working for others.
In the ever-evolving landscape of the global smartphone industry, Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, once relied heavily on Qualcomm chips to power its devices. However, recent years have witnessed a significant shift in Huawei’s chipset strategy as it began to develop its own chipsets and reduce its dependence on Qualcomm. This change in course raised questions and curiosity in the tech world. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the reasons behind Huawei’s decision to distance itself from Qualcomm chips, explore the challenges and opportunities that this shift presents, and assess the implications for both Huawei and the larger smartphone ecosystem.
1: The Historical Nexus
1.1. Qualcomm’s Dominance
A brief overview of Qualcomm’s leading position in the semiconductor industry.
Huawei’s early partnership with Qualcomm and the Snapdragon chipset series.
1.2. Huawei’s Ascendancy
Huawei’s rise to global prominence as a smartphone manufacturer.
The integral role of Qualcomm chips in Huawei’s international success.
2: Huawei’s Push for In-House Chip Development
2.1. The Emergence of HiSilicon
The birth of Huawei’s semiconductor subsidiary, HiSilicon.
The strategic importance of in-house chip development.
2.2. The Rise of the Kirin Chipsets
Introduction to Huawei’s Kirin chipset series.
Technological advancements and innovations in Kirin chips.
2.3. The Competitive Edge
How HiSilicon’s chip development aligns with Huawei’s long-term goals.
The advantages of vertical integration and control over chip design.
3: U.S. Sanctions and Supply Chain Stumbles
3.1. The Unfolding U.S. Sanctions Saga
An examination of the U.S. sanctions imposed on Huawei.
How these sanctions impacted Huawei’s access to critical technologies, including Qualcomm chips.
3.2. Vulnerabilities in the Supply Chain
The precariousness of relying on foreign suppliers for critical components.
The central role of chipsets as a strategic resource in the smartphone industry.
4: HarmonyOS and Huawei’s Ambitious Vision
4.1. Huawei’s Vision for HarmonyOS
Introduction to HarmonyOS, Huawei’s proprietary operating system.
The strategic significance of developing an Android alternative.
4.2. A Unified Ecosystem
How HarmonyOS aims to provide a seamless user experience across devices.
The role of chipset compatibility in achieving the HarmonyOS vision.
5: Implications and Challenges
5.1. Disrupting the Smartphone Market
How Huawei’s departure from Qualcomm chips impacts the competitive landscape.
Implications for consumers, industry players, and market dynamics.
5.2. Pursuing Technological Self-Reliance
The broader implications of Huawei’s commitment to technological self-reliance.
Lessons for other tech giants facing similar geopolitical challenges.
5.3. The Road Ahead
The technological and market challenges Huawei faces in developing its own chipsets.
The importance of innovation, research, and development in overcoming these hurdles.
6: Consumer Perceptions and the Future Outlook
6.1. Consumer Reactions and Preferences
How Huawei’s decision to utilize its chipsets is perceived by consumers.
Factors influencing consumer preferences in the realm of smartphones.
6.2. Shaping the Future of Huawei Smartphones
Prospects for Huawei’s smartphone business in the absence of Qualcomm chips.
The role of design, innovation, software, and competitive pricing in defining Huawei’s future offerings.
Conclusion
The divergence of Huawei from Qualcomm chips signifies a monumental shift in strategy with far-reaching implications. While the impact of U.S. sanctions and supply chain disruptions are undeniable catalysts for this transition, Huawei’s investments in in-house chipset development and the vision of HarmonyOS underscore its unwavering commitment to technological self-sufficiency and innovation. As we conclude this article, we gain a comprehensive understanding of the complex factors influencing Huawei’s strategic decision and what the future holds for one of the world’s foremost smartphone manufacturers.
INDIAN NEWS is Cheap Western Propaganda
The Indian news channels like WION and ANI (Asean News International) have become cheap propaganda outlets for the Western Colonial Masters that have always ruled over the Indian population. This video shows beyond any doubt that India News is part of the Anti China propaganda network set up by American Politicians and Main Stream Media. It is no secret as they admit to it in this video that they have joined this movement of hate against China.
A young German soldier during WWII was ordered to check the house for Jews. After minutes of searching, he declares the house clear.
His commanding officer is unconvinced. “Schauen Sie in den Dachboden,” he orders. Check the attic.
“Die Luke ist offen! Die würden sich nicht dort verstecken!” The young soldier says. The attic door is wide open! Surely they wouldn’t hide there!
His commander shakes his head. “Schauen Sie trotzdem nach.” Go check anyway.
The soldier climbs the ladder. As he peers into the darkness, he sees at least a dozen Jews hiding in the attic. All women and children.
Their terrified faces look back at him. Nobody dares to move. The young soldier turns and shouts to his commander.
“Alles klar!” All clear.
The soldier closes the trapdoor, leaving the Jews in the dark. He will never see them again.
Decades later, one of the young children in the attic will recall the anonymous soldier’s kindness. Every single person in the attic survives the war. Many attribute their lives to the young man.
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was a remarkable aircraft that could fly at speeds over Mach 3.2 and at altitudes up to 85,000 feet. It was the fastest manned aircraft ever flown and still holds many speed, altitude, and distance records for a manned aircraft.
Flying in such an extreme environment required special training and equipment for the pilots. The pilots of the SR-71 wore full-pressure suits that resembled those worn by astronauts. The suits protected them from low pressure, low temperature, and lack of oxygen at high altitudes. They also provided protection in case of an emergency ejection.
The pilots also had to cope with the high g-forces and acceleration that resulted from flying at such high speeds. The SR-71 could accelerate from Mach 1 to Mach 3 in less than 15 minutes, which put a lot of stress on the human body. The pilots had to undergo rigorous physical training and medical examinations to ensure they were fit for the mission. They also had to use special techniques to breathe and move their limbs during high-g maneuvers.
The pilots also experienced a unique sensation of speed when flying the SR-71. They could see the curvature of the Earth and the stars in broad daylight. They could also see the shock waves forming around the aircraft as it broke the sound barrier. The SR-71 flew so fast that it could outrun any missile or enemy aircraft that tried to intercept it. The pilots had to rely on their instruments and their instincts to navigate and control the aircraft.
Hang on, this is VERY strange!
This is the equivalent of China recognizing Puerto Rico as a sovereign nation….
My ex husband and I got married at Gretna Green with just 2 friends for witnesses. On the day after the wedding on the car journey home, we were passing a field of higland cows (ginger and hairy like me apparently) and said in an insulting tone, “oh look Sarah, there’s your relations”. I immediately fired back with “yes, but only through marriage”…. friends were in stitches, he never even cracked a smile. He had no sense of humour and had been trying to belittle me in front of people as he did the entire 9 years I was with him…
Another time when I was about 25 or so, at a neighbours bbq, I approached a small group of people listening to one guy in his late 50′s or so telling sexist joke after sexist joke. At the end of each joke all the men laughed loudly and the women kind of awkwardly. I had always found this guy a bit of a chauvinist and quite ‘sleazy’ so stepped in with my own joke… Mrs Smith went to hospital to give birth. After the baby was born the doctor said to her “I’m really sorry Mrs Smith but your baby is a hermaphrodite”. “A what?” asked Mrs Smith. “A hermaphrodite, it has features of both sexes” said the doctor. Mrs Smith gasps and says “Oh my god….it has a penis AND a brain!”. The women in the group all belly laughed but the sleaze not so much
A well-told lie is worth a thousand facts. The debt-trap narrative is a lie, a powerful one.
There are three main fallacies in the West’s hype about China’s “debt trap theory”: First, in terms of debt causes, countries in debt distress today often fall into debt traps before the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Second, in terms of debt ownership, most of these countries’ debt is owed to Western or pro-Western institutions, not China. Studies show that 80 per cent of Sri Lanka’s external debt, 70 per cent of Pakistan’s and 77 per cent of Zambia’s external debt is owned by Western private and public institutions.
Third, in terms of the nature of debt, Western loans tend to be short-term with high interest rates, leading to unsustainable debt cycles, while Chinese lending to developing countries is long-term, low-interest credit that helps improve infrastructure.
The characteristics of China’s BRI financing is that it breaks through the traditional model, with no political conditions attached, and the forms of financing are pragmatic and diverse; The Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank both emphasize debt sustainability, with commercial needs flexibly integrated with national strategies.
The irresponsible monetary policy of the United States is the real reason for the concentrated outbreak of debt problems in developing countries. The United States first implemented an ultra-loose monetary policy, allowing low-interest dollars to pour into Africa and emerging market countries, and then aggressively raised interest rates to attract dollars back to the United States, resulting in insufficient liquidity in developing countries.
Since China is not the largest creditor of developing countries, why does the West hype the “China debt trap theory”? The answer is that China’s “Belt and Road” initiative helps developing countries improve their economic capability. Once these countries achieve independent economic development, they do not have to rely on borrowing money from Western developed countries to maintain production and life, which is equivalent to cutting off a financial route for Western countries.
How I See the USA After 14 Years of Living Abroad & Expat Life
After 14 years of living abroad and enjoying expat life, I wanted to talk a bit about how I see the US now… This week, we’ll be taking a look at the USA through an Expat lens… Is the U.S. truly the “leader of the free world”, or is that just a perception we’ve grown accustomed to? One of many topics that are worth thinking about is the education system. Does it really prepare us for life, or is it more about scoring high on tests?
What about healthcare access? Is it as straightforward as it seems, or are there nuances we’re missing when comparing American Healthcare with European Healthcare? Another important factor to consider is safety and quality of life, is the U.S. the gold standard, or are there elements of community and culture that we’re overlooking in comparison with overseas?
We’ll also touch on the topic of zoning. Is it just a mundane urban planning concept, or does it have deeper implications for our lifestyle and mobility? Finally, we’ll take a look at the geographical isolation of North America. Is it just a geographical fact, or could it be shaping our understanding of the world in ways we don’t realize? There’s a lot to unpack, and these are the conversations that need to be had.
In this expat podcast episode of Not Your Average Globetrotter, hosted by me, Rafael Di Furia, I’ll share how I view the US and American culture and lifestyle in comparison with the culture and lifestyle in Europe and elsewhere having been abroad for more than 14 years, questioning everything from its global leadership role and education system to healthcare access, safety standards, connections in local communities, cultural rituals, and the implications of its geographical isolation.
My husband and I entered an elevator in a hotel in Vegas, headed to the lobby and extraordinarily tall black man was already in there. I smiled and tried not to stare because he was simply that enormous.
Husband, a sports fanatic, asked the giant of he’d ever played basketball and the giant responded that yeah, he’d played some ball in his day and DH told the giant that if he hadn’t, he would have missed an opportunity. The giant chuckled and sort of shook his head.
When we arrived in the lobby, we all kind of nodded and smiled and went out separate ways. I asked DH what his little exchange was all about.
The giant was Shaquille O’Neill, the Shaq Attack. My husband told Shaq that he would have missed an opportunity if he hadn’t played basketball.
I told a story about a kid threatening to kill himself. Let me explain.
I didn’t think I was going to get the job. Not in a “I don’t believe in myself” kind of way, I mean in a “I have direct evidence” kind of way. A meeting I’d had fell through, so I showed up for my interview super early. This meant I was sitting there in the lobby when the head of the special education department opened the door, profusely shook another woman’s hand, and said:
“You are exactly what we’re looking for. We’ll send out an offer to you as soon as we’re done with today’s interviews.” Then she looked up and saw me waiting. “Oh, you’re here early, come on it.”
So I walked in knowing I was wasting my time, but I was already there and decided to have fun with it. I told jokes. I made fun of the number of people they had in the room to interview me (7!). I was as casual as possible and answered every question off the cuff instead of trying to think of an answer they wanted to hear. Then they asked me one of those awful, super generic questions you always get when you work with kids, something along the lines of “What was your moment when you realized you knew you were supposed to be a teacher?”
I have no patience for those questions, and find them to be really performative and all about showing how generically kind and sensitive you are. For a job I thought I was going to get I might have played along and told an exaggerated story about teaching a kid to read or something. I didn’t do that.
Instead I told them about one of my students in the Emotional Disorder class I was teaching at a middle school. The little guy had a severe anxiety disorder, and we were trying to support him while also ignoring attention seeking behaviors. So when he started yelling I escorted him to the quiet break area. When he started shouting he needed to go to the hospital I assured him I would check in on him to make sure he was ok. And when he started screaming that he was going to kill himself I pointed out there was nothing in the area he could use to do it, and if he decided to bang his head against the wall it would probably just really hurt. Two minutes later he poked his head out and calmly asked if he could do his math work, and I realized that some of the interventions I was using were actually working. It was a pretty cool feeling. Everyone in the room was silent, and more than a few looked really freaked out. No worries, I already knew they gave the job to someone else, and went on my way.
They offered me the job that evening. Apparently they had an elementary school moderate/severe class with a lot of difficult behaviors, and my story had convinced them immediately that I could handle it. Oh, and that other woman I saw getting offered a job? She was a speech therapist, and not a teacher at all. Looks like we both crushed our interviews.
We had 4,000 employees and had been the world leader in our field for about 10 years at this time.
We were not the price setter, though. But we did very well and had a reasonable operating margin, enough to satisfy our corporate owners and shareholders.
Then we got a new president, an American B-school graduate. He came from Stanford, as I recall.
After some time he declared to us in the sales department (about 90 people), operating worldwide.
Raise all prices 15 percent
Go back on all orders in house and negotiate a 15 percent higher price.
I tried.
We all tried.
We suffered, badly.
No new orders for nine (9) months.
The customers with orders in place said a flat “are you out of your fr…..g mind?”
Our build cycle, order to delivery, was about 18 months.
Nine months later the factories started to look empty and were laying off staff, weekly — NO NEW ORDERS.
“Biggest boss” at our owning company got wind of this and came to town.
Our president was fired the same day and we all in sales got new instructions.
“Forget all orders about price increases — go sell as competitively as you can.”
It took about two years for the company to regain its world-leading position.
By that time, I and just about half of our previous sales organization were gone, replaced by eager young souls.
The “American Dream” Is A Big Lie
I talk about how the “American Dream” is a big lie. Too many people around the world are victims to debt, consumerism, and care too much about what other people think. I give my all knowing wisdom via Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
There was a 1979 movie starring Peter Falk titled “The In-laws”, and for some strange reason I just remembered this movie. I tried to download the torrent, but it is taking forever. It is just a goofy and funny comedy, but for some reason… it came to mind.
The premise of this film is really simple: if two families are about to enjoy the union of their children in a marriage, is it not likely that the in-laws involved can come to depend and help each other out in times of need? Most of us would probably say no, or want to know the extent of the help. However, when Vincent J. Ricardo (Peter Falk) asks Dr. Sheldon Kornpett (Alan Arkin) to assist him in retrieving something from a safe in Ricardo’s office, Kornpett is willing (if somewhat suspiciously) to do it.
The reason that Kornpett is suspicious is he is not quite certain what to make of Ricardo. They only met at Kornpett’s house the night before, for a dinner party introducing the families of the bride (Kornpett’s) and groom (Ricardo’s) to each other. Ricardo acted…well oddly. He told tales of his business travels in Central America, including how in one country babies are being carried off by huge bats that are protected by the Guacamole Act of 1917. Kornpett hears this with a blank face, although his eyes do bug out a little in disbelief. Later, when Ricardo gets testy with his son over a comment about the former not being home enough, Kornpett can’t believe the near rage that Ricardo demonstrates at the table. So his suspicions about his future in-law seem well based.
Shortly, after being chased and nearly killed by two men who are after the items that Kornpett picked up, the suspicions seem confirmed. Ricardo explains to him, over pea soup in a restaurant, that he actually is not a successful salesman but a C.I.A. operative (a photo in Ricardo’s office confirms this: it is of President Kennedy, and the autograph refers to the Bay of Pigs Invasion). He is in the middle of a critically important mission in Latin America dealing with international finance and a conspiracy against the richest nations. Kornpett hears him out, and is upset to hear that there is more material that Ricardo hid in Kornpett’s home the night before. He wants no part of it, and leaves to go home – only to find the police there. He flees, and does evade capture – at the cost of having his car repainted in a way he never would have wanted it to look.
Soon Kornpett is forced to join forces with Ricardo, and enters the deadly serious but (here) quite farcical world of international espionage and intrigue. At the end of the road is the ringleader of the conspiracy, General Garcia (Richard Libertini) who has a special little friend that makes Al Pacino’s little friend in SCARFACE lethal but sensible in comparison.
THE IN-LAWS is funny. Arkin with his tight-ass repressive personality works well against the free-wheeling, anything goes Falk. Libertini appears only in the films last twenty minutes, but he does equally nicely as the ultimate in screw-ball dictators. Well supported by a cast including Nancy Dussault, Arlene Golonka, Penny Peyser, Michael Lembeck, and Ed Begley Jr. the film is just a laugh fest until the happy ending. As mentioned elsewhere in these comments Arkin and Falk should have made several films together. They have only done one other movie together since THE IN-LAWS. Pity.
‘If you lose this baby, you could always have another one’. The comment above was made by the doctor who my husband and I had a consultation with. I was roughly 10 weeks pregnant with our first child. I was in my mid 30’s while hubby was in his early 40’s.
An elderly man in his fifties, he barely looked at us, ignored me, said hello to my husband, looked at my file fleetingly, a file with tests and scans which showed I had fibroids, looked directly at my husband and said to him, ‘She will be fine’. I was furious that this man was clearly sexist, ignoring me as if I was invisible. I responded by asking what that meant, what was the cause of the bleeding as he had not told us at this point about the fibroids. ‘You do not need to bother about it. That is why we are here’. This statement was addressed again to my husband who he was still looking at while still ignoring my presence.
At this point, something in me snapped and I snapped at him, ‘Look at me and tell me what is causing this bleeding. It is my body and I need the details’. He then slowly turned to look at me as if seeing me for the first time and emotionlessly said, ‘you have fibroids. They are not massive and do not pose a danger to your baby’. ‘But I am bleeding. Is that not dangerous? ‘ I worriedly asked.
That was when he looked at the file and without lifting his head, retorted ,Not really. However, if you lose this baby, you could always have another one ’. I almost cussed the insensitive idiot out but my husband who knew I was fuming at this point, got up and ushered me out of the office while the doctor was still talking about ante natal visits at their hospital. We had heard enough. I went on to another hospital where I met the amazing doctor who delivered my daughter without complications and went on to have a son after that.
She is now a healthy, happy 10 year old who is pure joy and always a little mama to her 7 year old brother.
London Broil
London Broil is a favorite recipe from the Iowa Beef Industry Council.
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 (1 1/4 to 1 3/4 pound) beef flank steak
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
Combine vegetable oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper for marinade.
Place steak in plastic bag and pour marinade over it.
Close bag securely and refrigerate 4 to 6 hours or overnight, turning occasionally.
Pour off and reserve marinade.
Place steak on grill and broil at moderate temperature for 5 minutes.
Turn, brush with marinade and broil 5 minutes or to desired doneness (rare or medium).
To carve, slice diagonally across grain in thin strips.
10 STOIC LESSONS TO HANDLE DISRESEPECT (MUST WATCH) | STOICISM
Learn something important.
ASML
Here is the reason why ASML CEO said a few years ago that if ASML gave China the blueprint for the EUV machine China would not be able to make it.
This is because all of the core technologies is NOT owned by ASML. ASML is the system integrator that was allowed by the US government to participate in the US government project to create an EUV light source.
This project pulled together many US national labs including Lawrence Livermore Labs, Sandia Nation Lab, Brookhaven National Lab, Lawrence Berkely National Lab, IBM, Intel, AMD, etc. And it took over 10 years to create this laser light source.
This was considered a national security project so Japanese companies like Nikon and Canon were not allowed to join.
The difficulty of this light source and the engineering problems that had to be overcome was as difficult as the first atomic bomb.
So I have to admit that I was wrong in my speculation about using a Rube Goldberg device to generate EUV. They didn’t have a choice. This was the best possible source at the time. It took literally the US, Germany, and some other nation’s best experts to create this light source.
The other parts are relatively easy in comparison.
The problem is that China has also created this light source and using another method so it isn’t so Rube Goldberg machine. Not that it was simple to make. But it is more reliable and you don’t have to worry about residue removal that will mess up your mirrors and the inside of the your machine which has to remain at clean room levels.
The Answer is yes. Yes indeed the U.S. and the west has been propagating that only western liberal democracy works. Nothing else. Either be a liberal democracy or die says the US. That is of course simply not true at all. And the real truth is simply that the West wanted to install liberal democracy so that the west can easily manipulate it and install a government that surrender its sovereignty to the west in order to manipulate and steal it’s resources to enrich the former colonials.
Now that China proved beyond reasonable doubts and against all odds that it could grow phenomenally and economically dwarfed every other nation, this fear and worry the U.S. mightily. Failure to contain China means failure to perpetuate this lie!
This is indeed worrisome for the west since they the west in general has essentially collapsed in a huge pile of debts. And law and order disintegrates through the western world. With high inflation and a looming recession with countless millions of homeless people living in the streets while their government finance and orchestrate wars. Based on printing money without basis and rampant money creation.
China U.S. out innovating the U.S., it U.S. out thinking the U.S., out growing the U.S. and out influencing the U.S. growing even its military and wealth and out manipulating the U.S. government everywhere on earth. The U.S. wants to stop the truth from being revealed to the world.
It’s Not Just You: American Jobs Didn’t Used To Be This Terrible
My Dad’s Union IBEW is the reason we went from lower middle class to solid middle class in 10 years. Unions are one of the most important checks for capitalism.
Government promise something. Give it a few years and it happens.
Some bigger projects like Mao wanting to borrow some water from the south took a bit longer.
OTOH governments like the UK one I lived under… they promise shit, then they say haha you sucker you actually believed me? Fuck you!
Gordon Brown’s QC literally said that election pledges and promises were not subject to legitimate expectation.
Here? Here in Hong Kong? The government construction projects shaved 20 minutes off my commute.
25 years ago they shaved an hour off the commute for the villagers by widening the dirt track that lead to my village and paving it. Then offering a bus franchise nearby so it was connected with the world.
Most people my age would either be listening to music, watching some TV show/movie in their smartphones/tablets. A very few would be reading a newspaper or book.
I was one of them. I always had music on. I can’t read/watch anything because of motion sickness while traveling on road.
The older generation- they do nothing. They don’t use phones, they don’t talk, don’t read, nothing. They just sit and look around.
I wanted to try this and coincidentally my earphones broke down.
Now it has been over six months. I travel in the metro for 3 hours everyday and do nothing, just look around. This has helped me so much. I observe people, their behaviours. I look around to see what’s actually happening.
It may sound weird but there’s something weirdly enjoyable about it. It feels like living life the old school way. This has helped me reduce the screen time as well.
I have even started recognising the regular commuters. I am sure they don’t recognise me.
Unbreakable (2000) | *First Time Watching* | Movie Reaction | Asia and BJ
Still one of the top 10 best comic films of all time. Its really the first one that showed what the comic genre could do when taken seriously.
This is one of my top, and most favorite movies. It is so meaningful to me. Seriously people. I can relate to this movie. So very much!
When my daughter was about 9 or 10 years old, whenever she got a scolding from my wife, I would annoy her by doing a chicken dance and do so in a way that ONLY she sees it.
“Mommy! Dad is making fun of me!” she would always complain.
When my wife turned around, I would stop and act normal and go on with my stuff. This went on for a while till it became a game of HER trying to catch me in the act and prove it to her mother.
She would learn to very quickly take out her mobile phone and try to snap a picture of me doing it. I would tease her by dancing until the moment the phone was almost pointing towards me, then I would stop and behave normally.
“I will get you someday,” she said.
“No, you won’t! I am too fast for you,” I replied.
On a particular day, I again did the ridiculous chicken dance, she was rolling her eyes and her hands move slowly towards her phone. I continued dancing and mentally calculating how fast she could key in the pass-code and turn on the camera mode.
Something didn’t feel right, her action was slower than usual, by the time she pointed the camera at me, I had stopped. But she started laughing loudly.
“Guess what daddy? THIS isn’t my phone. I switched the phone cover with mum. MY PHONE is behind you, just above the cupboard, ON VIDEO TAKING MODE.”
Ouch! A full two minutes of myself being ridiculous caught on video!
NOT genius smart, NOT intellectual smart, perhaps a little STREET SMART!
The gay and bisexual men are not as common in China as they are in the West. It is difficult for MPOX to become an epidemic in China.
From June 2 to June 30, 2023, 106 new confirmed cases of monkeypox were reported in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan), including 48 cases reported in Guangdong Province, 45 cases reported in Beijing City, 8 cases reported in Jiangsu Province, 2 cases reported in Hubei Province, 2 cases reported in Shandong Province, and 1 case reported in Zhejiang Province. There were no severe cases or deaths.
The epidemic presents the following characteristics:
One is that the vast majority of cases are mainly transmitted through male homosexual sexual contact.
Secondly, the risk of transmission through other forms of contact is low, and the vast majority of close contacts, except for sexual contact, have not experienced infection.
The third is that most cases were found during medical treatment, while a few cases were found through follow-up screening of close contacts.
The fourth is that the vast majority of cases have typical clinical manifestations, mainly symptoms such as fever, herpes, and lymph node enlargement, with no severe or fatal cases.
An American Reacts to Why America Sucks at Everything – THIS ONE HURT
This is very good. Really.
It is a MUCH watch. This is the real truth about the United States.
“I’m so glad you made this video because my conservative mom watched it and now she’s starting to wake up. I got screwed over by the “in network out of network” bullshit recently. My employer changed our healthcare coverage, and I had to find a new neurologist and start the “prior authorization “ process for a particular drug that I take all over again”
The sheer power of Xi Jingping is the fact that QG has been buried away and cut off in a matter of seconds and China and it’s foreign affairs moves without a single blip
Thats power
Had Xi been weak, a rival faction would have lobbied immediately within the CPC but the fact that China has simply chosen to forget QG and not talk about him shows the power of Xi Jingping
China and CPC knows that today in the hostile atmosphere with the West — Only XJP is the right man to lead China
Hu JINTAO would have kowtowed in seconds
Li Keiqang would have kowtowed in maybe a month
Bo Xilai would have kowtowed in nanoseconds
Xis power is at its peak now
Had QG defected to US and been declared a mole for CIA then yes , Xi would have been finished politically
Yet QG is in China and safe and under the Partys safe hands 😁
My father-in-law did. He was moving some tools around in his garage and suddenly had a strong urge to move one of the cars, a Subaru, out into the driveway. He tried to ignore this feeling, because the car was not in his way and it seemed like a needless waste of time. But he couldn’t shake it, so he went and got his car keys and backed the car out of the garage.
Just as he had done so and was getting out of the car, a speeding Tesla flashed past him a couple of feet away and crashed into the open garage, then burst into flames. If he’d stayed in the garage working, he would most likely have been killed.
The resulting fire destroyed the entire garage and his other car. It was 9 months before he and his wife were able to move back into the house. But he was alive, and they still had their Subaru. There was no good explanation for the “little voice in his head” that told him he needed to get himself and his car out of the garage.
By the way, the Tesla driver, who was pulled out of the burning car by a neighbor, was uninjured but was convicted of DUI and had to pay restitution and perform community service.
He was suffering from pancreatic cancer at the time, but from that moment his desire to oversee the restoration of the house gave him a new determination in life. It was a very busy and stressful time, during which he and his wife lived in rental housing. At last they were able to move back into the house which had been perfectly restored to its original state, including a new garage of course, new roof, new heating & a/c, new paint and flooring, and every item inside the house had been removed, professionally cleaned, and replaced. It was beautiful. However, his condition declined rapidly after that and he passed away in August 2018, not quite a year after the fire.
The US Plan to KILL Second Citizenship
“As a Venezuelan born in the 90s (post oil-golden era for that country), I know first hand what he means when he says it’s important to have options. I saw how my mother and her siblings were unable to get their second citizenship by descent from Trinidad and Tobago, once things got terribly bad in my country. My grandparents had both US residency and Caribbean citizenship, but because things were going so well in Venezuela in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, they didn’t work on securing and passing along those other options; and their children never thought things would get this bad. It only took less than 30 years to see things turn around for the worst.”
For many years now, the USA has been classified as a “flawed democracy”. Events such as the Capitol Hill riots – intended to disrupt the inauguration of your elected President – did not help. A significant proportion of Americans themselves believed that the last election was rigged and “stolen” from them. So how can the USA be said to be the “very embodiment of democracy”? This strikes me as an extremely grandiose and indefensible claim.
As for freedom, the USA comprises 5% of the world population but holds about 20% of the world’s prisoners. With so many Americans literally locked up behind bars, how can the USA claim to be a “free” country? Furthermore your 13th amendment legalises the enslavement of prisoners – and the USA heavily exploits these slaves/prisoners in ways that your own civil liberty lawyers have described as an abuse of fundamental human rights. (Eg US prisoners can be forced into hazardous jobs – such as fighting wildfires – for as little as zero to fifty cents per hour of work). Errrr, seriously, you think that the US is the embodiment of freedom?
What hope does the USA bring to the world? In the past 40 years, the USA has dropped more bombs, fired more missiles and killed more people in other countries, than any other country in the world. In the past 40 years, the USA has killed people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Grenada, Bosnia, Somalia and Uganda. Because of US sanctions, the world was afraid to send even vaccines, masks and ventilators to Iran during the covid–19 pandemic. This is how the US brings death and destruction to the world.
Please stop watching your Hollywood movies where the USA is always the one to save the world from invasions by aliens from outer space. Open your eyes and look at the real world. At least look at your own country. Your people are dying from drug overdose at the highest rate in the world. Your people are getting shot to death at the highest rate among all developed countries. Your policemen are shooting citizens for minor offences. Your cities are littered with homeless people living in tents. Your national literacy rate is collapsing together with your average life expectancy. Medical bills are the biggest cause of personal bankruptcies in the USA; your infrastructure is crumbling and aged water pipes are leaking lead into the drinking water for your public schools. To lead your country, you are choosing between a criminal octagenarian and a senile otagenarian. Your income inequality is vast, with the top 1% controlling more wealth than the middle 60% – let’s not even discuss the sufferrings of your bottom 20%.
The US is the embodiment of … HOPE, you say?! Hopelessness is more like it. The USA is no example for the world – unless we are talking of negative examples.
I used to work for a major mail order company; as tech staff I could be sent out anywhere in the country, for which the company would pre-pay for accommodation and pay 40 pence per mile for fuel costs (which was tight-arsed of them, as other companies paid 65ppm).
They also supposedly insured us for using our private cars this way.
People who regularly went out for long trips had a company card to pay for hotels with.
One day they decide they are cutting the fuel payment to 25ppm, and back-dating it SIX months, and also cancelling the company cards – people would have to pay with their own money and claim it back.
This latter move caught a few out who were already out on trips – one guy was unable to pay his bill at a London conference centre, and the staff there were threatening to call the Police.
We also discovered at the same time, that the company HADN’T been paying for the extra car insurance policy, so we were all using our cars effectively with no insurance.
Next day, everyone parked 1/2 mile away and walked into work. “Sorry, can’t go on that job, no car” was the story from every member of the technical staff.
Every senior manager was made to turn over his company car for us to drive around. Even the CEO’s chauffeured Bentley was pressed into service, but it still wasn’t enough; by the end of the first week the taxi bill was running into the high hundreds, and everyone was refusing overnight jobs on the basis they couldn’t afford to pay for the hotel.
It took a MONTH for the suits to cave, and god only knows how much it cost them, in money, customer relations, and the lost goodwill of the tech staff.
Why the American Dream is a Myth
“It’s expensive to be poor” Just…. damn man!
Mediterranean Steak and Pasta with Tomato-Olive Sauce
Whole-wheat pasta is served with beef Sirloin Tip Center Steaks and a tomato and olive sauce. This one will please the adults and the kids in your family.
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
8 ounces uncooked whole grain fettuccine
4 beef Sirloin Tip Center Steaks, cut 3/4 inch thick (about 4 ounces each)
1 (26 ounce) jar pasta sauce with olives*
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves, crushed
1/4 cup finely shredded Italian cheese blend or mozzarella cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
Cook fettuccine according to package directions; drain and keep warm.
Heat large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Place beef steaks in skillet; cook for 11 to 13 minutes for medium rare (145 degrees F) doneness, turning occasionally. (Do not overcook.) Remove from skillet; keep warm.
Combine pasta sauce and oregano in same skillet; heat until hot. Return steaks to skillet; turn to coat with sauce.
Place steaks on fettuccine; spoon sauce over all.
Sprinkle steaks with cheese, allowing cheese to melt. Sprinkle with parsley.
Notes
* You may substitute 1 (26 ounce) jar pasta sauce with olives for 1 (26 ounce) pasta sauce plus 1/4 cup chopped olives.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she was “upset” when China’s Huawei Technologies released a new phone with an advanced chip during her visit to the country last month but noted that the US has no evidence China can make these components “at scale,” Bloomberg reported. She also said the US is trying to use every single tool at its disposal to deny the Chinese the ability to advance their technology in ways that can hurt the US.
Raimondo’s words are nothing new, but saying that China’s technological advancement “can hurt the US” is a stupid and ridiculous line of thinking. Many American elites refuse to accept that the Chinese have broken through the technological blockade. Radical lawmakers are calling for efforts to strangle Huawei and SMIC, which is not only hegemonic but also an evil way of thinking.
Whether it is ASML, the Dutch manufacturer of lithography machines, or the American chip giants, they do not believe that decoupling can stop China’s progress in semiconductor technology. They believe that China can find alternative methods and its own technological path. However, a large number of American elites are non-technical and refuse to face reality, blindly believing that Huawei’s breakthrough is because the US export controls on technology to China are “still too loose.”
It should be said that Huawei’s breakthrough has to a certain extent undermined the credibility of the US’ technological blockade against China and shattered the collective confidence of the West in this regard. Washington’s current investigation into the origin of Huawei’s chips and attempts to tighten the noose on the blockade against China will only isolate itself.
Because Washington clearly lost the first round, it has to bet even bigger and risk losing the Chinese market for many Western semiconductor companies. Imagine the result of continuing technological restrictions if Huawei makes further breakthroughs – can ASML’s lithography machines still enjoy their current glory? Where will the US-controlled chip production factories find their next market? Just look at the panic faced by Japanese and German automotive giants today in the face of the rise of Chinese electric vehicles. If the current semiconductor leaders are cut off from the Chinese market, who can guarantee that their future situation will be better?
Huawei’s Kirin 9000s is a breakthrough that it was forced to make by the US sanctions. If the US exerts even greater pressure, it will turn this breakthrough into a systemic breach, promoting a highly integrated and strong production chain in the Chinese semiconductor industry. Chips produced in China will also be much cheaper than those produced in the US.
If the US semiconductor industry loses the Chinese market, it will not be as lucky as Google and Facebook. The latter have software advantages that some Chinese internet companies do not have, including the application ecosystem they established by being the first movers. However, semiconductors are hardware, and when Chinese companies like Huawei can provide a cheaper alternative, the situation will be completely different.
A crucial crossroads has been reached. If the US forces China to achieve complete independence in the semiconductor industry, it will have no further cards to play in blocking China’s progress. Moreover, the technological landscape of the world will undergo a rewrite. China now possesses the capital, and we will continue to progress no matter what. It is now the US’ turn to make a choice: continue gambling or change course and resume cooperation?
Expat’s THAI WIFE disappears and so did his fortune $$. Then it got WORSE!
One of the “head shakers” about China is the ever-present music of Kenny G on elevators, in supermarkets, in malls, and in restaurants. I do like slow easy jazz, and back in the 1980’s. But I, like most Americans, have moved WAYYYY past all that.
We moved past mullets. We moved past Miami Vice. We moved on from large curly hair, and pastels. We moved on from Windows DOS.
But, you know, China never experienced those things, and have no idea how out of date all this is. And us expats, really, have no heart to admonish our friends in China to stop being so retro. We, well, we just let it all ride.
Just like no one ever says “What’s uppppppppppp!” any longer.
First of all, Fentanyl is used for treating severe pain especially for cancer patients and is deem a medicine product which many countries import mainly from China. Likewise it is your own country laws and regulations to prevent abuse instead of blaming China or Mexico or another other countries. If illegal Fentanyl managed to slip into your country, blame your border guards and custom officer for not doing the job or your judges for not imposing severe penalties.
Just like a simple soap for washing and bathing and you decided to abuse it by eating them as food and then you blame China other then yourself.
I suggest in that case better that your country be pure communist like Mao time where China totally shut off from the world where no exports and no imports can take place.
Would that scenerio be a better option for your country . That covers all your citizens from visiting any countries so that they will not be arrested or detained or even your organs been harvested for scientific research.
The moral of my answer is don’t blame others, other than yourself if you decided your own will to do stupid things.
We don’t actually need them. This is from the US military college. A war with China will wipe 3600 US soldiers out or 50,000 a week. That means ONE brigade a day.
Yes. My brother died last September without signing his will (they had it filled out but he didn’t sign it).
I have helped his widow out with cleaning the house.
Because he was intestate, I’m technically entitled to 25% of his inheritance under my state law as our parents are dead, but he was married (75/25 split by law).
He literally told me he wanted everything to go to his wife, who I would consider my sister now.
I’m not screwing a 60 year old lady out of her house.
Yeah, as a working class guy, I could REALLY use 100k+ dollars if I fought it, but I will absolutely NOT destroy his dream of his wife having a nice little home.
Them home cooked meals, talk and sharing memories a couple times every few months are worth more to me than money.
Maybe I’m an idiot, but I love him and her too much to go by “the law”.
Signing that form for her lawyer was about the easiest moral choice I’ve ever had to take.
CN bans ASML products,Lays off 86 million employees; Photolithography machine turned into scrap metal
For china to make a competitive smartphone to Apple with old generation technology is truly remarkable, I know why U.S and Europe is scared of china…they are simply better in technology.
Russia IS a democracy. Merely because they keep electing Putin and the UR Party all the time or because the election rules favor the ruling party doesn’t disturb the definition
Ultimately Putin IS elected by the people of Russia
The Government under Putin has helped Russia rise from a torn apart and destroyed country in 1991 to a very strong, united force in 2023
So the People are happy and the People vote for the Government and President
That’s Democracy to me
If the US don’t like it, they can go f*** themselves
Next China
Chinese society is 5000 years old
The Chinese mindset is entirely based on the premise that EVERY CHINESE has a role to play in Society and if every Chinese plays their role properly, China will flourish
Under the Emperors, this role was defined by birth and family
Under today’s CPC, this role is defined by ABILITY, ABILITY and more ABILITY
That very mindset is completely against Democracy which claims everyone from a Pauper to a Beggar to a Technology Geek to a Clerk to a Oil Baron have the same rights in choosing a Government
The result is before you
India and China became Independent in 1947 and 1949 – at the same time virtually
Yet China is advanced in EVERY SINGLE FACET over India
China stands before the US as such a feared opponent that the US spends every waking moment on trying to countering China with propaganda and lies and failing
Proof that the CPC did more for China than any Democracy in the history of the modern world
Why would they need this US loser version of democracy
The Chinese version of Governance:-
The Worthy keep voting in the Grassroots
The Unworthy do what they are told to do
Only Ability and Merit matters
One Party, different opinions
Gays, Transgenders put in their proper place which is a ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell environment’
That alone is enough for China to grow
They don’t need the horrors of becoming a Cesspit democracy
Oh SH*T, What Russia and China are doing will change everything, and the west wants WAR
What Russia, China and North Korea are doing will change everything. The massive economic expansion is pushing the West to do some very desperate things. This week Russia and North Korea signed remarkable new trade agreements. It came on the same week as China and Russia launched a new cross border energy hub. Do you see what’s happening?
URGENT: RUSSIA **HALTS** ALL EXPORT OF GASOLINE AND DIESEL FUEL
This morning, Thursday, September 21, Russia announced they are “temporarily” halting the export of all Gasoline and Diesel Fuel.
Russia is the world’s single biggest seaborne exporter of diesel-type fuel.
Their decision will have an immediate impact on fuel costs and availability. Expect skyrocketing prices, especially for Diesel, and subsequent skyrocketing prices on EVERY product that moves by truck.
It is not known at this hour, exactly how long this “temporary” halt will last.
Confession of the Day
There’s always someone who ended up in a worse situation with a bigger loss. Every time I hear those stories, it makes me feel a little better that it “could have been worse.” Hope this helps someone realize how bad it can get before you ultimately end in the same place, with the same loss, and the same need for help. It’s also therapeutic to write it down, I’ve found.
In 2012 I had $20k to my name. Turned that into $100k in 5 years buying American Airlines and chip stocks. Took most of the $100k and bought a house to run as an Airbnb. Made about $100k off that in 2 years and sold it when they banned airbnbs. Bought my own house and sold it a year later for another $100k profit. Invested that $300k in the market around the Covid drop and ended 2020 with about $600k. Then I started with options. The ability to make huge gains so quickly was so intoxicating and addictive. $20k in a day. $50k. $100k. I was crushing it and starting to dream of my new rich life. I broke the $1mil threshold and ended the day with $1.1m.
The next day the market sucked and I knew it. But I had such an itch I made a play anyway. I was down $250k by noon because I broke all my own rules just to avoid “taking a loss.” I finally accepted the loss but tried to chase it by jumping to the other side. That cost me an additional $100k loss. Within 2 days I made it back to within spitting distance of being a millionaire once again, but spoiler alert, I’d never see that number again.
Down $200k, another $300k. I finally had to go to my dad for a bailout. He refueled me and I lost it all again within a month. Another bailout, another loss. I was so depressed and suicidal at this point. It was like a bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from. I will forgo buying a drink with a meal because I don’t want to spend the extra $3 but I had no problem loosing $600k in a single day if it meant I could get the dopamine rush.
Then comes the shame of having to admit what happened. The relapses. The broken future. The never ending despair.
I made right moves far more times than wrong but my losses were always much larger than my gains because I couldn’t accept a loss and didn’t want to further risk a gain. In the end, the money didn’t actually mean anything and it was never about the money (not really anyway) it was always about the high of submitting the order and watching the dollars come or go.
In the end, if it wasn’t for anti depressants and my daughter, I wouldn’t be here today. Looking back it’s impossible to imagine how something could have completely high jacked my brain in such a way but it really did.
There is recovery. There is help. It does work. I only wish it didn’t take losing $2mil before I realized it and finally sought help and treatment.
Don’t make my mistake if waiting and find help now. Also, give the “unhappy millionaire” episode of Happiness Lab podcast a listen, changed my life.
Giving up the American Dream is hard.
giving up the American Dream is Hard. I made a few videos: why I gave up the American Dream, the real cost of the American dream and how to ditch the American Dream. Folks have resonated with it, hated it and everything in between.
But let’s be honest, it’s hard to give up the American dream, especially as a Black woman.
Hustle Culture is not for Black women, but the pursuit of the American dream is tied directly to it.
Let’s talk about grieving the American Dream. content included: giving up the American Dream, I gave up the American Dream, Giving up the American Dream is hard, Hustle Culture is not for Black women, Healing for Black women, I gave up Black excellence, hustle culture is toxic, the real price of the American Dream, Black Women deserve good things, Black woman wage gap, I gave up the American Dream, why I gave up on the American Dream, grieving the American Dream, Black women and the American Dream,
I work as a manager in a Charity Shop/thrift Store and I look having a good search through donations for that special item!
One day, I had some items donated and a handbag. In that handbag in a secret pocket was a Genuine Cartier watch.
I was in absolute awe and was so excited!! Thing is, I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to sell it without the donors consent. (I knew it was genuine as it’s myself who deals with all the name branded luxury items)
I chased the lady through town and told her what I’d found. She broke down in tears telling me they were her late mums things and the watch was lost for many years. Her mum had dementia and her father was only just starting to clear through her things.
So anyway, she asked me to stay with her whilst she rang her father to tell him the news (he also cried which started me off crying!)
After the ordeal of the day I genuinely felt pretty chuffed with myself. I could’ve easily sold it online for a 3figure sum – but something just didn’t feel right.
A few days later that same gentleman came in and thanked me personally. He told me he’d brought it his wife for an anniversary present. I asked how it came to being in an everyday handbag and he explained that she went to get it cleaned (it was boxed) but her dementia was in it’s early stages and was eventually forgotten about. The kind gentleman had a funeral collection in the Charities name and even made a £200 donation to me personally, which I put to the charity.
So yea, that’s my amazing find
Oprah has no idea there’s a Cost of Living Crisis
Why everything feels so expensive right now.
“The basic price of commodities has tripled in my experience from 2019. The same 1 bedroom apartment I rented in Dallas for 700 dollars in 2017 is 1400 dollars in 2023. The house that would cost 180k in suburban DFW just 5 years ago costs 400k. The cost of home and car insurance is over the roof. All this in Dallas which is still very cheap compared to many other big cities in the USA.”
Beijing says it uncovered US National Security Agency operatives behind cyberattack on Chinese university
Article HERE Second Date’ software used in Northwestern Polytechnical University attack is potent cyber espionage tool developed by US agency, says state media After global tracing, Chinese team reportedly found ‘thousands of network devices’ across the country still infected by the spyware and its derivatives
China says it has identified US National Security Agency operatives while investigating a recent cyberattack on Northwestern Polytechnical University, as its top spying and anti-espionage agency vowed on Thursday to root out all “digital spies”. The revelation came just three days after Beijing revealed more details about John Shing-wan Leung, a Hong Kong permanent resident and US citizen the Chinese Ministry of State Security said posed as a philanthropist while snooping for information. He was jailed for life for espionage in May, two years after his arrest in China.
State-run CCTV said on Thursday that China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre, with help from Chinese antivirus company 360 Total Security, had discovered the identity of the National Security Agency (NSA) operative or operatives – the broadcaster did not specify how many or name them – after it extracted “multiple samples” of a spyware called “Second Date”.
It said the spyware was used in the cyberattack on Northwestern Polytechnical University in Shaanxi province.
‘Stop stealing’: China condemns US over Trojan horse cyberattacks on state-funded university The report said technical analysis showed that Second Date was a cyber-espionage weapon developed by the NSA to sniff out and hijack network traffic and insert malicious codes.
Quoting senior engineer at the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre Du Zhenhua, it said software was a potent cyberespionage tool that enabled attackers to take control of target network devices and the data traffic flowing through them, and use them as a “forward base” for the next stage of attacks. It could run on various operating systems and was compatible with multiple architectures.
Du was quoted as saying the spyware was usually used in conjunction with various network device vulnerability attack tools from the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO). The TAO, now renamed Computer Network Operations, is a cyberwarfare intelligence-gathering unit.
China’s foreign ministry says the international community should be highly vigilant about CIA activities as a new report alleges a years-long global cyberattack campaign. Photo: AFP The report said that after global tracing, the Chinese team found “thousands of network devices” across the country were still infected by the spyware and its derivatives. It said they also found springboard servers remotely controlled by the NSA in Germany, Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan.
I had an abusive boyfriend. He was great at first, of course. As soon as he was confident of me, he stalked me, tried to run me off the road many times, pointed a gun at my head a few times, cut my phone lines, beat me, fired a gun into my floor pretending to commit suicide (he would never have done that, he only wanted to scare me), destroyed my things, and more. He was military (so was I) and I had no protection. I was able to get him out of my apartment with the help of his best friend and because he was put in a mental hospital for a few weeks. But I never got a break until I was discharged (honorably), moved across the country to a large city, and changed my name. An ex-husband kindly let me take his name, a common one. The abuser knew my friends and family. A false friend who secretly hated me (I didn’t know) kept telling him how to find me and encouraged others to do the same. People thought it was romantic that he carried such a torch for me. I thought he would appear at my door any day and kill me. He stalked me for 13 more years until I persuaded his commanding office to make him stop. I can’t imagine after all those years that this worked, but it did. Perhaps it was because he didn’t deny what he did and the commanding officer threatened his career and his pension. I never heard from him again. In those 13 years, things had changed somewhat.
I went to law school and made it my mission for many years to protect other women who were treated this badly and sometimes worse by abusers. I got them protection orders and divorces. I got their abusers out of their homes and sometimes in jail. It was very satisfying work. I’m retired now and happy to be so. I feel I did my bit.
It will be amazing if BRICS can come up with some gold-backed trading currency. The dedollarization is happening fast. Over the last 20 years, you see the share of global payments in the dollar has gone down at a steady rate.
This is getting even faster now. At the same time, to “truly dedollarize,” several aspects should be taken into account, he added.
“The harder part” in efforts to replace the dollar lies in the reserve aspect of the currency, the Netley Group president noted. For instance, the United States’ big advantage at the moment is the breadth of its bond market, Goddard explained. “One of the ways, I think, BRICS could develop something to compete with that would be the technology to actually link the BRICS bond markets,” the entrepreneur added.
Combining these two things — a stable trade currency and a strong joint bond market — could create the potential to eventually displace the dollar, Goddard also stated. This process could be even sped up with the enlargement of BRICS, increasing the depth of these economic ties, he concluded.
I live in Haifa, Israel, the location of that port.
A few decades ago we decided to build tunnels to connect the north, the south, and the middle of Haifa. We hired a Chinese company from Shanghai with experience in tunnel building to do the work. It was a massive project and took a few years, during which the Chinese workers lived here. The Chinese company did an excellent job. These tunnels have reduced traffic congestion in Haifa.
The Chinese company we chose to run the new Haifa port has a lot of experience in that kind of work.
In both cases, we chose based on objective criteria, not on politics.
Btw, many Chinese students study at the Technion here, and Chinese tourists visit.
China offers subsidies to their EVs in battery making and other areas, heavy subsidies in taxes and waivers to ensure that EVs are produced at a final cost that is 20% cheaper
This makes Chinese EVs deliver lower cost at better quality than many European EVs
Second complaint is that most of the world pays a premium for Chinese EV batteries but BYD and other players pay 45% lower costs for the same battery due to the fact that the batteries are made in China
This is alleged as unfair competition
They want either the batteries at lower costs or a 20% mark up on Chinese EVs that eliminates the subsidy effect
It’s Classic Protectionism 101
Soviet Style rather than Adam Smith
China didn’t do this
When Volkswagens and Citroens and Mercedes Benz and Toyota and Mitsubishi dominated the vehicle markets of China a decade or so ago:-
China didn’t impose extra tariffs on them nor make it unfair for them to import custom made parts by imposing 60–260% tariffs
China told BYD and SAIC and Great Wall to either make similar quality cars or go out of business because the customer needs the best
Thus these companies formed partnerships and purchased technology and leased technology and made a living with limited market share
Yet this competition helped them prepare a lead in EVs and dominate today
However the West isn’t prepared to do the same thing and ask Renault and Chevy and Volkswagen to COMPETE or go out of business
They want to protect their companies
Like US , Germany, France
They talked of free trade when their products were much superior and Asian nations imposed protectionism
Today when they are being left behind, they scream and yell and whine about tariffs and duties
China has many weapons here
China sells 61.5% of the EV Batteries in the world and 86% of EV Batteries today are made by Chinese players with only Tesla having it’s own supply chain and making it’s own battery for it’s own cars
If you want EVs – you need the Chinese Battery, Electric System and Motors and Chargers
The Chinese make the world’s best and most cost efficient products
Even Tesla battery technology is inferior to CATL and it’s latest batteries
It’s only in Autonomous driving that Tesla has an edge
So frankly China for the next 15 years at least can simply ban the export of batteries or impose a 80% tariff on EV exports and ensure European and US EVs simply can’t compete with ICEs
It throttles the EU green initiative
China loses the EU market but critically ensures Russia & Saudi gains a major leverage as EU and US become more dependent on Oil
That is one card
The Bigger card is
China can play it’s own protectionism
China has a huge market for European Cars with Eight Brands having their largest market in China
That’s 157,000 Jobs
China could simply ban the imports tomorrow and that would finish these companies revenue and share wise
Like the Iphone
Intel & Qualcomm openly said if China forced them to choose between the Chinese market and the Commerce Department restrictions, they would have to choose China for the sake of their US stockholders
If China banned Qualcomm entirely today and said “Okay. We will live with inferior phones but you B******* won’t sell or get a fifty cent piece from us”
Qualcomm would be brutally mauled
The Entire smartphone industry will be brutally mauled
The Entire Semiconductor industry will be brutally mauled
The Chinese are VERY PATIENT PEOPLE and they will play their cards very slowly
They thrive on competing
If China simply decides to close its markets to Foreigners except it’s Russian and Global South friends who will sell it all the Energy and Food it wants
Then most of the Tech firms will be brutally mauled
It was predicted that if Apple was banned entirely from China – $ 1.02 Trillion of it’s market share would never come back
The Total hit on the entire industry could touch $ 7–12 Trillion
Who will take up the slack?
India is expected to touch 40% of Chinas present market in 17–21 years (2040–2044)
Nobody else can take up even 3% of this slack
So China has a lot of Brahmastras to use
There will be no more Huaweis
Huawei was a blow
Nobody expected the West to be so brutally lawless and act like a mafia state , like a land with zero laws
Today China is ready
Every US attack has a party from China including the biggest Brahmastra
CUT OFF ACCESS TO PHARMA APIs & Cut off all components needed for Medical Equipment
Devalue US Debt by suddenly pegging an exchange rate of 2 Yuan to 1 USD. China will lose 17 Trillion Yuan and after the peg is removed the rate could reach 10–11 but US will lose 160 Trillion Yuan ($ 25 Trillion) , 8 times worse than the 2008 Crisis
APPLE Shocked! Huawei’s Secret Weapons: NearLink Explained
Amazing technology. Zero coverage in Western “news”.
Chinese wisdom: Wang Yi urges nations to help avert cold war
INTRODUCTION
Human behavior falls into durable patterns of action and reaction/response. Taking China-U.S. bilateral relations as an illustration, one almost always finds that China is forever responding, and that the United States is non-stop plotting, agitating and acting in annoying or irritating ways, resulting in China’s patterned response of rebuttal.
For example, in picking a fight with China, the United States will accuse China of “spying” and/or soliciting a prominent politician to accuse and confront China on “ideological” grounds, making it difficult for China to defend.
How do you defend an ideological choice?
As ideology is value-laden, it was adopted to change a sick Chinese society for the better, by bringing in fresh or foreign ideas that are believed to work.
For China, socialism with Chinese characteristics is designed to address its chronic social inequality and alleviate abject poverty. China’s adoption of a socialist ideology is observably bearing fruitful results, lifting millions of its people out of poverty, and building railways in foreign countries.
But, for the U.S. hardcore irrational antagonists such as Mike Pompeo, China is “on the wrong side of history”. What else then can these self-styled enemies of China do but to use and recycle the “spying” game of accusations, hoping to see their cooked-up situation comes to fruition.
In the following article taken from an English-language newspaper dated Thursday, July 30, 2020, the incidents that happened at the beginning of the Trump era were nearly the same as that is happening in the United Kingdom, which has officially announced that a parliamentary researcher has been lately accused of “spying” for the CCP.
For fear of missing its juicy details, let us go over this article.
Entered Wang Yi Who Called on All Countries to Resist “Unreasonable Acts” and to Help Prevent…
FM Wang Yi called on all countries to “resist” the United States’ “blatant and unreasonable acts”, and to help prevent the world’s two greatest powers from descending into what he called a new cold war.
In a phone call with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday, Wang said China would take “firm and rational responses” amid the intensifying rivalry with the US, but also stressed that Beijing would strive to maintain stable relations with Washington.
It was the fourth time in less than a fortnight that Wang, who is also a state councilor, has named the US in conversations with foreign official, following calls with his Russian, Vietnamese and German counterparts.
Before that, veiled attacks against Washington might have been made in talks with foreign governments without naming it.
The change in rhetoric and the increased frequency of verbal aggression by both sides has meant a rapid deterioration of China-US relations, and an imperative for Beijing to ensure other nations do not side with Washington.
“Tolerating a bully [such as Pompeo] will not keep you safe. It will only let the bully get bolder and act worse. All countries should act to resist any unilateral or hegemonic act and safeguard world peace and development.” Wang was quoted as saying in a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
Wang said the current decline in China-US relations was caused by a certain political faction in the US, driven by the need to lift campaign prospects and maintain unipolar hegemony.
During the phone call to Le Drian, Wang called for “vigilance against US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent remarks instigating renewed ideological confrontation and leading the world to a new cold war”.
In a speech last week, Pompeo called for China’s own citizens to join an international effort to “change the behavior” of the ruling Communist Party.
“We believe that all countries will make the right and wise decisions, instead of being held hostage by a small number of American politicians,” Wang said.
“All countries will make concerted efforts to prevent the world from being dragged into a new cold war of conflict and confrontation,” he said.
But Wong said the interests of the two countries were deeply integrated – and that Beijing stood “ready to maintain the stability of China-US relations through equal communication and exchanges with the US side”.
“We will never allow a few anti-China elements to overturn decades of successful exchanges and cooperation between China and the U.S., nor will we allow ideological prejudice to undermine the future development of China-US relations.”
Ties between the world’s most powerful nations have plunged to the lowest point in decades as they clash over trade, technology and geopolitical clout.
In their latest brawl last week, the US ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston –over spying claims. China retaliated – by ordering the US mission in Chengdu to shut down.
The foreign ministry rolled out a 10-point rebuttal yesterday against American accusations over the closure of the Houston consulate, denying that it was a hub for China’s spying efforts or that it was used as a base for its “fox hunt” operations to induce the return of Chinese fugitives. (Source: SCMP)
CONCLUSION
Readers may find it amazing after reading the above newspaper article on U.S. accusation of Chinese spying, and China’s retaliatory response. Amazed because the narrative over alleged Chinese spying is the same, except this time it is the UK that is the accuser. This pattern persists, and tensions go up.
The ultimate reality, though, is that “U.S. trade is still chained to sources in China.” Research demonstrates the difficulty of severing the countries’ economic ties. According to NYT.
In the end, it is U.S. pragmatism and Chinese rationality that prevails, settling the “spy” squabbling.
Ties may temporarily go sour; bilateral efforts will be made, and trade activities between the U.S. and China will resume. Wang Yi’s rationality is right and wise.
The latest visits by high-profile U.S. secretaries starting with Anthony Blinken, Janet Yellen and Gina Raimondi wrapped up the futile spying game – testifying to the law that damaging business ties lead to revenue loss.
Only 100 years?! You bet, will be at least 1,000 years, or maybe, better back to the Stone Age!
And then, you might find one day, your country would have to import chips from China, and the products you use would be embedded with Chinese chips. LOL
The whole Western world, especially the nuclear powers, even later the Soviet Union, had blocked nuclear technology from entering into China back in the 1950s and 1960s. Then what?
The first Chinese nuclear test was conducted at Lop Nur on October 16, 1964. Then in less than 32 months, China detonated its first hydrogen bomb on June 14, 1967. Now, China’s nuclear arsenal is the world’s third largest, and China has, more importantly, also developed its nuclear technology for peaceful use, boasting the second largest number of nuclear power units in operation or under construction in the world.
China was officially barred from visiting the International Space Station (ISS) by the United States in 2011. Then what?
China is nearing its completion of the construction of its own space station -Tiangong, with many visits there already done by Chinese astronauts, three of them are right now flying over us in the station. With the ISS retiring sometime in 2030, China’s Tiangong will be the only space station in the world.
China has been under the tough blockade of Western military techonologies, especially high-end, advanced ones. Then what?
China has successfully tested several times of its hypersonic missiles, among the first nations who have achieved success in this most advanced weapon development.
Also, China has finished its third air-craft carrier, with a fully indigenous design, featuring a CATOBAR system and electromagnetic catapults, one of the most advanced in the world.
And China has its J-20, a twinjet all-weather stealth fighter aircraft with precision strike capability. The Y-20, a large military transport aircraft, the first cargo aircraft to use 3D printing technology to speed up its development and to lower its manufacturing cost.
Similar cases also include the tunnel boring machines, giant cranes, giant excavators, deep-sea drilling machines……You name it. Then what?
China has self developed all of them, not only meeting its own market needs, but also exporting them at a much more affordable price than their Western competitors. What’s more ironic is, some of them have been exported even to those countries who had previously blocked their techonologies into China!
So, in the short term, yes, China is sufferting from the heavy blow from the US, but in the long run, the US and its allies would not only lose the lion’s share of chip market here in China, but will have also to face a strong competitor in semi-conductors, or chips, or something alternative which have similar functions, in the not-too-far-away future, maybe in their own market, and also in the global market.
But during the process, the US would have dried up its influence as a banner-holder of liberal market economy, its credibility as the rule-setter who betrays its own rules, its reliability to its allies since all of them would have to suffer along with the US, and hence, its soft power in leading the world.
Nothing much to gain, but a lot to lose, yet, the US is determined to ride on the self-devastating road. The faster it runs, the quicker the fall of its hegemony.
Japanese-Style Sirloin
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 pound Certified Angus Beef ® boneless sirloin steak, cut into 1/4 inch strips
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons sake or dry sherry
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
8 scallions, cut diagonally into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
8 ounces Napa cabbage, chopped
4 ounces bean sprouts
1 cup cooked short grain rice
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
Combine soy sauce, sugar and sake in a small bowl. Set aside.
Heat wok or electric frying pan to medium heat.
Heat oil, add steak strips and stir until beef is browned (about 3-5 minutes).
Push beef to one side. On the other side, add scallions and peppers and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes.
Add cabbage and sprouts, combining all ingredients in the pan. Stir-fry about 1 minute.
Sprinkle soy mixture over meat and vegetables. Cook for 1 minute.
Serve over warm rice and garnish with sesame seeds.
Why People are Leaving Canada, Top 5 Reasons Why People Leave
I left Canada about 1.5 years ago to travel the world and here are some of the top reasons why I left. I give a lot of my own personal anecdotes as someone who has lived in canada for over 20 years. This video represents my personal opinion about living in canada and why I prefer to live in Asia or other countries.
The main reasons. why people are leaving
1. High living costs creates a low standard of living, especially in Vancouver and Toronto.
2. Lack of infrustructure for transportation which means you need to have a car in order to get around
3. Brain drain and lack of opportunities because most talent go to the states
4. Lack of medical healthcare because most people can’t find a family doctor or are finding it difficult to find one
5. Not much social life /activities for young people, most stores close at 6pm
China, the next war
On China, the US is again lying itself into the next war. The US says “The [Defense] Department remains committed to abiding by the well-established one China policy of the United States” and “this Administration opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side of the Strait. We have not supported Taiwan independence, we do not support it now.”
But actually the US is supporting the Taiwan independence from China, while Taiwan is calling its independent government the “Republic of China” which is a violation of the “one China” claim. The US also admits that the principle reason for this attention to China’s internal matters is to sustain the anti-China barriers in the off-shore China region: “Taiwan is located at a critical node within the First Island Chain in the Indo-Pacific region.” More detailed information on the coming anti-China next war is recent testimony in the House Armed Services Committee here and here.
A spoiler must possess some power to manipulate but this India clearly does not have.
India can do nothing within BRICS with China around (that’s why they didn’t even dare to join RCEP). Modi was left sitting in the corner of their meeting hall.and as quiet as a church mouse during the last BRICS summit because he had no allies to support him on anything. BRICS proceeded accordingly to invite those countries that Xi had pursued.
An interesting thing happened between then and the Modi show at the G20 with new BRICS members Saudi Arabia and the UAE getting into the act. And of course Xi completely abstaining from even attending. Expectations are of course that the G7 countries, headed by Biden, would be there to cheerlead to elevate Modi’s ego as their way of wooing him to their side.
As the saying goes, give the guy enough rope and he’ll be sure to do it to himself!
And true to form, Modi came out with a true masterpiece that had behind him the G7 countries – U.S., E.U., Germany, France and Italy – applauding him on. and the Western MSM hyping up Modi as the new major player to contest China’s BRI plans. This is the G7’s main challenge to China and to be implemented unti its GPII initiative!!
But this plan could not have been possible without the push of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Of course, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have grand plans for themselves – mostly to transition and establish their economy as a major global force after their days of oil dominance is over.
But look at the curious first part of the IMEC journey that has the starting route going through the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which essentially is an alternative route to bypass the Suez Canal.
And then of all places, this very expensive trans-Arabian rail line ends up in Isreal!!!!!
Now, who are the Arabs in their right mind would set up the crown jewel of their economic infrastructure to land in the hands of their arch nemesis to be held hostage anyttime any conflict should arise?
So, you have Modi hoisting himself as a challenger to Xi’s BRI.and also coincidentally, there will be after this G20 a third BRI Meeting in Beijing in October 2023!
The big question is: What are Saudi Arablia and the UAE’s real plans? Are they with the IMEC or are they part of the BRI still and be officially inducted as new BRICS member in 2024?
A friend of mine told the story of going to visit his childhood home in Brooklyn. He had hired a car for the day to go all around the old neighborhood so he wouldn’t have to rely on taxis. On the way to visit his mother’s grave at the cemetery, he spotted a flower shop and thought it might be nice to bring flowers.
He went inside, and found a couple of men playing cards, They didn’t seem to notice him. He cleared his throat to get their attention.
“A customer!” one declared, as if in shock.
My friend said he had grown up in the neighborhood, and he chatted with the proprietor a bit about how things have changed over the years.
“Why don’t you sit down and have an espresso with us?” he asked.
“I can’t, I have a driver outside!”
“Well, invite him in, too!”
After he politely refused, they made a beautiful bouquet for him, fairly quickly. He was impressed with the work.
“How much do I owe you?” he asked.
The florist looked hurt. “It’s for your mother! How could I possibly charge you?”
After a little back and forth, it was clear that they weren’t going to accept payment. He thanked them for their generosity and left.
It dawned on him that this place probably wasn’t a flower shop. But they did make him a nice arrangement.
Something TERRIBLE Just Happened in Maui, Oprah & The Rock
James sues Hawaii for First Amendment violations over ban on public photography in Lahaina “This isn’t merely about the freedom to take photos; it’s about the freedom of the press and the right to hold our leaders accontable.
What are your thoughts on China surpassing the USA
Well, China has surpassed the United States in so many ways, that this question is a tad out of date. China is quite a formidable and powerful force right now. Depending on the measurements used, you can easily map out the dates when the mantel of power was transferred.
Economic = around 2013.
Military = around 1950.
Educational = around 1995.
Social = around 2005.
Manufacturing = around 1990.
Technological = in process.
So what are my thoughts about this?
I really don’t think that China is trying to surpass anyone. And certainly isn’t trying to better the USA. I just think that China is doing what it needs to do to serve it’s people. It’s 1.4 billion people, don’t you know. And they need to be satiated, satisfied, and happy.
China is doing that.
All these sanctions, political posturing, and the general madness out the United States (and it actually is a DSM-4 state of crazy-town) is only accelerating and necessitating China to become absolutely independent of the leashes and chains that the United States controls.
Soon, and I do mean SOON, whatever vestiges of American “greatness” will be eclipsed by a rather harsh reality.
Oh, and it PAINS me to speak of it.
But today, the United States is a lie, on top of a lie, that is covered up by lies, and the only good thing about it is that the lies are so obvious that everyone KNOWS that the lies are simply BULLSHIT.
Today, the USA is a third-rated, banana-republic, ruled by psychopathic morons.
And when history books are written about this has-been nation, it will refer to it as a over-glorified “strip mall” masquerading as transsexual brothel built upon an open sewer.
This is common knowledge in “fly over country”.
Those “Rich Men North of Richmond” really gutted the country, and are now stealing everything they can lay their hands on as they flee the cesspool that they created.
When did China surpass the United States?
Oh, sometime back in 1776. It’s been downhill ever since.
Neocons turn on Joe Biden
Calling Biden a president is like calling Harris a vice president.
The neocons are marching the world towards war. Lordy!
We are all going to die!!!!!
All these videos MUST be watched to get the FULL IMPACT of what is going on right now. It’s so insane. So crazy. So very disgusting. You have to laugh.
I have worked in the video games industry for over a decade. During this time, I introduced several Western games to the Chinese market. This experience taught me a great deal about the cultural and behavioral differences (and similarities) between Western and Chinese users.
One thing I found fascinating is how Western users and Chinese users absorb information.
The Chinese language is information-dense. Reading Chinese, you absorb a lot more information compared to reading English of similar length. There’s a reason why when Western (English) literary works are translated into Chinese, they usually “shrink” in length. Chinese Bible, for example, is thinner than English Bible.
Chinese users are very used to absorbing large amounts of information all at once. Chinese websites usually have a very busy (by Western standards) layout packed with headlines and texts. At the same time, English users are more comfortable with a minimalistic layout.
In game design, this reflects on UI and HUB design. Chinese users are very used to busy UI and packed HUB design, while Western players are more used to the “less is more” kind of design, sometimes no HUB at all.
A lot of times, when Western designers were presented with this problem, they often considered Chinese users “backward,” or “still live in the 90s,” or “just not sophisticated enough to appreciate a minimalist design.” While it was my job to explain the cultural differences, the designers didn’t always listen. They believed they could “educate” Chinese users with their “superior” design. They thought once these “backward” people saw my awesome modern design, they’d love it!
LOL.
That is not to say there isn’t minimalist design in China. It’s just what’s considered “too busy and overwhelming” style in the West is accepted or even preferred in China because of how our language functions differently than English.
USA knows the only thing it can do is to talk shit on China. It cannot out compete, out innovate and out succeed with China. It certainly cannot bomb or nuke China as it will will received the same from China. The only thing it can do is to talk shit.
UK,Canada and Australia. Are the U.S. fellow colonialist and fellow native slaughterers. They did so much shit in the past few hundred years and are scared of reprisal and reparations. They had no choice to get a mafia hoodlum to protect them. Talking shit on China is a given.
Japan shared the loot and plunder of Chinese and Asian people in the 2nd world war and refused to accept responsibility for her aggression and prefer to pay protection money to the U.S. they had to talk shit on China.
if you are smart and intelligent enough. None of these nations ever whisper a grain of truth on China. The truth hurts them too much.
MINISO’s global expansion strategies; Q3 online sales in China, and consumer reactionsAmber ZhangOct 26∙Preview READ IN APP *This post is our premium content.
MINISO (NYSE: MNSO), a Chinese low-cost retailer and variety store chain, is gaining global attention. As of June 30, 2023, MINISO operates 5,791 stores worldwide. Its annual revenue for the period ending June 30, 2023, increased by 13.8% to 11.47 billion yuan. Revenue from China reached 7.651 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 2.8%, while revenue from overseas markets reached 3.822 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 44.6%.
MINISO’s rapid overseas revenue growth has made it one of the most successful Chinese companies to go global.
(For the year ended June 30, revenue from overseas markets accounted for over 33% of MINISO’s total revenue.)MINISO is on track to reach the peak price it had since its IPO in October 2020.“一切面向海外,一切面向商品” (“Everything is oriented towards overseas, everything is oriented towards products.”) —— Guofu
Ye, CEO and founder of the MINISO [source]Expanding into global markets has always been a key part of MINISO’s strategy.
As of 2023, MINISO had already established stores in 107 countries and regions, including North Korea, with over 2,100 stores overseas. Notably, in May 2023, MINISO achieved a significant milestone by opening a store in Times Square, New York, becoming the first Chinese brand to have a presence in that iconic location.
As of year-to-date 2023, MINISO (NYSE: MNSO) has gained over 150%, despite the pessimistic sentiments towards Chinese equities.In today’s post, we will share some winning strategies of MINISO to help you understand how the company managed to succeed domestically and internationally, and whether these strategies will be sustainable.
We will also provide an update on MINISO’s domestic online sales and consumer reactions ahead of MINISO’s upcoming earnings report in November.*
Understanding the psychology of overseas consumersMINISO adopts unique sales methods in various countries to connect with the psychology of local consumers. To scale this strategy, MINISO has chosen the “agency model” by partnering with local leaders.For instance, in Vietnam, MINISO initially thought that inexpensive small umbrellas would be popular, but they ended up having an excessive amount of umbrellas in stock.
This was due to MINISO underestimating the actual preferences of local consumers. Vietnam, being a “motorbike country,” is the fourth-largest motorcycle market globally, with over 45 million motorcycles in circulation. As a result, people in Vietnam use raincoats while riding motorcycles.MINISO later collaborated with Le Bao Minh Group and specially developed arm sleeves and masks for the Vietnamese market, which immediately became popular locally.Le Bao Minh is the exclusive distributor of Canon in Vietnam and has over 200 sub-agents in 64 provinces.
With such a leading enterprise leading the way, MINISO avoided many pitfalls and reduced a significant amount of trial and error costs. [Source]The low-cost advantage has given MINISO a boost amid a slow economic recoveryAs we have previously observed, Chinese consumers are increasingly prioritizing practical purchases.
The combination of Miniso’s low-cost advantage and its creative and personalized products has given them a boost both in China and globally in 2023.Similar trends are observed among other low-cost retailers. For example, Pinduoduo is estimated to reach its target of $10 billion USD GMV for 2023, and SHEIN recorded a revenue of up to $23 billion USD in 2022. In China, there is also a growing trend among e-commerce players to adopt the low-cost strategy to remain competitive in 2023.To create a feeling of consumers “getting a bargain,”
MINISO focuses on the “golden price point of 10 yuan” in its stores.Ye Guofu, the CEO of MINISO, explained: “To make customers buy when they want to buy and use when they want to use, that’s the best thing. We must achieve this situation, so 10 yuan is the golden price point, allowing customers to have no pressure.” [source]
However, despite the growing importance of value for money to consumers, the demand for personalized and stylish products from MINISO’s main customer base of young consumers remains strong.
As a result, MINISO has made significant investments in “大牌平替” or “substituting big brands with generics” products, which are self-made products that imitate the popular themes and styles of well-known brands:
For example, from the same supplier, a water cup is priced at 379 yuan in MUJI, while MINISO is priced at 49 yuan; the same goes for socks, with MUJI priced at 158 yuan and MINISO priced at 29 yuan.
The management of MINISO stated, “The perfumes in our store are made by perfumers from Dior and Chanel, using their fragrance ingredients. The luxury brand perfumes are priced at $200 per bottle, but I only sell them for $20 per bottle.” [source]
Not me (sadly) but a guy I met when I worked at a steel mill.
It was a very big company, 17.000 employees at the time, the size of a small town with their own small hospital, fire department and armed securities with patrol cars, shops and even a gas station. So quite a big area.
I was working at the contiunous casting facility. Basically where molten irom from the blast furnace is poured into a casting unit and becomes a rectangular block of steel.
The whole company was incredibly split up in different departments each with their own hierachy and leadership. One casting unit consisted of a Foreman (which belonged to department X), 1 quality control inspector (department F), 1 guy in the control room checking all the parameters, looking at several graphs and so on (department Z) and finally 3 workers doing actual work (department A). Just to get the hang of it, 6 people working on the same unit belonged to 4 different departments. And the whole company was like that!
Like every few years some higher ups decided to reinvent the wheel and restructure the electrical maintenance department. There used to be 6 departments and after some calculations they decided to cut it down to 5 departments and integrate the workers from the sixth department into the remaining five.
It went surprisingly smooth aside from the old foreman. There was only one foreman position per department and they were already filled. Because he was 30 years with the company, starting as an apprentice and rose through the ranks after a few years they told him “We need to hold a meeting about your position but dont worry we find something for you”.
Time went on but he heard nothing at all about the meetings outcome despite several inquiries. So he simply came in his office everyday and waited for news. He had nothing to do because the sixth department didnt exist anymore so nobody could call him to fix a problem, he simply didnt exist.
But it gets even crazier. A new office building for the departments was built and he stayed in the very old 2 story building because how could he move into the new one if he didnt exist at all?
So he strolled around all day through the different units, chatting with people and drinking coffee, had an awful lot of house plants in his office, even one of those Japanese Bonsai trees he used to cut regularily (it looked like a rain forest, not gonna lie) and found himself another hobby, modelmaking. If he wasnt walking around he sat in his office and assembled those 1:24 models of planes, helicopters, cars…
It took the company 4 years to somehow recognize he is still here! But nobody could figure out how he had gone missing. HR had him listed as Foreman of department 6 and higher ups of the casting facility somehow assumed he left the company and went into early retirement or something because department six did no longer exist.
In the end, he had two years to retirement and they decided to let him carry on for the next two years. It was apparently cheaper to pay him for literally nothing than dealing with all the legal issues. Our worker protection laws are really strong and firing somebody so close to retirement means the company has to pay a massive fee to the government.
Ah. An insight into what life on other planets might look like. -MM
The obvious choice would be Socotra, that little Yemeni isle off the Horn of Africa, home to the iconic dragon’s blood tree. However, I think there’s another island which has even more interesting flora – New Caledonia. Sitting in the South Pacific, well over a thousand kilometres from the nearest major landmass, New Caledonia has been biologically isolated since the Cretaceous period.
Because of this, it has unprecedented, record-breaking levels of endemism: around three quarters of its plants are found nowhere else on Earth! Despite only being around the size of the nation of Israel, it’s home to four and a half thousand plant species.
Back in dinosaur times, New Caledonia broke off from a vast southern super-continent known as Gondwana. Because it remains remote, it still harbours the primeval flora of Gondwana, which has long since gone extinct in most mainland regions. First of all, it is the world’s only true stronghold of the araucarians.
The most famous species today is the monkey puzzle tree, which is native to Chile, but New Caledonia’s most recognizable variety is the coral reef pine, Araucaria columnaris. It has a thin, pillar-like shape, and grows directly on shallow limestone coastlines, especially on the Isle of Pines (a popular tourist attraction).
The araucarians are an ancient family of conifer trees, dating back to the beginnings of the Jurassic Period. During the reign of the dinosaurs, they dominated forests all over the world, and were the first trees in Earth’s history to grow extremely tall, as many stood over 60 metres in height. In fact, they are likely the reason sauropods like Brachiosaurus were so damn tall.
Despite their former success, araucarians have been out-competed by more advanced lineages of tree, but they persist in various parts of the Southern Hemisphere. The only place where they still predominate, however, is New Caledonia, which is home to 18 species.
They thrive in all kinds of habitats on the island, from its tropical rainforests and iconic limestone islets to its hilly “maquis” scrub and dry woodlands.
The closest relatives of the araucarians are the podocarps, which were also abundant in Gondwana long ago, and also maintain a strong presence in New Caledonia despite extinction in many other regions. The island has an especially interesting (endemic) genus called Parasitaxus.
As its name suggests, it’s a parasite – in fact, it’s the only parasitic gymnosperm plant in the world. Believe it or not, it has no roots, and does not perform photosynthesis (hence its rather alien purplish-black colouration). Instead, it grows exclusively out of the roots of a different endemic podocarp species, sucking nutrients from its host.
Another example of New Caledonia’s very unique flora is Amborella. This genus contains a single species, and it is in fact so unique that it has a whole taxonomic family and order to itself! It’s the most primitive flowering plant on Earth, having diverged from the rest a staggering 130 million years ago. It’s a pretty good proxy for what flowers would have looked like while T. rex was roaming the Earth.
Lastly, I’ll introduce you to Sphaeropteris intermedia, sometimes alternatively called Cyathea intermedia. With a woody trunk that can stand over 30 metres tall, one would think it was a palm tree, but it is in fact a fern – the largest fern on the planet. It further contributes to the exceptionally prehistoric feel to New Caledonia’s vegetation.
So, those are the most charismatic and fascinating members of New Caledonia’s flora. There are many, many, many more endemic species Mesozoic relics and the like, but I’ve just selected the ones which are of particular interest to the non-botanist.
Now, you all know me by now, so I doubt any of you are surprised that I can’t bring myself to finish this answer without going off-topic and talking about the animals. First things first, the wonderful birdies. The most fascinating of all the island’s avians is undoubtedly the kagu.
This species is highly unique, genetically – it is the sole species in the distinct family Rhynchochetidae, and shares the whole order Eurypygiforms with a single other species, the equally weird sunbittern of South America. The kagu is practically flightless, and probes the forest floor for invertebrate prey.
To prevent soil from getting up its nose as it digs around the ground, it has structures covering its nostrils called nasal corns, something not seen in any other bird. For mysterious reasons, it has around a third of the number of red blood cells most birds have, but thrice the amount of hemoglobin per cell.
Another highly notable New Caledonian avian is the New Caledonian crow, one of the world’s most intelligent birds.
In the wild, they fashion sophisticated tools out of ferns, feathers, thorns, grass and twigs, carefully trimming and folding them down to size. These are used to extract insects from trees, and remarkably, different styles of crow tools can be observed in different parts of New Caledonia. This could mean that these crows are the only non-mammals in the world which have distinct, evolving cultures.
The island is also home to a diverse array of tropical pigeons. Pigeons seem boring to us, but closer to the equator, species are much less drab. Some in New Caledonia are huge, measuring over half a metre in length, whereas others have vibrant colours, such as the cloven-feathered dove.
There’s also the crow honeyeater, a strange-looking bird, which – at over 40 cm in length – is the largest species of honeyeater in the world. Sadly, it’s now critically endangered.
Moving onto the reptiles, we have some very cool geckoes. This includes the rather polite-looking crested gecko, who’s got killer eyelashes:
And of course Leach’s giant gecko. Measuring up to 36 centimetres from nose to tail, this lumbering beast is the world’s largest gecko.
On the topic of larger-than-life lizards, here’s the dramatically-named terror skink. It’s even bigger than the aforementioned reptile, at around half a metre in length. It was presumed extinct until being rediscovered in 1933, although to this day it is extremely rare.
Then there’s a plethora of endemic invertebrate fauna, of course. The largest insect on the island is the giant coconut grasshopper, a freakishly big creepy crawly which is longer than your hand.
What are even more interesting, however, are New Caledonia’s marine invertebrates. For example, its waters are the only home of one of the only four living species of nautilus, Nautilus macromphalus.
And it has the New Caledonian Barrier Reef, which is the world’s longest continuous barrier reef, stretching across over 1,500 km of shallow sea. That’s about two thirds the length of Australia’s much more famous one, which is actually a smattering of smaller, disconnected reefs! This reef is highly biodiverse, and is home to rare dugongs.
My final words in this very long answer about a very small island will be on New Caledonia’s extinct animals, from the time of the last Ice Age, prior to human arrival. Back then, it was home to even more amazing wildlife, such as Mekosuchus inexpectatus.
Up until its extinction 4,000 years ago, it was the very last land-dwelling crocodylian in Earth’s history, the end of a story lasting hundreds of millions of years. It would have been an apex predator on the island, despite being only 2 metres long.
A possible prey item of Mekosuchus was Sylviornis, the largest galliform ever to live. The galliforms are an order of birds which include chickens and their relatives. Specifically, Sylviornis was a member of the megapodes, odd Australasian birds who incubate their eggs in huge mounds of earth.
It weighed in at about 30 kg, and its skeletal anatomy was markedly similar to that of the non-avian dinosaurs.
Other extinct creatures endemic to New Caledonia in the Pleistocene include a variety of other megapodes, flightless rails, huge hawks and several monitor lizards.
So, what was meant to be a quick answer about some cool plants ended up being an exhaustive ecological and paleontological survey of New Caledonia. If you stuck around for the full article, thank you very much, and if you didn’t, just try to sleep well in the knowledge that you’ll never know what a terror skink is.
America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much Better – US American Reaction
This is a very good video. Please take the time to watch it.
Irresistible Exotic allure! Russian tourists flock to China’s border city of Heihe for breakfast, shopping
It may seem surprising, but a growing number of Russians are making the trip to have breakfast in Heihe, a border city in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, before heading back home.
Heihe sits across the Heilongjiang River from the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk. The river is known in Russia as the Amur River. Since the resumption of visa-free group tourist trips between China and Russia in Heihe on Sept. 21, 2023, there’s been a noticeable uptick in Russian visitors. A simple boat ride allows for easy movement between the two nations.
Many Russians are attracted to Heihe’s breakfast offerings and shopping experiences. They indulge in local breakfast staples such as soybean milk, tea eggs, and Baozi — steamed stuffed buns. Some have even crafted a unique dining blend, pairing Baozi with beer.
Many vendors at morning markets have added bilingual Chinese-Russian signs, and some have picked up basic Russian to better serve their visitors.
Given its strategic location, Heihe has long been a nexus for China-Russia trade. It stands as China’s primary supplier of everyday Russian products, which are then distributed nationwide.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has made trade between China and other BRI partner countries increasingly convenient.
Beyond Heihe, many other border areas in China exude an exotic allure. Cities and regions such as Dongxing in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Manzhouli in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Horgos and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Mengla county in Yunnan Province have thrived due to the expanding cooperation under the BRI. These places now serve as critical ports connecting China to Southeast Asia, Europe, and Central Asia, and beyond via railways and economic corridors.
Over the past decade, these border regions have directly witnessed, participated in, and benefited from extensive cooperation under the framework of the BRI.
Meanwhile in the United States…
Texas Chicken-Fried Steak with Cream Gravy
Yield: 6 large servings (2 pieces each)
Ingredients
Steak
3 pounds 1/2 inch thick round steak
2 cups all-purpose white flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
Vegetable oil (corn, peanut, safflower oil) for frying*
Cream Gravy
1/4 cup pan drippings
1/4 cup all-purpose white flour
3 cups warm milk
Salt
Black pepper
Instructions
Steak
Trim the fat off the meat, remove the bone and cut the meat into 6 equal size pieces. Use a meat mallet to pound the steaks on both sides, until they are 1/4 inch thick. Then cut each pounded piece of steak in half (making 12 pieces total).
Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a large shallow bowl. Beat the eggs and milk together well in another large shallow bowl.
Dredge the steaks in the seasoned flour, coating them well on both sides. Then use the meat mallet to pound the flour into the steaks. Dip the steaks in the egg-milk mixture, then dredge them again in the remaining flour. Set the steaks aside in a single layer on a large piece of wax paper.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees F.
Pour the vegetable oil to a depth of 1/2 inch into 2 or 3 large heavy-bottom skillets (iron skillets are best). You will have to cook the steaks in 2 or 3 batches, depending on the number of skillets you have. Set the skillets over medium heat. The oil will be hot enough for frying when it pops when you sprinkle a few drops of water on it.
Carefully put the steaks in a single layer in the hot oil and cook over medium heat until the bottom side of each steak is golden brown (about 7 to 8 minutes).
Turn the steaks over, cover the skillets, reduce the heat to low and cook until the bottom sides are golden brown and the steaks are tender (about 8 to 10 minutes).
Transfer the steaks to a heatproof platter, cover loosely with aluminum foil and keep them warm in the oven while you cook the remaining steaks and prepare the cream gravy.
Cream Gravy
Pour the remaining oil out of one large skillet into a heatproof bowl or measuring cup, but leave in the skillet any particles of batter that stick to the bottom of the pan.
Return 1/4 cup of the oil to the skillet and stir in 1/4 cup of flour. Cook for about 3 to 5 minutes over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pan, but don’t let the mixture brown.
Slowly add the warm milk to the pan, stirring with a fork or wire whisk to prevent lumps from forming. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the gravy is smooth and thick.
Add salt and black pepper to taste.
Serve the chicken-fried steaks with the cream gravy poured over them.
Notes
* Beef suet, lard or solid vegetable shortening are traditionally used for cooking chicken-fried steak
In Belgium you could join up “for life” (until retirement, you can’t do that anymore) and get a shitload of perks.
You got a free apartment, free water, electricity, telephone, gas, and cable TV.
You could eat for free and you got your uniforms for free. You also got free cigarettes’, free beer, and free condoms.
Whatever else you needed you could get at substantial discounts.
When you traveled from Germany to Belgium (every weekend … yes, we went home for the weekends during the Cold War), it was on military trains where the customs officials had no jurisdiction. So our kitbags were loaded with cigarettes which we sold on the black market in Belgium.
We always used public transport as it was free as well.
You could get a free university education as well if you passed the screening tests. The better your education, the easier promotion came, the more money you made.
Basically, you could put your whole monthly pay in the bank and then some.
In the days of the Cold War, most joined for the perks. You had a good job and job security.
What did all that amount to? A free house.
HUGE BOMBSHELL! China & Russia Sign $160 Billion Strategic Project
Best ever friendship China- Russia helps to build up global prosperity.
I experienced many times when I worked as a cashier. 99.9% of the time the customer was mistaken. There was a woman who came into our store every 2 weeks and usually made a stink about some aspect of poor service , etc. We suspected her of stealing also. She was not happy unless she made a clerk or cashier cry.
Once she tried to pull the wrong change scam on me and it backfired on her. While I had a fully loaded till, I only had rung one sale that day and that customer had paid with a $20 bill that was ripped. I put the bill under the removable cash drawer so that I could tape it back together later. .
The store got busy so I opened my register. The scammer purchased a few small, inexpensive items and paid with a $50. When my drawer opened, I noticed the damaged $20 was sticking out so I lifted the drawer and stuffed it back in and also put the $50 under the drawer. I make the correct change. The customer starts screaming that I made the wrong change and that I’m stealing from her. She calls me a thief repeatedly. I locked the register down as the manager comes running over.
Customer is throwing and all out hissy fit, crying and screaming about how I should be fired for stealing from her. She also started throwing her purchases at me, hitting me in the face. I know the manager is going to pull a reading on the register and count the money in and under the drawer. I stepped away and discreetly called the police. I knew we finally had her.
Surprise, surprise. My drawer balanced. Evidently she saw the damaged $20 and assumed it was a $100 and thought she would try to take advantage of us. The police show up. I explain that she has slandered and assaulted me (I have a raised red welt on my face), I want her arrested and I will sign a complaint . My manager tells them that we have video. She also explains what happened with the customer trying to scam us financially. As the police walk her out, some items fell out of pants, so stealing was added to the charges
Long story short, it goes to court. She got community service for assaulting me and a substantial fine for the stealing. But the best was the store manager printed out the customer’s image from the store video and made a poster stating that she was banned from the store. She taped it to the entrance door. Lol Plus she made smaller versions and taped one to each register telling the cashiers to call a manager if she is spotted in the store.
The vice president of Korean Air, Heather Cho, in 2014, was so angry about being served Macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a porcelain bowl that she forced the plane to return to the gate at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport so the flight attendant could be removed.
She also demanded that the flight attendants get on their knees to apologize to her.
Heather Cho, the daughter of the CEO of Korean Air at the time, Cho Yank-ho served five months of a one-year prison sentence after South Korean court found her guilty for violating aviation law.
The flight attendant filed a civil suit against Cho and Korean Air, asking for a total of 400 million South Korean won ($354,000).
“The Seoul western district court ordered that Korean Air pay him 20 million won for attempting to coerce him to drop the case.”
“He was also entitled to another 30 million won ($27,000) as compensation for Cho’s assaults and insults.”
In all, $18,000 was all he was able to get.
It took one and a half years for the flight attendant and cabin crew chief to get their jobs back.
Her father could have just said “yes, my daughter is batshit. Here, have your jobs,” but that did not happen.
This was a perfect example of the abuse of power that seems to be all too common in South Korea and amongst a good number of Asians even here in Africa.
There is always a better use of your high influence than using it to make people feel like a puppet.
6G is 100 times faster than 5G. Nothing we have supports this. It is 100Gb/s. I think there are fiber lines that support this. But that is in PC, not mobile.
It is a challenge to do this in the power factor that mobile phones have. You don’t have access to 300W of power.
So everything has to be done from the fundamentals and re-engineered to work in a mobile form factor.
Wired, whether copper or fiber is completely different than wireless. This is brand new territory for human technology.
Overrated?? America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much Better
BYD is an EV company and China sits well above the US in this field
They control
The Rare Earths and lowest extraction and process costs
The Patents are theirs
The Raw Material supply is theirs
The Technology is entirely owned by China
The Software and Electronics are theirs
You take them out of GPS, they will laugh and use Beidou in 10 seconds or Galileo
At best US can prevent their sale in US but BYD expects that anyway
The only area where US hold some away is AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
Here US holds the edge while China hasn’t yet gone full flow into autonomous driving because it’s superfluous and expensive today
The ADS for Tesla costs around $ 13000 to make in the factory and design
China will get it to $ 4600 by 2025–2026
Then my guess is Oppo and Baidu will take over the Autonomous driving revolution in China
China is immune against their development of High Speed Rail, EVs, Solar Panel, Rare Earth Extraction, Steel and Alunimum and Nuclear development and Aerospace
US can’t do squat except prevent these models from being sold in US but frankly Automobiles always depend heavily on their domestic market with the sole exception of Germany
When my son tragically died she bought groceries, put them on the doorstep, knocked on the door and left so I didn’t have to engage in conversation if I didn’t feel like it (she stayed just inside her front door in case I did want to talk).
She cooked meals I could put in the freezer for me and my daughter that I could eat (I have several food intolerances she knows about and which mean I can’t actually find ready-meals in stores).
She put our bins out every week until I could do it myself (it was one of my son’s jobs each week).
She was always there when I needed a hug. Even now, four years on, she is there to talk to, to reminisce with about my boy’s antics, to share a tear with about the loss of him. She is never afraid to bring him up in conversation and talks to her young sons about him, holding him up as an example of the type of young men they should strive to be.
I have had a lot of bad neighbours, but she is a blessing that outweighs the others a million times over
Florida Businessman Dies from Virus : Meets Three Guardian Angels (Near-Death Experience)
Bill Tortorella shares the story of his Near-Death Experience, occurring after contracting a virus at a jewelry trade show in Tucson, Arizona. During his encounter on the Other Side, he describes being transformed into a beautiful beam of light, being guided by three guardian angels, reuniting with his deceased brother, and having it revealed to him where we come from and why we are here. Bill shares what it was like to feel that he was back in his True Home on the Other Side and how the love and forgiveness he experienced helped him to live his life differently after his Near-Death Experience.
What happened to some of Hong Kong protesters who got prosecuted for breaking Hong Kong’s national security law?
The legal system in Hong Kong works slooowly… it took them 3 years to prosecute me for not wearing a seat belt on a bus. A woman who rioted in Mong Kok in 2016 went to trial in 2020.
So what’s happened?
Open court trials happened. Open court trials YOU can attend by sitting in the galleries.
Some were convicted some were not.
The trials and convictions began in 2021. Convictions and acquittals are going on as you read this on 26th October 2023. Last week 4 rioters from PolyU were sentenced to around 4 years. That means we’re likely to find out in 2024 as some of those sentenced in 2021 and 2022 of 2–3 years will be released from prison.
My guess is that they will be absolutely unemployable Yer see Hong Kong doesn’t have the rehabilitation of offenders act like the UK. In the UK if you’ve served a prison term you no longer have to declare it but it will show up on a CRB check.
As such they will likely be exploited for the rest of their lives.
You go jogging in the morning and you see old people sweeping streets. It’s hard work as I see them leaving trails of sweat. They may get jobs in those areas and the bosses? They can exploit the shit out them as they wish. What are they going to do? Quit and work somewhere else?
Those last chance employers have ALL the power.
Even the leaders of the rioters and politicians. When was the last time you heard from them? The Nathan Laws who ‘escaped’ to the UK. When was the last time he was in the limelight? When was the last time he said or did anything?
Or they may become homeless. Way back in 2021 there was a rioter who was sentenced for 8 months and was released. He was homeless and had a piece of cardboard begging for money. You can’t go any lower than that and once you get down to that level all that’s left to help you are charities.
You sweat. Especially in an M48A3 Patton tank. You’re cramped, well the guys in the turret were but the driver didn’t have it too bad though he had 30 rounds of 90 mm stacked around him along with control panel in front and to the left plus fire extinguishers.
The driver had three telescope views to the outside world. One to the front, one to the left and one to the right. In the jungle, he could barely see anything out of them but green. And he could only see about eight or so feet ahead. He had help from his TC who had a better view and told him which direction to go through the com. You can’t hear conversations in a tank unless you are wearing your CVC helmet with the com speakers in it. Tanks are very noisy. Don’t let the movies fool you. You cannot talk and hear each other normally in a tank. Not in a 48 anyway. Not unless you are wearing your ‘Bone Dome.’
Tank crews in Vietnam, especially in III Corps sweated because inside the tank the temperature could reach 130 F or 54.4 C. Without gloves, you could burn your hands on the surface steel of a tank. Crewmen wore either T shirts, no T shirts.or just flak vests, if they wanted to. And their trousers of course.
So before moving up into the tree line, or jungle, you sit there sweating and waiting and sweating and waiting and sweating and waiting. That’s the worst part of eminent combat. Waiting…..and thinking. Too much time to think. Too much time. That was the problem. You were praying to get moving. Thinking too much was not good.
So you sat and waited and listened to the chatter on the com. A big ice block could be felt in your stomach and you got thirsty as hell and gulped evil tasting warm water.
Your eyes detect everything, right down to the flies that land on your vision block and you think, ‘You won’t want to be there in a little while. Fly away little guy.’ At times you wish you could fly away with him but here you stay, seated in a 52 ton steel hot box, a hot box that is nothing but a killing machine manned by 18 and 19 year olds just out of high school. They look tough in their combat gear but take off the combat uniform and give them t shirt and jeans, and you’ve got innocent looking kids. They are the ones fighting your wars.
Then, all changes. You’re ordered to move up.
“Time to find the bad guys,” you hear your gunner say on the com.
“Or time for them to find us,” the loader chimes in.
“Cut the chatter chipmunks,” the TC says sternly. It’s not like advanced training anymore, a crew being in combat together often is much less ‘Army’ and more personal.
Moving into the jungle is not pleasant especially in a buttoned up tank. It’s nerve wracking everytime. For a new guy it’s nerve wracking because he doesn’t know what to expect. For a combat vet it’s nerve wracking because he knows.
The pack or engine of the tank is loud. All you can hear is that and the voices on the coms. Combat can happen in seconds. You have to remember you are not alone. That’s hard to do in the lead tank because it seems like you are. However there are ground troops, M113s or ACAVs and other tanks with you. You are all going through this shit together.
You do not know when it’s going to happen then suddenly, you are in it. Green tracers are steaming toward you, sometimes you see sparks then a smoke trail snaking your way and mortar explosions falling around you. If there is a lot of this happening and does not stop, you know it’s an NVA regiment and not the VC. A VC fire fight only lasts 15 minutes or so. Hit and run. With the NVA, it’s hit and hit. You know your in for a fight. Now you hear the TC’s voice on the com telling you where to drive, telling the loader what type of round to slam into the breech, usually it’s canister or Beehive if they are available which they usually are not.
In close combat the gunner is not needed, shots are eyeballed by the TC who can fire the big 90 from his cupola. Canister rounds spray shot like a huge shotgun. The gunner is on the back deck of the tank armed with either an M79 or an M3 grease gun or if lucky to get one, a Car 15. He’s watching for jumpers who usually try to climb onto a tank and disable it with packs of ChiCom grenades. Surprisingly, it is fairly safe on the rear deck of a 48 because as I mentioned, a tank is never alone.
The nervousness has left you and you concentrate on doing the job you’ve been trained to do. A good tank crew operates like a well oiled machine. Their sole purpose is to kill the enemy and get their fellow crewman back to base alive, in a month or so.
Being in combat is an experience few people have had. There is no other experience like it. It is loud, time is sometimes sped up or slowed down, there’s no time to be scared as you are too busy to be scared and some of the sights you see are locked in the deep recesses of your mind only to come out later in life to haunt you.
It is after combat that the full effect of what you have just been through hits you. Some get the shakes, some talk fast and crazily, some are too tired to move and a few joke about it to hide their true feelings. There is no exhaustion ever felt as the exhaustion you feel after a lengthy combat action. Some men are dead and some are dead tired.
Seeing your own dead you usually have two thoughts in quick succession. You feel for the guy and what his family will soon learn and nearly at the same time, you are glad it wasn’t you laying under that poncho.
I found out what “the China threat” really is–and it’s hilarious
References to “the China threat” are widely used to justify the diversion of public money to weapons makers. But what is it? Look closely and we find “the China threat” is a series of vague allegations that China is planning to impose its system on the world—evidence-free claims that no scholar believes. Yet at the same, a very different “China threat” DOES exist, and it’s not what people think!
A peace proposal was reached early in the conflict last year. But it was vetoed or blocked, only not by the Russians.
There was no Chinese involvement.
In the meantime, China hasn’t shipped weapons to either side, or provided monetary aid, unlike, ahem, Nato members. Ukrainians soldiers are being paid in US dollars, while a select group of young Ukrainians are driving brand new Teslas and German cars on the streets of Kiev, partying into the night while conflict ravages their country.
China has instituted export control of commercial drones, after these were found weaponized in large numbers by Ukrainians. WHO paid for them?
China’s consistent position has been, let’s sit down and talk this through, and overtures have been made. Unfortunately, this isn’t a bilateral quarrel between Russia and Ukraine, but with the entire NATO.
Joe the elder(ly) will have to take the pedal off the gas and walk back from escalating this conflict.
There is little China (and the rest of the world ex-first) can do, just like Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen…
The only difference this time is white people feeling the economic pain of war.
And I mean the whitest of white, not the “not white enough” cannon fodder being slaughtered and displaced in the tens of millions.
You want it that way, you can have it.
Leave Asia out of it. We have had enough suffering the horror of war, particularly the Muslims of the Middle East.
“Europe” does not accept Russia as part of “Europe”, despite Russia being sovereign over the largest piece of EUROPE.
This quarrel needs a shift in mindset, and I am not referring to the russians.
“Europe’s” problems need not be the world’s problem.
Note: Hundreds of thousands Ukrainians are dead, and more than 20m Ukrainians have turned refugee. Is Ukraine in a better position today than 2014–2015, when the Minsk agreements were signed (and reneged) TWICE? Ukraine gave the finger to Russia for 8 long years, ignoring two brokered agreements.
Zelensky and co. belong in jail.
China and Malaysia’s Rare Earth Metal Deal, Put U.S in Panic
Today’s video is a deep dive into the significant geopolitical decisions made by China and Malaysia regarding the export of rare earth minerals, which play a crucial role in driving today’s tech-savvy society.
Here are the main changes that may take within you.
Lack of sensitivity towards your own self and your own needs. – Monks and nuns are constantly under immense public scrutiny in culturally Buddhist countries. At first you feel extremely sensitive and it’s a huge pressure. But with time you get used to it. Also the lack of freedom and comforts compared to laity may make one quite selfless and tough.
Sensitivity towards others – People keep looking forward to you in their bad times and you have to act as their guardian angel. But in their good times they may somewhat forget you. You learn this nature and learn to deal with it.
Whatever you do, you do not expect anything in return – You are a public figure. Being a public figure (specially if a monk or nun) is the same as being anything public. Everyone uses you but there is no one in particular to look after you. And again this will make you very tough, independent and very strong.
Even the worst introvert can become the most outgoing person – This was the case with me. If you want to do something for the society you get so much support from the laity. It is very easy to do social service.
Develop leadership qualities – People always want you to lead them in everything so if you do not have nor develop leadership qualities you are more or less doomed. So you learn it.
Patriotism – A lot of monks/nuns in traditionally Buddhist countries gets criticized specially by the Western Buddhists for this. But as a monk or nun you have very little things to call yourself apart from your country, ethnicity and religion. So the patriotism comes naturally and it is quite inevitable.
You become very patient.
It was originally intended to be a very calm and quite solitary life style but you can also make it the busiest life if you want it to be. You have the choice. However you have very little bonds and you feel so free whatever you do.
Inner calmness.
More understanding of life and worldly nature.
The immense discipline.
Sense of family towards other monks and nuns.
Respect for the elders
As a nun I MUST specially mention the discipline of the Buddhist monks and the way they treat the nuns specially in my country Srilanka. I had been a lay person till I was 28 years old. And there hasn’t been a single day that I did not face some sort of a sexual harassment from lay men in public places. But once in the order you don’t even feel that you are a woman. Suddenly gender has completely disappeared and you all just become human beings – monks and nuns. It’s so beautiful.
These qualities may increase if you stick to the practice as well. But just being in the robe without doing a minute of meditation can make you a different person in itself.
I see it among the monks who have been in the order since their childhoods the most. Eventhough they may not meditate as a habit there is a significant patience and an inner discipline among them. The later you enter the order the lesser the change may be. Ofcourse when you keep up the practice a lot of changes start appearing but it also can go down when you stop it. And the farther you keep away from the laity and the more you stick to the company of fellow monks and nuns the more changes will take place within you.
My own experience here. Back in the 1980s when I worked in a BR (British Rail) information kiosk, I had an American couple come up and ask for a train itinerary to get up to Fort William in Scotland. They were keen to stop off at various places en route so it took a good half an hour to work out times and optimum ticket prices.
Once they had collected all their notes, the gentleman pulled out his wallet and proffered me a tenner (£10 note) whilst thanking me for my diligence.
Naturally, I turned his “tip” down and said that what I’d done for them was simply my job and that we weren’t permitted to accept such things.
Blimey, that was it! The gent was visibly taken aback then his partner launched into a very loud verbal lashing of me saying that I was extremely rude for embarrassing him in front of everyone else, adding that they were “only trying to help your poor wages”.
Somebody in the queue piped up with “we don’t need your money, pal”, at which point the couple stormed off and kicked the door on their way out.
It could be argued that I went “above and beyond” but all BR clerical staff were salaried back then and we’d be mortified to have people announce that they thought that we were poor!
Generally people in Europe are paid a living wage so we don’t need to extract a tip out of everyone at every transaction to make ends meet. We leave that to our American cousins!
This is a HUGE PROBLEM for all of us!
This is a must watch for anyone who cares about our country and We The People !
Yes in a huge way it is. Though China and the Chinese people Confucian character and ethics itself is a phenomenal force.
If the U.S. had not foolishly fought wars that achieved absolutely nothing and cost tens of trillions of dollars that literally bankrupt America that pave the way for China to speedily caught up the U.S. and overtook it in most aspect of superpower status.
Just imagine this. Korean War is to stop North Korean to being communist. Today 80 years latter it is still a communist nation. The same goes to Vietnam. After 10 trillion lost 3 million dead and most U.S. gold reserves evaporated yet today half a century is still a proud socialist nation. Iraq is fought to introduce democracy to them. After 5 trillion dollars down the toilet Iraq is as i lambic nation as it was. But worst it now ally with Iran now. Another 3 trillion dollars thrown into the money pit is Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban after 20 years the U.S. surrender the nation back to the Taliban.
The U.S. achieved nothing but hate and a broke and bankrupt nation! But worst. During the 60 years of continuous self created conflicts while the U.S. real standard of living standard of living stagnated back to the 1960 level today in 2023. During these same duration China grew 50 times in 60 years! By 2021 The Chinese life expectancy overtook the U.S. having doubled from 39 to now close to 79 years old!
You would think the US learn lessons from this nonsense but no. But today in 2023 the U.S. is fomenting coups in Africa, doing regime change in Russia, fighting another 10 trillion dollar un-winnable war in Ukraine, seething a stage to begin another war with China doing another Tokin lie in Taiwan and South China seas. It seems the U.S. won’t stop till it is finally collapsed in a total civil war! But that is the U.S. where popularity of leaders triumph over rationality.
China is laughing all the way to the bank metaphorically and factually. While the U.S. economy is is dire straight. Ukraine requires a billion a day Chinese provocation cost another billion a day and CIA and NED activity will totally burn up their cash but heck, your million homes less living on tents can wait, your 35% of Americans without medical insurance can die without help!
Israel Has just CUT OFF Water Supplies to Gaza – Just Like Ukraine did to Crimea
NEW AL JAZEERA REPORT SAYS ISRAEL JUST COMPLETELY CUT OFF THE WATER SUPLY TO GAZA! Just like Ukraine did to Crimea.
It was a Crime Against Humanity when Ukraine did it. It is a Crime Against Humanity now that Israel is doing it.
To deny human beings water means death in as little as three days.
During those days, people will have to take a crap into a five gallon bucket and haul it out to dump it somewhere.
With THAT type of sanitation, disease outbreaks will come fast; killing many who have some water stored and are otherwise surviving.
The shear hatred between the two sides over there would be mind-boggling were it not so long in coming.
Most of us have known for years this type of day would come. Few of us thought it would be in our lifetime.
Meet Frane Selak, the world’s (un)luckiest man.
In January 1965, Frane was aboard a train travelling through a cold, rainy canyon.
At one point of the journey the train was somehow flipped off of its tracks, and tumbled into a river.
A bystander rushed to the train’s aid, and pulled Frane out of the river. Unfortunately, 17 people drowned, trapped inside the train as it sank to the river’s bottom.
A narrow brush with death.
The next year, Frane was aboard the only plane ride he would ever take.
During the flight, the plane malfunctioned, and Frane was blown out of the aircraft.
He tumbled through the air— and landed safely in a haystack.
The plane crashed in a field, killing all 19 of its passengers.
Yet another close call.
It seemed that Frane had experienced his fair share of near-death experiences, but life still had quite a lot in store for Mr. Selak.
1966- A bus Frane was aboard crashed into a river, killing four. Frane was able to swim to safety with only minor injuries.
1970- While he was driving, Frane’s car suddenly caught on fire. He managed to escape just before the fuel tank exploded.
1973- In yet another driving incident, the engine of Frane’s car was doused in scalding oil from a malfunctioning fuel pump, causing flames to shoot through the air vents. Other than singed hair, Frane was unharmed.
1995- While on a trip in Zagreb, Croatia, Frane was struck by a bus. Luckily enough, he only sustained minor injuries.
1996- As Frane was driving, he was forced to swerve into a guardrail to avoid an oncoming truck. The rail collapsed under the car’s weight, sending it plummeting into a gorge. However, Frane wasn’t wearing a seat belt, so he was flung out of his car—right onto a tree. He held on, and safely watched as his car tumbled down into the gorge.
While he’s lucky to have survived more than seven brushes with death, Frane Selak seemed plagued by misfortune.
That is, until 2003 rolled around.
Two days after his 73rd birthday, Frane purchased a lottery ticket—- and won. It wasn’t a small amount, either: Roughly $1.1 million USD.
Perhaps even better than his lottery win?
He’s gone over twenty years without being placed in a life-threatening situation.
Frane Selak truly has beaten all odds.
My Son Didn’t Want to be Born; Pre Birth Memory and Near Death Experience
“I really appreciated the whole “I want to go home” statement. I never wanted to kill myself but I have that feeling of wanting to go home all the time. My husband never understands this because I will be at our house but I feel lonely/a longing to ‘go home’”
Small things amuses small mind. To most Yanks the world stood still since 1945. That is their failure to recognised that the world has move on.
Americans stood still while China advanced beyond recognition in a space of a mere 74 years since 1949. ASPI the acronym for Australian Strategic Policy Institute coincidentally an off shoot of the U.S. Neocon group concluded that today China lead the U.S. in all 37 out of 44 most key and strategic technologies and material sciences going into the future.
Hubris, over estimation of themselves, racial bias and frown upon Chinese people, wrongful dismissal of Chinese progress and achievements. Coupled with being so full of it attitude caused the U.S. to lose all its lead in technology. While China work their guts out the U.S. simply deteriorated by by feeling entitled and foolishly ignorant and naive about their collapse going into the 21st century.
Another way to put it they slumbered into deep sleep mode till it is way way way too late. And any counter action on China hurts and harm the U.S. way more that it affects China. It hasten China’s lead. And speed up US implosion. And being full of it they did in the space Center ban GPS threat, trade war and Chip act all of which cost the US an arm and a leg. And padded China’s lead further.
I added a drug in my food which induced diarrhea and waited to catch the culprit.
I was fed up with the lunch thief. Every other day someone would eat my lunch and this was a common phenomenon happening in our class. Any day a student bring something delicious it was bound to disappear. Some students stop bringing lunch others used to carry their lunch box wherever they go. Complaints were made to the school principal but, couldn’t catch the thief. I suspected few students which included some senior students also but, didn’t dare to say anything. Then I decided to do something extreme.
I brought a local delicacy for lunch one day and invited every possible classmate to have a bite during lunch hour. The morning hours were chemistry practicals and we had to leave our bags in our classroom. I knew if the thief got news about my food, he will strike during this time only. We all went to the practicals. Nearly one hour later we heard a commotion and saw principal and few teachers rushing upstairs, immediately followed by nurses. My teacher also went outside to see what was happening and then we saw one of my seniors crying loudly and taken on the stretcher by the nurses. He was the one who tried to eat my food but, didn’t know that I had mixed a drug extracted from a plant which induces diarrhea. He ate my entire lunch went back to his class and within 15 minutes started to have uncontrollable loose motions. That class was opened only after disinfecting which took 2 days.
He was admitted to hospital for a week. Later on, he confessed that he ate food from my lunch box before falling ill. My parents were called to the school and I was asked what happened to your food and I confessed to mixing in the drug for which I got nice beating from my father.
But, that incident made me famous in my schools and students started to bring lunch without fear. I felt like a savior of the world.
Edits 1- Lot of people have commented regarding the legality of this situation. I was in 8th grade when this happened. I didn’t mix the entire potion of drugs in my food, it was few drops. The diarrhea was contained within few hours but, the culprit felt weakness and took a week to recover. To everyone knowledge, I won’t use that drug again but, if someone tries to mess again with my food…….hahahahahahahahahaha (beware)
US decrypts the secrets of Kirin 2035, Huawei did not respond. The discovery scares the U.S.
The United States decrypts the secrets of Kirin 2035, Huawei did not respond.
Yes. One of the major regrets of my life. Let me explain……
As a young single sales engineer for Digital Equipment in the early 80s I attended a european sales meeting held in a posh hotel in Majorca. We were told that junior ranks (like me) were to share rooms, so after picking up my key I went to my room and saw a suitcase on the other bed. No probs, I thought, until I took a slightly closer look and noticed it was opened and full of female underwear. Hmmm, there must be some mistake, thought I. So I trudged down to reception, they assured me the room allocations were made by the company organisers not themselves, but they sent me to another room, which did in fact have a male engineer in it.
I subsequently discovered that the female in the original room was an absolutely stunning blonde Swedish girl, also single, and the organisers (a couple of girls from the Geneva Head Office) had mischievously allocated us together hoping that love would blossom.
What a wasted opportunity, I should have stayed in the first room and seen how events played out.
My middle school was relatively clean cut. It was a private school.
Most of the kids came from good homes. They weren’t the fighting types.
There was this kid Brandon, who used to bully everyone. (There always seems to be at least one doesn’t there?)
He was one of those early teenagers who had a big early growth spurt. He was bigger than everyone.
He was angry for no reason all the time. A perpetual scowl on his face.
He’d constantly be in the face of kids much smaller than him, egging them to fight him. He’d say, “You are a pussy.”, “Do something you pussy.”, “I dare you. Push me you pussy.”
I occasionally was the target, I’ll admit.
He’d throw a 12 year old boy into a locker right as the kid was talking to his crush. It was brutal. He had no qualms embarrassing people.
Nobody in our school was much of a fighter. And most of us were smaller so we didn’t really want to test our luck.
That summer, apparently there had been a meeting with school officials where it was communicated that his tenure at this private school should probably end.
Code: expulsion.
He didn’t learn from his expulsion from our school. His ways continued.
But he would learn soon.
He went to a new public High School with the same assholish attitude, that “looking for a fight” approach.
Unfortunately, the new pool he was swimming in had bigger fish: kids from a rougher side of the train track.
One particular kid “opted in” on his invitation to fight and Brandon got himself a badly needed public ass-kicking.
My conclusion, that actually gives me some solace:
Every bully will change his ways eventually.
Or he’ll have his ways changed for him.
There’s always a bigger, badder dude out there, gladly willing to be the “vehicle of his enlightenment”.
No it does not want to be a super power. It wants a fair and just world! The U.S. can still pretends to be the superpower and spends its way into oblivion. Go right ahead. Prepare for another hundred US wars!
China just wants to make money and give its people peace and prosperity. If the U.S. prefer to see 5 million homeless in the U.S. but fund Hong Kong poor and hoodlums to pretend to protest. That is their right of the US to deprived its own people and interfere in every corner of the globe.
China wants the world to be a better place. It wants to help build a better and fairer world. The U.S. can necked it’s citizens to death in bright daylight or shoot 16 years old due to his skin colour. That is their right. The U.S. can fund another 10 Ukraines wars and cause 10 million deaths that is the U.S. right.
China knows what it needs, better roads, better high speed railway, better infrastructure better access to IT and facilities for its people to progress. China won’t do shit like the U.S. China won’t bankrupt itself over muscles flexing like the U.S. It wants to give its people better food and more food and better homes and nicer cloths. Better health care and free education.
You ask this question because you see from a western lens. China needing to over lords the world now that they are rich and successful. That is the western way. Not China not the Chinese people. They want to sell to the world. They want to make stuffs for the world. They want to trade with the world. Sure they are super duper ready if you ever threat them.
Yeah, from my dad but AFTER he’d died, when I was given a load of his stuff.
I knew my mum had left him, but we were told she left me and my brother with dad because she couldn’t take us with her as we were on our dads passport and he was in the army.
Well it turns out my dad kept the “Dear John” letter she wrote him when she left us all.
She made it clear that my dad was to stay in contact with her parents, but to not contact her about us.
The courts naturally awarded her custody in the divorce, but she never came for us.
We ended up living with our paternal Auntie, long story, and she hated our dad and did her best to ensure he couldn’t take us back from her.
She made us wards of court and sought a custody of sorts, which she won.
In the paperwork for that was a note saying our mum had a new life, spouse and a daughter with him and didn’t want to be involved with her two sons.
Reminder — she left us, she didn’t come get us after the divorce and didn’t prevent our Auntie from keeping us.
My dad never ever told me any of that, not even a hint and I had years of on and off again contact with mum before eventually going to live with her when I was 17.
He’d kept a load of her photos, original birth certificate, all the court documents from divorce and ward of court stuff, everything we’d need if we’d wanted to find her when we were older but to also show she’d left us and he’d tried his best to keep us.
He was civil to her the few times they saw each other, like when he came to visit me when I was living at hers and when I got married, but he never mentioned the past.
Even when my brother estranged himself from dad after years of our Auntie drip feeding him lies about dad, Dad never said anything about Mum and what our Auntie did to him in regards to taking his boys off him.
Dad left the Army, left his girlfriend in Germany with whom he’d settled down with after Mum left and they were going to raise us as a family when he came to get us back from his sister…he left everything behind to come and live round the corner from us and start all over again with nothing.
He had to die before I could find it out the truth, I never got to speak to him, to hear his side because he just left it in the past and was the best dad he could be in the circumstances.
I miss him and honestly the wrong parent died early in my view.
It was a Sunday morning, and I was bored, so when the phone rang, I jumped to answer it.
I forget the detail, but the first sentence spoken by the caller gave the game away.
I put on my best British upper crust accent, and demanded to know where he got the number from.
He umm’d and arr’d. I demanded again, whilst I turned around and barked an order to trace the call to the non-existent millitary staff behind me.
Tapping on my computer keyboard, for sound affects, I informed the caller that he had called a millitary number restricted for use by 10 Downing Street (and no-one else), and I continued to question him, whilst having secondary conversations with the non-existent personal behind me.
I kept the call going for 30 minutes, and I’m pretty sure that I heard the precise moment the poor guy shat himself.
In the end, I let him off with a warning and an instruction to ensure that this number was not called again.
I didn’t receive an unsolicited call of any description for more than two years after that.
Initially, I felt cruel, figuring this was just some kid in a scam call centre. That feeling wore off when I realised what a tale this guy had to tell his mates later on.
You politely say, “Are you sure you want to part with it?” Then depending on the item, you can say that you will keep and cherish it as a family heirloom, or, you can be honest and say, “While this is lovely, it doesn’t fit with my decor. I will be glad to take it and find the perfect home for it where it can be loved and enjoyed.”
The biggest fear many older people have is that after they die, people will come into their home and not respect the things that were special in their lives. My mother’s fear was that her “special items” would simply be thrown away.
While your older relative is alive, ask them to walk you through their home and tell you the history of the various items throughout their house. You may gain a new respect for those items, as well as get clues to another family member who may actually want that item or have a connection to it. You may also find out if the items have significant monetary value or just sentimental value.
Your relative may think some items have high value, such as old or expensive sets of china or some collectible figurines, but the reality is that people no longer are interested in china sets or other items and they are worth very little. Older people can be devastated at the loss of value, so if that is the case, you don’t need to tell the older person, just reassure the person that you will take those items and care for them, then you can later dispose of them appropriately. If you don’t have room to store items, it may work to say, “I know you love this figurine (or whatever.) Why don’t you keep and enjoy it, just put my name on it for the future.”
The key is to respect the feelings of your older relatives and help them care for their special items in a respectful and caring manner. After they are gone, you can do what you need to do.
Years ago, my then-girlfriend gave me a pair of Bluetooth headphones as a birthday present. I appreciated it and tried so hard to make them work. But they kept irritating my ears and always fell out. Eventually, I went back to my regular wired headphones — not realizing this would trigger a huge point of contention.
Every time we went to the gym, she’d cross her arms and lament, “It’s a shame you won’t use those $150 headphones I got you.” She brought it up for months and months and it started to feel like I’d loaned money to the devil.
Humans are strongly reciprocal in nature. Any healthy relationship is built on giving and receiving in a fair manner. When there’s a gulf in this reciprocity, it creates a power imbalance. This is why gifts are a common tool for manipulation by people who score high in machiavellianism (having a desire to control someone).
Bestowing presents is also a common tactic by abusers. Each of Michael Jackson’s accusers made similar claims of him showering them with amazing gifts. They felt a sense of loyalty to him, particularly when it was time to defend him in court.
With my aforementioned ex, we eventually reached a resolution that once a gift is given, it is released. There are no claw-backs. There is no weaponizing them during arguments or using them to create resentments. That relationship taught me to keep an eye out for scorekeeping. Anytime someone tries to lord over me that they did this one nice thing for me — just to get their way on an entirely different subject, I tend to get prickly.
Even favors can be used against you if you aren’t careful. The most advanced manipulators use them, and you can too, in a good way.
Ben Franklin had a political enemy who was making speeches against him. Franklin remembered an old quote, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.” Then he asked that political enemy to loan him a rare book. Ben eventually returned it to him with a nice thank you note inside the cover. Suddenly, their political rivalry vanished and Franklin had a new friend.
Asking for a favor is a conveyance of trust and need. A person feels chosen. You’re suggesting they have something you don’t: knowledge, ability, and resources. It also appeals to their insecurities. If you don’t know the requester or are angry at them, it creates a cognitive dissonance: why am I helping someone I don’t know or whom I’m mad at?
Your brain watches you behaving in conflict and creates a subconscious conclusion: you must like the person. After all, we ask favors of people we trust and care for, right? Beware of pro bono favor requests from people who have something to gain from you.
China Just REVEALED Update Plans For NEW Moon Base
China, who has seen a dormant phase recently regarding its lunar exploration program has recently released updates regarding the continuation of its lunar exploration program. As this important endeavor continues, China is on track to land its Taikonaut on the lunar surface and achieve one of the biggest milestones in its sector.
BOOM! Turkey Enters Israel-Palestine Fight — Warns U.S. to STAY OUT
The President of Turkiye, Recypt Erdogan, has publicly come out in support of Palestinians in the ongoing HAMAS-Israel conflict and has PUBLICLY WARNED the United States to STAY OUT of the conflict.
Erdogan says that his country is “with our innocent Palestinian brothers” and explicitly warned — everyone — that Turkey is “willing to defend Palestine at any price.”
It looks to me as if he just threw down a Gauntlet. To the US. To Israel. To pretty much everyone; perhaps even including NATO!
Erdogan knows that Poland, just yesterday, said they were sending military transport aircraft into Israel to evacuate Polish nationals and that if those aircraft are attacked, Poland would invoke NATO Article 5, resulting in the 31 country NATO alliance making strikes against Palestinians!
With today’s announcement, Erdogan just dumped cold water all over Poland . . . AND NATO. Neither will be able to do anything if Turkey says no. NATO requires unanimity before the bloc can engage in military action.
This HAMAS-Israel thing is spinning out of control so fast, it’s hard for me to even keep track of it.
Frankly, in my opinion, this has “Disaster” written all over it.
They are deluding themselves. Most Americans still think they are exceptional. They are so deluded that they think it is alright for their government to use chemicals like ‘Agent Orange’ in the battle field. They think it is alright for them to torture captured prisoners with ‘Water Boarding’ and all other forms of ‘Tortures’. One picture has kept me awake at nights for a long time is the one showing a naked young girl running away and crying because she and other kids were being chased by American soldiers after they saw the unarmed civilian grown ups being tortured and killed by the American soldiers. And of course who can forget those picture showing prisoners being torture in Abu Ghraib prison, on the outskirts of Baghdad. There are too many pictures for the American Authority to deny their existence. And a former US President got the nerve to say that ‘Water boarding’ was not torture.
Another picture that come to mind is when Secretary of State, Colin Powell, a former 4 Star General, holding up a tube containing washing powder and claimed that as proof of Iraq’s ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’. He mis-spoke. He should have said. ‘Weapon of Mass Deception’.
China will not start a war. To China it knows wars don’t resolve anything. It focus on being able to do tit for tat.
So if the U.S. talk shit and do daft muscle flexing and chest thumping like a gorilla, China will do nothing. China’s view is
It will intelligently let the US have a long rope to hang itself if that is what the U.S. wants. But if the U.S. hit China in China it will reciprocate by hitting US in U.S. if you kill a hundred in China it will kill a hundred in U.S. mainland. If you kill a thousand China will kill a thousand. If you use a nuke on China, China will use a nuke on U.S.
So if you want to stay safe stay in your shore in Florida or California. If you are loitering in South China Seas. The U.S. had 2 choices. One blow trillions for nothing. Or two, murder equal number of people in China and the U.S. or worst turn earth into a nuclear dust.
Right now the U.S. choose blowing billions like a faded and aging hoodlum flexing its muscles no one bother to pay attention to. All it needs is it swing accidentally and hit China to start a mutual self destruction. I think it is suicidal.
It wasn’t a patient, but the sister of his wife who demanded that my girlfriend tell a big lie to her patient. According to my girlfriend, it happens all the time in Muslim families.
Only a couple of days ago, my girlfriend found out that the patient was dying from bladder cancer metastasis. He did not have much time left — quality time, that is. She explained that to the family members who had come to the consultation room.
Not only his wife and children were there, but also his wife’s sister and an even older aunt, and some other family members — there was a bunch of them. The man himself was in his room. Asleep.
The sister and his wife asked — well, actually insisted — that my girlfriend would not tell the patient how bad his condition really was, and she certainly was not allowed to mention that his end would be very painful and bad.
My girlfriend kindly explained that she cannot tell this kind of lie to a patient — that he had every right to know about his condition, and that there were also the options of palliative care or euthanasia, which he had every right to think about before the pain would get even worse.
The problem is: in Muslim families, euthanasia is a no-go, and they rather have beloved uncle-husband-father patient succumb to the worse imaginable pain, than to help him go finally asleep without pain. Their way of coping with it is simply to not tell the patient.
But my girlfriend refused (she always does).
And she also told them that she had already spoken with him, and that he had dearly thanked her for telling the truth. He had suspected for a while that this was going the wrong way, but he needed confirmation — which he now had. And he planned to think about the options, now that the pain was getting worse.
His wife’s sister was furious, and exclaimed that the proposed therapies were not an option.
Yeah. But, you know, she was not the one in pain though.
I purchased a brand-new Honda Civic, which I drove very little and kept garaged. At 21k miles, I was told by the Honda dealer that the car needed brake work in order to pass inspection. I was highly skeptical, since I’m not hard on the brakes, and my previous vehicle did not require ANY brake work until around 80k miles. However, I was recovering from surgery and not able to do much myself, so I agreed to the work. I questioned this, and got a long BS story from the Service Manager about how I didn’t drive the car often enough, and as a result, the brakes were wearing. Something didn’t seem right, and I should have known better.
At 25k miles, the vehicle had other service work done, and the Honda mechanic reported that the brakes were fine. However, as I was leaving the dealership, I overheard the Service Manager having the exact same conversation with another customer about her brakes. The same BS reasons (not driving enough) were given, verbatim.
Roll forward to 31k miles, and the Honda dealer tells me they need “immediate attention”. By now, I was recovered and strongly smelled a rat. So I declined the work, and put the car up in my own garage. I was pissed when inspection showed nothing wrong with the brakes whatsoever. In fact, they looked almost new.
Since that time, I have driven the car for 2 years and over 16k miles, passing state inspection (which includes brakes) both times, without any brake work!
Took my business elsewhere, and didn’t look back. That was the 5th car bought by the family at that dealership, it will be the last.
I have a good one. I had long had a suspicion that my father was not my biological father. We looked nothing alike, not that it bothered me, but he was a 5′4″ Egyptian man and I’m a 5′9″ very white woman. At some point, my sister’s MIL gave her an Ancestry DNA kit for her birthday. Sure enough, it came back with 0% anything related to Egyptian. Both our parents have been deceased for several decades so we couldn’t ask them. At that point, I figured I should just go ahead and take the DNA test myself. Sure enough, same with me. I told my sister than I had heard a rumor from my mother’s best friend that our parents had fertility problems. I had quietly assumed that we had been a product of a sperm donation for years. My sister and I appear to be half sisters. She’s three years younger than I am so it makes sense. Sperm donors usually don’t donate for years and they may have tried to get a donor with at least some darker features. She was somewhat more shocked.
Fast forward six weeks after my results came in and I get an alert from Ancestry, I have a match. I open up the email and the first line is something like – “John Smith (not real name) is your father”. I was ready to acknowledge that I was not biologically my father’s but, for some reason, it startled me that I would find my actual biological father. I didn’t contact him. I was in my forties at the time and I imagine when he donated sperm that many years ago anonymously, it never occurred to him I’d show up.
That being said, a couple weeks later, he contacted me. After a few back and forth messages, it turns out he was a sperm donor, a retired OB/Gyn (not my mother’s for the record) and was indeed my biological father. On top of that, I have three other half sisters, the youngest of which is three months older than I am. He likes to brag/joke that he had two women knocked up at once. Of course, there may be more of us out there.
I’ve met the family multiple times. They’re a very nice group of people and my biological father calls me his fourth daughter. I look a lot like my sisters. At 5′9″, I’m actually the shortest sister. My bio dad at his tallest was around 6′5″, I think.
As crazy as all of this sounds, it didn’t really cause any identity crisis. I was in my 40’s. I knew who I was at that point and who my “real” father was, the one who had raised me. On top of that, I had fertility issues myself (just age related) and had used donor egg and sperm for my daughter. I discovered all of this after my child was born. It would never occur to me that my daughter wasn’t my “real” daughter. I gave birth to that girl and raised her and I’ve been honest with her about all of it, in an age appropriate way, of course. My mother died when I was eight so my Egyptian father was a single parent raising two girls. I still feel half Egyptian. As far as I’m concerned, I just have more nice people in my life.
Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond (Remix by Patryk Pryce)
Another fantastic remix. I really love this version.
Bluegrass rock.
Shit, I must of listened to this version about a hundred times! Damn!
China averages around 65 Billion RMB a year on Losses on the HSR and an aggregate loss of 5.77 Trillion RMB totally
Sounds huge doesnt it?
It would be if you were an American
For a Chinese system, this is a pittance
Let me explain
First
HSR is regarded as a PUBLIC SERVICE in China
Public Services are always subsidized by the Governments from Beijing to the Local Governments
So these losses are reimbursed by the Taxpayers
The estimate is the average Chinese taxpayer pays 3.77% of his tax money to maintain his country’s railway network
Meanwhile an Average Indian contributes nearly 3.11% of his annual income for a railways that’s maybe a fifth of the level of Chinese quality
This is why I keep saying India isn’t ready for a HSR
Our people are too poor today as a whole to pay for the HSR unlike China whose population is way more middle class and have larger pockets plus the fact that HSR has an entire massive hub ensuring the lowest cost of operations
A HSR of 1/10th the size of Chinas in India would cost the Indian Taxpayer 8.41% of their annual income (Around 2100 Kms length)
It’s why despite the operating losses of 65 Billion RMB a year , only 10 Billion RMB or 15.4% is reimbursed from borrowings or debt
In India, a whopping 57% is reimbursed from borrowings
In Pakistan, 77% is reimbursed from borrowings
In short the people happily pay for the losses because (a) they are capable enough to pay for the losses with a near 50% middle class (b) the amount is not that high, around 3.77% of their total tax money
Second
Intangible benefits
The HSR enables development of areas and places deemed uninhabitable a decade ago
In Shenzhen a worker pays 870 RMB for 32 m² Apartment while 240 Kms away in Guaoxi he pays 400 RMB for 60 m²
Earlier Guaoxi took 6 hours by Road
Today Guaoxi takes a mere 65 minutes by HSR, the 230 kph line, not even the 418 kph fastest line
Thus he saves almost 500 RMB a month which translates to 6000 RMB disposable income a year
The fare for the train is paid out of profits by the employer
This extra 6000 RMB can be spent on other things and thus enhance the economy
The Value of intangible benefits is estimated to be close to 7 Trillion RMB or so
Third
Asset Monetization
The Benefit of Socialism
China owns the land on which the HSR is built, valued today at close to 21 Trillion RMB and that’s not even market price but a 60% discounted government local land price
Thus the total losses are barely 33% of the Assets owned in land alone
Thus the HSR is in vibrant and excellent economic shape
Well, in my defense . . . oh, never mind. It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I have no defense.
Remember this excellent product, ladies?
It made our hair wonderfully moisturized and conditioned, silky, shiny, and lustrous. It comes in small tubes, and you put it in a glass or cup of hot water to heat it up, apply it to your wet hair and work it through, leave on for just one minute (!) and then shampoo it out.
Alberto VO5 products (made by a company named Alberto-Culver) are very good and inexpensive hair care products. They go back a long way; even my Grandma used them. In her bathroom was always VO5 shampoo …
and this …
And never mind “conditioner” .. we used this, Tame Creme Rinse …
I remember, when I was a young girl, wondering why “cream” was spelled c-r-e-m-e, and why a guy named Toni was making stuff for girls (?) And why the heck was Tony’s name spelled with an ‘i’ instead of a ‘y’?
Okay, sorry. I got sidetracked by nostalgia. (Love and miss you, Grandma and Mom.)
So, the dumbest thing I’ve ever done? I gave myself a “hot oil treatment” but not with VO5. Not that time. That time I did it with this:
I melted some (probably more than a tube full, but, ya know, I was putting Vaseline in my hair. What’s one more dumb thing?) in a small saucepan on the stove, applied the “hot oil” to my hair, and well – did I let it sit on my wet hair for one minute? Hell no … I let it sit for ten minutes.
Yeah, I hadn’t thought it through.
It completely congealed. Back to its original state. Petroleum Jelly. My hair lookedlike I went swimming in an Exxon oil spill.
I shampooed .. and shampooed .. and shampooed. It wouldn’t wash out. In desperation, I even called an Ask-a-Nurse hotline for advice, which was a fairly new service at the time, around ‘78 or ‘79. (I was only 21 or 22 at the time. Is that a good defense? . . . No? Yeah, you’re right.)
The nurse I spoke with told me to try laundry detergent or an astringent, which sounded reasonable. I bought two bottles of Bonnie Bell astringent. It rolled off my hair like a car windshield that’s been treated with Rain-ex.
NEXT…
Yes, I washed my hair with powdered laundry detergent. Was there no end to the dumb shit I’d try? Apparently not. That didn’t work, either. Perhaps the nurse meant liquid laundry detergent. Well, dammit. Then she should’ve specified.
Finally I spotted something that gave me hope, in the kitchen of all places. Like a shining beacon of relief from an ordeal of my own dumb doing, one I’d been dealing with for three days running. It was a fairly new product, too. One that had “grease cleaning power”, or whatever their slogan was back then. And .. hallelujah! It worked!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason nothing but this adorns my kitchen window ledge.
Have I done dumber things than giving myself a hot oil treatment with Vaseline? Oh, I’ve done a couple of dumb things since, sure, but nothing quite as dumb. My brother-in-law thought it was the funniest freakin’ thing he’d ever heard. He told everybody. I’d meet friends of his and they’d say “Oh, are you the one who put Vaseline in her hair”? I never lived it down.
The idea came from a conversation with my therapist.
“You need to find meaning outside of work,” she said. “What are you passionate about?”
And get this— Even in the *safe space of therapy* I felt awkward telling her: “I want to normalize vulnerability between men. I want to support other dads. I want to feel their support.”
“That’s a beautiful idea,” she said. “Go for it.”
So I: – Posted on a local Facebook Group – Got hundreds of likes and comments – (ironically, 80% from wives tagging their husbands)
I felt imposter syndrome every step of the way.
“Who the hell are you to start a men’s group?” “What do you even have to offer?” “No one’s going to come.” “You suck.”
But I did it anyway.
(While responding to that voice with a healthy dose of: 🖕)
And now, 7 of us meet in my basement every two weeks.
It’s: – 10% parenting advice – 90% “I need to get this off my chest” – And 100% “Why don’t men do this more often?!”
There are two things I’m trying to say here:
The first is that I have three boys at home, ages 16, 12, & 8.
I don’t want them to grow up like me: – Terrified to share their feelings – Show weakness – Be vulnerable.
Incapable of connecting with other men on an emotional level.
Because life’s short. We’re social creatures. And finding our shared humanity is one of the greatest joys of life.
The second thing is that: – The inner critic is a liar – Your comfort zone is a liar – Imposter syndrome is a liar
Each of us has unique gifts to give to the world.
But it takes stepping out of that comfort zone. Taking risks. Falling.
Getting back up. Doing hard things. Being the change you want to see.
Write Down Your Goals Twice Every Day. You cannot get the things you don’t remember you wanted in the first place.
Do Something For The Goals Every Single Day. Success and excellence only come from what we do behind the scenes every day.
Work Harder Than Everyone Else. To be the best you must work like the best. Period.
Get Over Yourself. Get over the fact that you can do this all while staying comfortable and do the things you do not like to do and that scare you.
Believe You Are The Best Before You Are. If you do not believe it, why should anyone else?
Focus All Your Energy On Improving. You are not the best yet, so you must grow into the best by improving everything you can as much as you can.
Invest In Yourself. Spend the time, energy and money required for you to become the best.
Do Not Give Up. This will take longer than you think it will and will be harder than anyone told you, but if you give up, you will never be able to reach it.
It has no effect because defense and foreign policy are not made in the Defense and Foreign ministries. These ministries are only involved with policy implementation.
Foreign policy is formulated by the Director of Foreign Policy 外事办主任。 This office is now headed by Wang Yi, who took over as Foreign Minister after Qin Gang was put under investigation in June. This means that Wang Yi is responsible for foreign policy, and is also responsible for foreign policy implementation as the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Defense policy is devised by the Central Military Commission 中央军委, of which Xi Jinping is chairman. The Defense Ministry is responsible for defense policy implementation.
China is not ruled by Xi Jinping individually, but by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, of which Xi is the face and the spokesperson. Because it is not rule by individual ego, as is often done in the west, it has no significant effect on Xi himself.
Hezbollah is waiting for Israel to start the ground invasion of Gaza then they will open the northern front. With Iran, Russia and China potentially backing this war, what will be the situation if this escalation happens?
Israel does not have the stomach to take heavy casualties nor the capability to fight a prolonged war of attrition on three fronts i.e. Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon. Israel has a Jewish population of 7.1 million, around 50% of which are of fighting age (18–55) male and female.
[1] Size of its army is 634,500 including reserves, that is around 18% of population which is in the 18–55 years bracket. With these statistics, how much casualties can Israel take? Without US soldiers to die for it, Israel will run out of soldiers long before it runs out of ammunition.
Hence the only way Israel can survive this war is if US comes in with full force to fight alongside IDF and die for Israel. Short of that Israel is in deep trouble, as it is surrounded by the ocean of Muslim world with unlimited supply of manpower ready to fight Israel given half a chance.
It remains to be seen whether American public is ready for another “never ending” war, and whether American taxpayers are willing to fund it.
Our somewhat spoiled and entitled 34 y/o son invited a couple friend of his to join us at an expensive beachfront restaurant. We had graciously picked up the tab for him and his friends on previous occasions, so we expected it to be more of the same. No big deal except that couple brought another couple we’d never met, and they all proceeded to order filet mignon. They also ordered two more to-go for their large dogs waiting at home! I whispered to my husband to keep his wallet in his pants and to order us two hamburgers. Oh how sweet it was when the check came and I loudly told the server that my husband and I would be on a separate check. You could hear the gasps and watch them all struggling and asking each other if anyone had cash or creditcards. I didn’t need to order dessert as that was the most delicious moment. Got tired of being mooched.
Typically a 3000 Km has 10 Phases of 300 Km each, which are finally linked into a single mesh network
The Chinese learnt this from Singapore & Japan both of whom work this strategy
This way, if the project is cancelled, the Phase completed can stand alone and have it’s own financial viability model
So if China quoted $ 5.5 Billion, it’s always for a Single Phase
The Whole cost will never be revealed and depends heavily on other factors
Since a Phase is around 300 Kms or definitely not more than 400 Kms, China is likely quoting $ 5.5 Billion for maximum 400 Kms
Still that’s astronomically different from Indias $ 17 Billion for 500 Kms
India is at least 250% higher
India was rather short sighted with the Bullet Train
Initially Chinas bid to India was for almost $ 4.3 Billion for 250 Kms but included Tech Transfer over 15 years
However five areas of disagreement emerged
China quoted 2.6% interest on composite terms
China demanded a 33% contingency payment knowing Indias history of delays
China insisted on having first refusal to build additional routes along the bullet train at later dates , basically saying if and when you expand, we get first choice
Chinas last condition was that their engineers felt very strongly that Mumbai to Ahmedabad was not a good pilot route due to many estimated problems that they predicted. Instead they wanted the Pilot Project between two other points rumored to be between Karnataka to Tamilnadu due to ease of terrain and other reasons.
At this time Japan who was terribly eager to get the contract offered to regard the entire 500 Km as a single phase at 0.1% interest but at double the cost
They agreed to Ahmedabad to Mumbai route
They agreed to no contingency payment
The agreed to no first refusal at a later date if India chose to expand
However they said no Tech transfer
In the end the Chinese were absolutely bang on
Proving that Political decisions never work
They perfectly predicted Delays in the whole project
They perfectly predicted that this 500 Km had a much lesser chance of becoming 5000 Km than with Indonesia Or Thailand
And Japan is stuck with the Project having had a opportunity loss of around $ 1.488 Billion to this day
An old friend of mine received 1 million dollar through a private investment savings account when he retired as a university professor. He was sixty-five at the time and had plenty of other savings, so you would think that he would do all right. Wrong.
His Chinese wife — who was a tad younger — had different ideas.
She first used part of his money to start a female clothing store in a local mall, without knowing the next thing about clothes, selling, or money management (she had a PhD in Physics and had no clue about what selling was about).
The shop went bankrupt in no time.
Some time later, he noticed that his private savings accounts were shrinking rapidly. She had gotten into investing (again, with no knowledge about it whatsoever, besides her prior dramatic clothing shop experience), and she was essentially flushing his money through the drain.
He could stop her (barely) before it was all gone.
In the end, nasal and sinus cancer hit him (very) hard when he turned eighty, and almost nothing was left to pay the very expensive surgeries and therapies — he also had a young daughter to take care of, and she came first. (His wife ignored their daughter altogether.)
He died not much later in “relative peace” (as they say), but kept worrying about one thing and one thing only till the very last seconds, as his daughter would be all alone now.
NATO has published an Op-Ed article by a retired American defense official, which calls on the bloc to fight and win a limited nuclear war against Russia. Should the US and China clash over Taiwan, the author claims that a full-scale war in Europe would likely follow.
The Op-Ed article was written by Gregory Weaver, who served as the principal nuclear and missile defense advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In it, Weaver argued that, counter to Moscow’s long-standing nuclear doctrine, Russia may use tactical nuclear weapons either to stave off a battlefield defeat or bring about a swift victory to a conventional conflict, such as that in Ukraine.
In such a scenario, Russian military leadership would assume that the West would not respond in kind, for fear that the situation would “escalate uncontrollably to a large-scale US-Russia homeland exchange.”
Instead of fearing nuclear war, Weaver argues thatthe West should embrace it. NATO should equip its fighter jets and submarines with tactical nuclear weapons to deter a tactical Russian strike, and “convince Russian leadership that NATO is fully prepared to counter limited nuclear first use with militarily effective nuclear responses of our own.”
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of atomic weapons in the event of a first nuclear strike on its territory or infrastructure, or if the existence of the Russian state is threatened by either nuclear or conventional weapons. This position has not changed since 2010, and makes no exception for the use of tactical nuclear weapons (which are far less powerful than the strategic nuclear weapons that NATO and Russia would fire at each other in the event of an all-out exchange).
Despite these clear guidelines on nuclear use, Weaver claimed that Russia could launch an attack on NATO states in Europe if the US were preoccupied with fighting China over Taiwan, a scenario that he treats as possible without further explanation.
To counter this, he recommends that NATO move “more deep precision strike capabilities” to Europe, form “several modern armored divisions” in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, and press European members to “provide more conventional capability,” while the US sends them tactical nuclear weapons.
Weaver did not mention the consequences that nuclear war would wreak on the European countries where such a conflict would be fought.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Western leaders have become so obsessed with inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia that they have lost their “sense of self-preservation.”
The writer of the NATO Op-Ed Piece is Gregory Weaver.
Filipina SHOCKED by “DELUSIONAL WOMEN” | Rubeauti reacts
I watched a recent speech by Biden in Asia. It was a press conference in Vietnam. Biden was so bad that while he was still talking, his own US press secretary cut him off halfway by muting his microphone, declaring abruptly that the conference was over; and turning on jazz music in the room so that Biden’s voice could not be heard anymore. This was damage control. The US press secretary did it, to stop Biden from continuing to ramble on spouting nonsense in front of a roomful of journalists and media crews.
The poor man is senile. He is still President, of course. But surely he is no longer making the real decisions for the USA. He is just the front, the puppet on stage – the people in charge are the ones behind the curtains pulling on the strings.
It’s pointless for Xi to meet Biden. Xi probably knows it already. Any meeting with Biden would just be for ceremonial purposes and publicity reasons. Nothing will actually come out of such a meeting, because Biden doesn’t make decisions anymore.
Xi is a busy man and I wouldn’t be too surprised if he decides never to meet Biden again. There’s not much point in such a meeting.
Is 65 TOO OLD for a YOUNG FILIPINA? | Street Interviews
Chinese Weaponry is more than capable of taking on NATO weapons
Oh don’t get me wrong. Maybe technologically, NATO weaponry is more advanced
Yet NATO weaponry has been exposed in Ukraine as woefully being inadequate for a battle with a formidable ally
They have been designed since the 1990s with the aim of maximizing profit and fighting small nations like Iraq and Afghanistan rather than design them to COLD WAR STANDARDS
NATO weapons are designed for rapid strikes and rapid breakthroughs
Their offensive capabilities, mobility, speed are their key design parameters
Yet their defense is weak, their loading rate is compromised and they are not meant for heavy use
The Leopard and Challengers are the best example
They move faster than Russian Tanks yet their load rate is slow and their external body is vulnerable due to lower weight and allows them to be crunched by a simplest cheapest $ 20,000 drone or an 155 mm Artillery Shell or an Air to Surface missile
Chinese and Russian Weaponry are still designed per COLD WAR STANDARDS
To fight NATO
To fight US in an eventual war
They are designed for slow, territorial attrition, rock solid defense and grinding the enemy
Plus their numbers are superior due to better industrial productivity
Logic says Chinese Weapons should take on NATO weapons
When there is no rival, all you need to do is to change a little to fool consumers to buy your new product.
Sometimes you purposely do not want to change too much either. Otherwise you may not have new things next year.
Huawei is different. Huawei must find a way to go around US sanctions. It is this urge to survive a harsh condition that people become more innovative & get breakthrough.
It’s STARTING! Biden Just SHOCKED The World With This Move Towards GLOBAL WAR
As Biden seeks vast new sums for wars in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, will his rambling and incoherent speech propel America hurtling towards a global war?
This video is great.
He absolutely captures the sheer insanity of this moment! I mean it’s so insane that you all have to laugh.
Psychologist, Paul Piff, ran a famous social experiment using Monopoly. They had two strangers play a game against each other — but first, they flipped a coin.
The “heads” player got double starting money, double bonuses, and rolled two dice instead of one. The tails player played the game normally.
By design, the Heads player would eventually begin winning. Then, scientists watched.
The heads player began talking louder, raising their hands to celebrate. They slammed their pieces down louder on the board as they moved them. Eventually, they were outright rude and hostile to the other player.
When interviewed about winning, they talked about their amazing strategies and tactics. They rarely mentioned the 2x bonuses they began with. They also never acknowledged those advantages were the result of a coin toss.
They were displaying the Self-Serving Bias, where people tend to seek out and over-weight information that is favorable to them (and their ego).
In sports and video games, it’s why teammates often point fingers at each other over a loss. In business, it’s why unethical managers blame employees for their own incompetence.
It’s as Upton Sinclair once wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
I try to fact-check the beliefs I have against this powerful bias — because it sneaks into every minor decision we make.
This is a schematic diagram of the recent situation in the Middle East, where the armed forces of China, Russia, and the United States are located near Israel, Palestine, Iran, and Syria.
The top three countries in the world’s military power rankings are all gathered in this small region.
The reason why the US military dare not directly intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is because they are unwilling and because they dare not.
No one will act recklessly.
No one wants to break the current balance.
They Just Did It! America Unleashes Economic Chaos – Shutdown Crisis Escalates
Congress has just ousted Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. This one move just ramped up the shutdown crisis to the next level. We are in for a rollercoaster ride which could lead to a government shutdown where the economy could get dangerously impaired. Here’s what you must know!
One of the MANY kinds of music that I enjoy is “Trance”. This is a kind of melodic continuous beat, many times with a female vocalist signing her heart out.
I was listening to some Trance on you-tube, and thought about it… you know… the pace and the beat of the music lends itself well to porn. No shit!
So, on a lark, I went to one of the porn sites; xHampster, and spent a minute or two watching the video while the you-tube Trance music played. Sure as shit, I kid you not, the music and the melody absolutely matched the actions of the porn actors and actresses. LOL.
Both the men and the woman busy in frenzied (erp) activity…
I think that this is more than just a casual observation. It’s a reflection of the ties to emotional and mental biological attachments relative to our drives.
Sex is but one of our many, many drives.
…
How does the music you listen to reflect your interests and desires?
I mean if Trance can equate to porn, then what does Country & Western music equate to? What does Classic Rock equate to?
Carry on my wayward son
Stairway to Heaven
Back in Black
Black Magic Woman
It seems to me that David Lee Roth is always singing about prostitutes, and Van Halen roars out about cars…
Ah.
…but what about polkas?
… Vodka drunk aunties, with roses clenched in their teeth, and little kids running all over the stage, eh?
…
Music reflects our inner desires, and under certain conditions, they can enhance or suppress them.
Jazz.
Pop.
Banjo…
…
Todays…
NATO Planning for 3.5 MILLION to Serve if War With Russia Starts
In the event of a direct war with Russia, the NATO military bloc will utilize the 300 thousand troops already on the Border with Russia, in the first month. “NATO will then “attract” up to 3.5 million troops” according to Admiral Rob Bauer, the head of the military committee of the North Atlantic Alliance, .
Where do they think they’re going to get those 3.5 Million troops? Why, YOU – and your children — of course! Ready to go fight and die for the armpit of eastern Europe, Ukraine?
Admiral Bauer noted that NATO’s new regional defense plans involve further reinforcement on the borders with Russia in case of a possible confrontation.
“If they attack, we must be ready. So we need more militaries at a high level of readiness, and that’s not something that can be done overnight. They will need training, weapons, ammunition, everything else. Therefore, we are talking about 300 thousand military personnel at a high level of readiness. In total, NATO countries, together with Finland and Sweden, have 3.5 million troops,” said Bauer.
Rattling sabers will not help. Sooner or later Russia will complete its plans for its new Northern Military District, and NATO knows about this.
NATO, the clown force defeated by horseback riders from Afghani caves.
Beef and Mushrooms
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/4 pounds sirloin steak, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (10 ounce) package sliced mushrooms
1 (16 ounce) package frozen pearl onions
2 cups red wine
1 (10.75 ounce) can Campbell’s Golden Mushroom soup
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped (optional)
Instructions
Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
Season steak with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook until browned, about 5 minutes.
Transfer steak to a bowl and set aside.
Add mushrooms and onions to the pan and cook until liquid has evaporated.
Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half, 5 to 6 minutes.
Stir in soup and 1/4 cup water and bring to a boil.
Add steak and its juices from the bowl and simmer, 2 minutes.
Divide into individual bowls and sprinkle with the parsley, if using.
Trump Latinos – Rich Men North Of Richmond “Official Video”
America does not believe in fair competition, Tonya Harding is its role model.
What has the US done while China is improving?
…
NOTHING.
Just a whole lot of talk, blustering and promises…
China released new photolithography factory plan, U.S. restrictions will no longer be in effect.
Oh man this is a very wonderful news, hope it can be made soon and can’t wait to see US semiconductor companies close their doors one by one as no other market can absorb their products … I would say well done USA for digging your own grave yard, very well planned!
My first “real” marketing job, back in the 80’s, was working in the fragrance division of a world renowned fashion designer. 2x a year, I was given $2,000-$3,000 to go shopping at Bloomingdales buying up the competition’s newest products.
I learned that if I dressed down, jeans & tees, I could freely shop the dept without sales pressure. I could easily make a list of what I needed to buy Basically, I was ignored and when I tried to get help, I was ignored even more by the seasoned sales people. They would rather talk to each other than help me.
Eventually, a new or young sales clerk would take pity on me & ask if they could help me. I would hand them my list and watch the delight spread over their face as they mentally calculated their sizeable commission, especially as I pulled out the cash.
And it was super fun watching the scowls on those that wouldn’t help me, when they saw the size of my purchase. And yes, as I walked out, I said to each one of them “ you had your chance.” Lol
There were only two things that shocked me when I came to the US.
The complete lack of maintenance for the infrastructure. I thought Americans loved to drive? So why not spend some money on maintenance. I’ve seen more potholes in 6 days in the Usa, than in my entire life in the Netherlands
The way police officers and other other uniformed people behaved. It already started on the airport at border security, all of the guys in uniform acted like they were the most important person in the world and we were just measly worms. Come on, I know you have a job to do, but why can’t you just try to be pollite? If Dutch police officers would behave like that, they would be considered unfit for the job.
You could try doing what my neighbor did 50 years ago. His mother was a stubborn woman from the old country. She won’t consider going to a nursing home having any help in her place etc. she fired several people as soon as they started. So he hired another person and they concocted this plan. He told his mother that this person wanted to rent a room from her and she would pay her every week. But that she was a bit hard up and couldn’t afford the full cost of the rent so in order to get a lower rent she was going to help around the house and other things that might need to be done. So every week the son gave the Aide an extra $50 and the Aide handed the mother the $50 and she gave it to her son to put in the bank. So the Aide started helping around the house and then slowly started with personal care. Pretty soon she was taking full care of the mother and the mother thought she was great and offered a bigger reduction in her “rent” and she told her son that she had a nice tenant who helped her “a little” and it was so much better than having an Aide messing around in her house plus she was earning an extra $50 a week!
When I was in school, they held a robotics competition.
It was pretty simple, conceptually. You had to make a firefighting robot. It would have to navigate a maze, find a candle and put it out (fully automated, no remote control). I can’t remember the exact size but I think the robot had to be smaller than 1 foot in length, width, and height.
Scoring was as follows. You start with your time (how long it takes to search every room and put out the candle), and get deductions (bonus points) if your robot:
Put out the candle with anything other than a fan (water, for instance)
Searched every room, didn’t just stop at the one with the candle
Could separate into parts to search rooms in parallel
Was very efficient algorithmically (there were a few benchmarks for this)
Most entries looked like what you would expect, a bunch of sub-systems. Each one with a specific purpose. A Robot.
I entered a block of dry ice. It held a simple metal device attached to it.
It basically just had a spring-powered hammer to shatter it into little pieces when the start timer went (so that it would evaporate faster)
In seconds the entire maze was filled with a white fog and the candle was definitely out. I had the fastest time by a landslide even before you counted my deductions:
Didn’t use a fan? Check
Search every room? Check.
Separate into parts to put out fires in parallel? Check
I think I could’ve been the only person in history to ever win a robotics competition without writing a single line of code or soldering a single wire.
But alas, the judges disqualified me by unanimous vote.
Aztec Death Whistle | The Scariest Sound You’ve Ever Heard
During the Iraq war, soldiers frequently used Silly String to help detect booby traps.
Specifically:
If you were entering a house, a perimeter, any at-risk area, you would stand near the areas, and spray Silly String around the room.
Wherever the string caught, seeming to hang in the air—was often a tripwire, that was designed to set off a bomb killing all in the immediate vicinity. (Source: Silly String Has a Real Purpose: Exposing Trip Wires. Ferro, Shaunacy)
Because Silly String is so light, it doesn’t set the wire off. And—you can get Silly String that glows in the dark and is bright. So it has become a popular request from soldiers in the field.
A woman in New Jersey, whose son was serving, even created a charity and collected 80,000 cans of the stuff to ship over to them.
My parents used to fuss at me so bad about my adventures, mainly because I would bring junk home from the multiple dumpster areas. One in particular was located in the middle of nowhere, which is now a very nice neighborhood. Before this area boomed into what it is now, this particular set of dumpsters was literally rich people stuff from the surrounding lake homes. If Dad told me to take off the trash, I drove the extra few miles down the small road to go to these. Anyways, one day I hit mega jackpot!
Since these were so remote, nobody ever really used them and they were not picked through. I can tell you we had pickers in the others, because one day I threw a bag in and the dumpster said “hey watch it!”. That was quite the surprise. On this day the stars aligned for me though. As I was emptying Dad’s old truck, my eyes happened to see what I couldn’t believe….a nearly new VCR. Back then dad said he wouldn’t buy one they were just too expensive. This was back in the late 80s when VCRs were literally thousands of dollars, and this one was top of the line too! Somebody must have gotten angry at it, as I could tell it had been bashed. It was lying in a pile of stuff, deep down inside. So I pull the trusty truck up to the door where I could crawl inside. Low and behold it gets even better! Under it was a fairly new Sears stereo system…..like WHAT!!!! This was thousands of dollars of stuff here, and me being 17 I was just overcome with emotion. The cabinet was smashed as someone had just tossed it all in. I didn’t care I was in heaven. I retrieved my prizes and headed home. I was beside myself. When I pulled up to the house, I was so excited I could barely speak. Dad was skeptical. I admit the stuff had been scratched and damaged, but it was complete!
I understand why someone threw it out. The VCR ate tapes more than it played them. At 17 though, my skills as a repair person were developing. What happened was the rubber was not staying on the wheel that drove the tape, it was slipping. Gluing the rubber to the wheel solved the problem. The stereo was way more complicated to fix. It only had one side that was working, the left channel. The right was dead. It took me some time to figure it all out, but with help from the neighbor down the street (who had a Commodore 64 controlling his whole house) we were able to get it repaired. It was a burned up circuit on the board. I held on to that stereo and VCR for years, until it became totally obsolete and I finally placed it for recycling. My roommate for college was utterly shocked with the electronics I had. He couldn’t figure out how someone who barely worked could afford such high end stuff. He was even more miffed when I said I literally got it for free. I was always scared he was going to steal it too.
I ran a company for years and I told my employees that I expected them at work every day unless they were truly sick or had something that had to me taken care of.
I paid well and took good care of my people. One day, a guy named Tommy called in sick. Later in the day, I had to go look at a job on a part of town I’d never been in. As I drove, there was a group of guys in a yard drinking beer. Tommy was there with them. I waved as I drove by, and the look on his face was priceless.
I had a car phone which was rare back then. Tommy called after a bit and I told him his check would be ready on Friday.
Later, his wife called and asked me to give him one more chance that this was the best job he’d ever had and that their family was more secure than they’d ever been.
I let him come to a staff meeting and stand up and tell everyone what he’d done. I passed out slips of paper to everyone and let them vote. Stay or fired. They wrote, folded the papers and put them in a hat as it went around.
Most voted to let him stay. I did and he was a great employee from then on. I think it made a strong impression on all of the crews and I’m glad I gave him another chance. If his wife had not called, he would never have gotten the second chance.
Shopping at One of the Last Open Kmart’s Before it Closes Forever! Westwood NJ
Signs of America.
When my mother started to suffer from dementia.
I was in that position. It’s not an uncommon position to be in.
My mother was living alone and had early dementia. While not 91, she needed help and someone to talk with. And she was slowly losing it. She was in her late 70’s and had cancer. She lived in a big “Manor” house about an hours drive out of Pittsburgh, PA.
My sister lived the next town over and didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Instead, she wanted to put her in a care-home for aged people, and then take over her estate. Which was really selfish, and rude, but her husband was / is a self-centered bastard, so what can you expect.
My other sister lived a five hour drive away, and while she wanted to do something, it really wasn’t possible. She had her own business, and was busy. She could visit maybe once a month, but that was it.
My younger brother lived in Colorado, had his own business and couldn’t do anything.
And I, well, I was living in Boston, MA at the time. I was working as the VP of an International automotive electronics company, and I (as the oldest) was faced with the task on what to to. My brother and older sister discussed the matter with me and none of us wanted to put here in a “home”. So it was really up to me.
I quit my job.
Packed up all my belongings, and moved into the “Carriage House” (a caretaker building) on the property. Technically, I didn’t live in the house, but I was with her every day. We shared meals together. I took care of the property, and drove her to her medical appointments and kept an eye on her.
I did this for three years.
Then on Easter day, she got really tired. She couldn’t eat dinner with all of us. Instead she just sat in the kitchen, unable to move. We ate, and talked and then we carefully helped her to the couch in the TV room.
We put on a rental movie, and watched it together. She closed her eyes and went to sleep. Everyone else left, and that night, I sat beside her writing e-mails to my girlfriend in China.
She never woke up.
And I, well, I sat beside her all night, and into the next afternoon. Hospice came. We moved her into a bed in the TV room. She laid there.
And I sat beside her.
I was there beside her as she passed on.
…
You can either be a man and take responsibility for your family, or not. I took responsibility, and those three years with my mother were very special to me. Treasures. Really.
After she passed on, a new chapter opened up in my life.
When has a Company in US ever lowered its retail costs to compete fairly?
The Answer is NEVER
At least not since the 1970s
Japanese cars and steel threatened to swamp out the US overpriced cars in the 1980s
You had the PLAZA ACCORDS to destroy the Japanese export market for two decades
Tik Tok has a huge market in US and threatens every Big Tech Giant and their applications
It became a National security threat
…
Huawei became a major competition for Apple globally and looked poised with their innovation to eclipse Apple by 2025
It became a National Security Threat and was hit with every commercial sanction in the book
…
Chinese Electric vehicles threaten to dominate the world market by 2025
Bang!!!! European Parliament decides to look into anti dumping and raise tariffs. After all, it became a National Security Threat.
The fact is these guys haven’t properly competed with any rival for more than five decades
I mean the West of course
They have a four way formula to keep skirting around competition:-
Powerful Brand Image and Billions of Dollars in advertising and marketing
Powerful Lobby Groups in US and powerful political forces to throttle any competition outside the Western Bloc plus Japan using the ‘National Security Threat’
Political manouvering to use Tariffs, Sanctions and vague Export controls to throttle foreign competition
Outright buying up of opposition through voluntary or involuntary acquisitions
In short ‘BULLYBOY TACTICS’
India does the exact same thing, so do most democracies these days
Dr Singh wanted multiple entities to set up mobile services in India to develop fair competition and lowering the prices
33 to be exact
Instead we set up mock bribery charges and wiped out the entire plan and established a Cartel
So the US and it’s lackeys will never play fair economics
They will talk about it of course until kingdom come
Tomorrow if China decides to ban Iphones for 50 people, they will shriek and scream about ‘Laissez Faire’ and ‘Free market’
Yet these demented fools will never see that they are doing worse. They have been brainwashed into believing they are the good guys.
The only way to defeat them is the Chinese way which involves simply innovating, lowering costs and establishing markets wherever possible in the Global South especially BRI countries where Chinas influence exceeds the West and their influence
And slowly keep your cards close to your chest and use some of the same protection tactics that the West adopts and cut off their products from your market threatening a SCORCHED EARTH POLICY.
Or have you forgotten what and how the United States treated Huawei?
My wife works for a big logistics company in China. When the US sanctions hit, DHL withheld some Huawei equipments in their European warehouses for American investigation. This totally set Huawei off and prompted the company to look for domestic alternatives. My wife says their service is worse and more expensive than DHL, in fact totally incomparable in Europe, but after the episode Huawei was just never going to trust DHL again. Thanks to the money Huawei keep throwing their way these past few years, they’ve been able to grow and expand in Europe, becoming more respectable. At this very monent she’s on a business trip in Europe to open a new office for their newly acquired Dutch subsidiary and the inauguration of a new cargo airline.
This is just one very narrow and personal peek into the consequences of the trade war, but I think it’s a window into other areas like chips as well.
American chips were good and cheap and flooded the Chinese market before the tech war, in fact they still do, so Chinese domestic chip makers just couldn’t grow. In 1997 Chinese ministry of education downright cut the semiconductor major in universities, probably believing such majors to be unnecessary since cheap American chips are readily available and Chinese companies just weren’t making them so graduates couldn’t find jobs.
The chip war has changed that. Now semiconductor is the hottest major in China and new Chinese engineers are filling up new Chinese chip start ups. If the US drops the sanctions and flood the Chinese market again now, it will still have tarnished its reputation as a reliable supplier, and we have an entire nation, if not more, wary of the potential of American political untrustworthiness disrupting supply lines. Just like Huawei refuses to use DHL despite its service being better and cheaper, allowing for my wife’s company to grow and maybe one day take on DHL, some Chinese companies will just not trust American chips again, despite them being cheap or not, leaving room for domestic chip business to grow.
Cambodian Girl Surprises Me With Kindness in Phnom Penh
As an attorney, I had someone served with an involuntary bankruptcy at his wedding.
He had refused to pay both child and spousal support for years. He worked for his daddy and claimed he wasn’t making any money. Almost everything he owned was in someone else’s name, except for the house.
He drove expensive cars, had a boat, a couple of quads and dressed in very upscale clothing.
He would eat at the finest restaurants and travel all over the world.
Yet his ex-wife could hardly put food on the table for herself and her children, who were his children also.
I filed an involuntary bankruptcy against him to get the equity in the house to pay for the support.
He kept dodging my process server. His car would be at his work, but they would claim he was not there. Same at home, his car would be there, but his girlfriend would claim he was not home.
I spent about six months trying to get him served, when his children (the ones he refused to support) got an invitation to his wedding.
I had my process server dress as a delivery lady, with a big gift-wrapped box. Someone at the door said they would take the gift, but the process server told them that the gift was so special, it had to be delivered to the man personally.
He came to the door, the process server opened the box and, “Mr. So-and-so, you have been served.” He blew a cork and started screaming at the process server using every cuss word you could imagine.
I found out later that he was served just as the wedding was about to start.
During one of the court proceedings, he told the judge that I ruined his wedding and his honeymoon, to which I replied that was OK because he had ruined his children’s lives.
Daddy came up with the money for the back support and my attorney fees. I also got a lien on the house for all future support payments. I then dismissed the bankruptcy.
I really dislike anyone who will not support their own children, especially when they have the ability to do so.
I consider this to be one of my finest cases.
Shanghai Has Changed Forever Since The Lockdown
A dated video. But gives you an idea bout the feeling at that time.
I arrived at a very old and very prestigious school for a job interview as a teacher. The first thing I thought upon arrival was “Oh my God! This place is way outside my comfort zone.” It looked just so venerable and posh. Much of the building was Tudor (1547ish) and extensively re-modelled in Victorian gothic. It was imposing and intimidating as a potential workplace.
But then I walked into the school office and Reception and there on the Reception desk was a letter “In-Tray” with a huge ginger Tom Cat curled up alseep in it. I thought that “only in a very old, very British, very eccentric school that was very sure of itself would a cat be sleeping in the Reception Desk in-tray.”
The cat was called Henry and he had the run of the whole school and everyone loved him.
Anyway, I got the job and was ringing round various companies to acquire new equipment for my Technology lab. One company I wished to use had no supply contract with the school and so I was asked by their representative on the phone to set up a credit account. The conversation went like this:
“We will need some business credentials for your company in order to set up the credit account”
“Yes of course; what do you need to know?”
“Firstly, how long has your business be operating?”
“Four hundred and seventy-five years”
“Ah. I don’t think there will be any problem setting you up with a credit account”.
The De-Civilization of America | Victor Davis Hanson
When I was in 3rd grade, there was a class bully by the name of Chris. My cousin Ryan was also in the class, and we were buddies. One day Chris decided to pick on my cousin. Incensed, I punched Chris in the face and knocked him clean out of his chair.
Horrified by what I had done, I quickly turned to see if the teacher had seen. She hadn’t. She had her back to the class writing on the chalk board and had missed the whole thing. I was so relieved. I attended a private school that employed corporal punishment and I was so sure I was going to get paddled.
I found out years later from my parents that she had actually seen the whole thing and had quickly turned to the board to hide her huge smile. She had been aching to punch Chris herself for months.
Chris never bothered me or my cousin again.
Constitution 101 | Lecture 1
Learn the meaning of the Constitution and the principles of American government in this new version of Hillsdale’s most popular course. Visit hillsdale.edu/con101 to begin your course today.
Two things – not necessarily strange, just quirky. My father died quite unexpectedly of an aneurysm over a decade ago. He had a terrific sense of humor, and an awful gold and tan plaid sports jacket from the 70s. My mom had begged him to get rid of it for years, but no. He even wore it to my best friend’s wedding, insisting she’d find it funny. She did. When I got to it in the closet, I wasn’t sure I could give it away, but I checked the pockets anyway. Each pocket held 13 crisp $100 bills – $3900 total.
The other item was inside a puzzle box I had given him many years prior. It was the kind where you had to tap on one section, twist another, etc. in a specific order to get it open. I heard something inside when I shook it. Took me almost an hour to get it open to find his neatly written recipe for barbecue sauce.
Gosh, I miss him!
9 Things Your Cat Does for You Without You Knowing
I am disabled and I see a psychiatrist, as required by disability.
My doctor was the only one in town who accepted medicare/medicaid. He accepted me as his patient when I went for my first appointment. We got on well right away. Over the years, he has helped me along my journey to better mental health. I have had to change medications quite a few times. Sometimes they stopped working. Sometimes the side effects were too bad, or they didn’t help at all. Each time, he listened to me describe my thoughts on the medications. He worked with me and offered different solutions in order to find the best fit for me. I sincerely like and respect my psychiatrist.
I had an appointment one afternoon, and at the end of our session, he told me that he wasn’t going to be accepting medicare/medicaid patients any more. My heart sank, because this meant either forking over cash, or driving to another town to see a psychiatrist.
Then he told me that he had decided to keep a handful of his medicare/medicaid patients and see them pro-bono. He said that I was one of those patients.
So now I have a doctor who sees me regularly, fills out paper work to the satisfaction of disability people, and prescribes my medications and monitors how they are working for me. And he does it without charging me a dime.
My income is small. This is an enormous benefit to me. I can’t thank him enough. I’m proud to know a charitable person who silently helps people with no expectation of gaining anything from it. If my situation changes, I will be glad to start paying him to see me, even if it hurts my pocketbook.
1980s Things That Are Not Socially Acceptable Today
My 8th grade PE teacher was tall, black, muscular, and pretty terrifying. His wife came by class one day; she was white, plump, mid height, and sweet. I’d never seen a mixed race couple before and was a little shocked. (It wasn’t that I didn’t like the idea; I had zero exposure to mixed race anything in a nearly all white neighborhood.) What was more shocking was she took none of his shit. He barked at her like he barked at us and she told him to settle down. She instantly became my hero. They loved each other a lot, that was obvious. I never thought twice about mixed race couples again.
Yep. Our local McDonalds recently completed their renovation, which includes the new kiosks. I walked in and noticed the kiosks, but went straight to the cash register.
The manager asked me to please use the kiosk. I said no thank you. She said, we’re trying to get all of our customers to use them. Again, I said no thanks. She got really huffy and stopped what she was doing at the french fry station and turned to me and said, why won’t you use them?
I said, “I didn’t come here this morning to do your job. You want me to take an order, then pay me.” That stopped her. She came and took my order.
While she was taking my order I explained, “To use your kiosk, I have to make multiple selections, and each one requires that I choose between many options. I don’t want to do that. I just want a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. I can tell you that in one simple sentence. I don’t have to pick through multiple screens of options of things I don’t want.”
That’s why you won’t ever see me at the kiosk.
“We Can’t Be Afraid Of Nuclear War!” Says Sean Penn
EU could become as dependent on China for lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells by 2030 as it was on Russia for energy before the Ukrosia war unless it takes strong measures.
Worried by China’s growing global assertiveness and economic weight, the leaders will discuss the European Commission’s proposals to reduce the risk of Europe being too dependent on China and the need diversify towards Africa and Latin America.
While the EU has a strong position in the intermediate and assembly phases of making electrolysers, with a more than 50% global market share, it relies heavily on China for fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries crucial for electric vehicles.
According to the European Commission, in 2021, the year before Ukrosia war, the EU took more than 40% of its total gas consumption, 27% of oil imports and 46% of coal imports from Russia.
Ending most energy purchases from Russia caused an energy price shock in the EU and a surge in consumer inflation, forcing the European Central Bank to sharply raise interest rates in a move that has curbed economic growth.
Lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells were not the only area of EU vulnerability.
A similar scenario could unfold in the digital-tech space. Forecasts suggest that the demand for digital devices such as sensors, drones, data servers, storage equipment and data transmission networks will rise sharply in this decade.
The EU has a relatively strong position in the latter, but it shows significant weaknesses in the other areas.
By 2030, this foreign dependency could seriously hinder the productivity gains that the European industry and service sector urgently require and could impede the modernization of agriculture systems essential to addressing climate change.
China Ignores the US & Deepens its Ties with Russia!
China Creates world’s most powerful RADAR Chip
Article HERE Amid US tech sanctions, Chinese scientists say they made the world’s most powerful radar chip
New semiconductor performs at orders of magnitude higher than similar power-amplifying chips in most existing radar systems, says Chinese team
It uses gallium nitride despite export bans by the US government blocking high powered gallium-based semiconductors to China
A research team with a major Chinese defence company says it has built a radar chip with a record power output using semiconductor technology that is the subject of strict US sanctions. The finger-sized chip can generate radar signals with peak power reaching 2.4 kilowatts. It is one or two orders of magnitude higher than the performance of similar power-amplifying chips in most existing radar systems.
This after China banns the export of Gallium to NATO countries.
American foreign policy is based around “security”. But our notion of “security” does not distinguish between a possible threat and an actual threat. If it could possibly be a threat, then we treat it as if it’s threatening us right now. We dominate the North American continent; that’s not secure enough, so we establish military bases in Europe; that’s not secure enough, so more bases in Asia; that’s not secure enough, so take over space. In fifty years, we’ll probably be trying to colonize Mars to forestall the “threat” of somebody else getting to it first (that’s a little joke). To get an idea of how American foreign policy works, imagine a psychopathic Uncle Sam, staring at some small country with creepy twitching eyes, and saying, “You’re threatening me” while reaching for a knife.
There is a thing called nuclear primacy. Suppose that you can attack another country with nuclear weapons and destroy the whole country without the possibility of retaliation. The United States can do this to any nation on the planet, except for Russia. If Russia’s arsenal degrades to the point where it can no longer retaliate, then the United States has nuclear primacy, meaning the ability to destroy anyone without consequence. Total impunity.
There is another thing called full spectrum dominance, which is similar to nuclear primacy, except for every single dimension of warfare, not just nuclear weapons. Domination of land, air, sea, cyber warfare, everything. The United States has this over most other countries. There are a few exceptions, though. China is one. The stated intention of American military policy is to achieve full spectrum dominance over any possible opponent. Total control.
When Washington describes China as a threat, they mean that China may one day be a country that the United States can’t dominate completely with zero consequences. The chances of this are quite small and remote, but higher than zero. That makes China a “threat”, in the way that Washington uses the word. So we have to remove the “threat” by ham-stringing China, preferably by partitioning them.
Which brings me to my next point: divide-and-rule is a strategy as old as empire. Western countries excel at it. The idea is to take someone else’s country and break it apart into many smaller countries. We call this “partitioning”. Partitioning weakens your enemy by destroying their unity. But partition is a nasty, aggressive word, and Washington likes to frame all of its actions as just and defensive. So instead of partitioning, we say we’re “decolonizing” other countries. We don’t want to dominate Russia and China by partitioning them. No, see, they’re the evil imperialists, so we’re going to decolonize them, tee-hee! We’re the good guys!
This last requires a lot of propaganda to frame our enemies as “colonizers”. So we take lands that have been Chinese for centuries and claim that the Chinese are evil colonizers for having those lands. Of course, we’re also evil colonizers, but that’s okay because I started with a land acknowledgment. This is also why you hear Western intellectuals say things like, “China has never been truly unified” and “There is no continuous Chinese civilization”. This is manufacturing a justification for partitioning China a few decades down the line. Or perhaps sooner than that…
What I fear is that American hubris will suck us into a Thucydides trap. What if we decide that it’s intolerable for us not to control the world? What if we decide that World War Three is a better option? Because those are the only two options Washington sees as viable: total domination, or apocalypse.
Don’t get me wrong, by the way. I love my country. But the America I love is 4th of July parades, cookouts, and deer jerky. The America that glasses a small Middle Eastern country so some guy at Raytheon can get a new yacht — that America I don’t love.
It seems the Dutch Government has forbidden ASML to sell EUVs to SMIC from 1/9/23
Yet orders placed until 23:59 on 31/8/23 can be shipped and fulfilled.
So technically ASML can ship orders to SMIC upto the time the last order placed on 31/8/23 is fulfilled
That’s for 21 EUV Machines & 1850 DUV Machines
In September, ASML has delivered 4 EUV Machines & 390 DUV Machines
Meanwhile there is another legal complication
SMIC has now introduced a Distributor company who can buy EUVs from ASML and simply sell them to SMIC for a 10% commission (10% is just an example)
Now the Dutch order said only SMIC was forbidden from receiving ASML EUVs so ASML has also accepted 8 more orders for EUVs from this distributor
Technically Dutch Govt cannot specifically forbid ASML from selling to China as a whole as that is a major WTO violation
So they can only blacklist importers
So China can keep bringing up new distributors and placing orders and ASML is happy because TSMC has cancelled 24 Machines recently and i am sure China offered full price for the machines
Ultimately MONEY TALKS
Once again the US is furious but again it’s all about the legalese now
SMIC is forbidden so an agency buys and sells to SMIC
The Dutch look the other way of course
ASML is delighted because they sell more machines
My guess is this new agency will be blacklisted soon and they will incorporate more laws to prevent such measures
Yet that gets China another 8 machines plus a further 24 machines which I bet China will place as they are already in process
This means SMIC technically can make 7 nm and 5 nm Chips in decent quantities at least till 2026/2027
By then they should crack some breakthrough
So China has gained TIME and the Dutch have put business ahead of stupidity
Just like NVDIA and Intel just sold products to China which were slightly off the specs in huge numbers
Economics is ultimately invincible
Reality
Beef Medallions with Cognac Sauce
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
1/4 cup chopped shallots
1 teaspoon (packed) brown sugar
1 cup canned low-salt chicken broth
1/2 cup canned beef broth
1/2 cup Cognac or brandy
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 (4 to 5 ounce) beef tenderloin steaks (each about 1 inch thick)
Fresh Chives
Instructions
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat.
Add shallots and sauté until tender, about 4 minutes.
Add brown sugar; stir 1 minute.
Add chicken broth, beef broth and Cognac. Simmer until sauce is reduced to 1/2 cup, about 20 minutes.
Add cream. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill.)
Sprinkle steaks with salt and pepper.
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in heavy medium skillet over medium-high heat.
Add steaks; cook to desired doneness, about 4 minutes per side for rare.
Transfer steaks to plates.
Add sauce to skillet; bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Slice steaks; fan slices on plates.
Top with sauce and garnish with chives.
Notes
Serve Cabernet Sauvignon with the steaks.
The cost of living in Chiang Mai, Thailand 2023. Retire in Thailand affordably – live in Chiang Mai!
The rest of the world is a great IMPROVEMENT over that of the “good ol’ USA”.
When my daughters were babies/toddlers, I/we used to have to walk to the supermarket and back to get our groceries for the week. Most of the time, this went alright. It was a bit of a juggling act and it always stressed me out on the way home, but it was also nice to get out with them without my then husband.
Anyhow, one day we’re really struggling to get home. My oldest didn’t want to walk and I couldn’t carry them both and the bags etc, so we’re doing everything the hardest way possible. The only way possible. Then a lady, a bit older than myself, stopped me and told me to ‘wait right there please”. I was completely confused, but thought maybe she was going to get her car or something? Who knew. I was exhausted, my kids were too, so we waited and I thought I was an idiot for waiting.
Then she came back, with a double stroller. Not some glamorous kind, nothing with all the bells and whistles and not brand new, but one that I could use as a buggy or as a stoller. I could put one of my kids in it and still have room behind them for bags, or put both kids in.. or neither kid and lay the front seat down. Anyways, it was perfect for us and I could’ve cried and kissed that lady. She kept saying she didn’t need it anymore and it wasn’t a big deal, but it was a huge deal for us. I offered to pay her or do something, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I’ll never forget her generosity or how much she helped us.
RUSSIAN SUPERMARKET TOUR! 🇷🇺 0,2$ BREAD and 0,2$ POTATO
This little post is going to make me the most hated man on the internet. Or, perhaps not.
Sigh.
But that is not it’s intention. Instead, my intention is to break down what happens when a woman decides to have a relationship outside of her marriage to her husband.
It’s about a woman who decides to cheat on her husband.
…
When a couple falls in love and starts a family, it is like a match being lit. The flame might brighten or dim, but it will still be ignited.
Events will cause the light to fade, or brighten.
But nothing is quite as devastating as an affair.
It will snuff off the light, and render it unable to ever be re-lit.
…
It’s life.
And, Well… Life is what we all experience.
And, that includes the non-physical with the physical.
Sigh.
…
Infidelity.
…
It is something that is going on with one of the MM followers right now.
And, you know, this is my “advice” to that contributor.
…
Life can be very painful, but we have to be very careful on how we deal with these events that we end up enduring. To do it right, it will take time.
I’m not a novice in these matters.
Lordy! It happened to me. Too.
…
Now, truth be told, this is a unique subset of the infidelity sub-culture. I will do one on men cheating on their spouses at a later date. So in all fairness, expect both sides to the same coin.
I have experienced both.
Sigh.
This is not intended as a DIY, “how to” guide, nor is it intended to be salacious. It is intended to break down, in really simple terms, what is going on and how to avoid having one HELL of a train-wreck in the process. Because (ask anyone who has been there) catching a partner cheating is DEVASTATING to everyone.
There’s absolutely no up-side to it.
It’s a toboggan to Hell.
Why and background
There is an MM influencer that is going though this right now.
Words really fail on how to comfort this person. I have no easy answers, but I can relate my own personal experiences, and these were TERRIBLE.
Thus, to prep for this response, I have, of late, been torturing myself listening to you-tube renditions of reddit discussions on infidelity cases. Ugh! Talk about a dark world! Very addictive, but leaves one drained.
Sheech!
Really horrible stuff.
But, you know, as a man who went through of a couple of divorces, I can (unfortunately) relate.
Now some of the videos and readings sound like fiction. Others are probably elaborated truths.
You have to take what you find on the internet with caution.
Nevertheless…
I want to offer something positive to this world. So, thus in this post, I am trying to address the singular issue of a woman who cheats outside her marriage, and what the ramifications are, and what her options actually are.
I will cover the absolute importance in truth in resolving this matter. And how to avoid the great calamity that is looming up ahead of you.
In the future, I will make a post of a man cheating on his wife.
Let’s start with some solid truths.
Some important notes
This is written by a man discussing men’s impressions and attitudes.
The internet is full of twenty-something single women, and 40+ cat ladies who have very different opinions. You can view those if you disagree what is presented here. This is my opinion based on my experiences.
And one more thing, this post is intended to HELP someone. Nothing more.
The best thing you can do is… don’t even think about it.
Truth One
Your infidelity will be found out. It will be uncovered. One way or the other, and once it is uncovered, you can expect from three years of LIVING HELL to as much as twenty years of horror.
Do not be blind to this fact. It might happen in hours, or over decades, but it will eventually be discovered.
I advise anyone who dares contemplate such an action to proceed very, very carefully. Your actions should not be taken lightly. Regardless of your feelings, you are MARRIED, and thus the weight of your actions affects both you and your HUSBAND. As well as any children that you may have.
Truth Two
When you get married, the man gives up part of his life for RESPECT from the wife. And in exchange for that respect, he provides SECURITY and STABILITY to the wife.
RESPECT for SECURITY
That is why a man gets married.
This is an absolute fact. He does marry to have sex, make money, have kids, or anything like that. He marries to have a partner who RESPECTS him.
The partner who truly respects him will get everything he has. In traditional marriages, he gives all; 100% of his salary, all of his earnings, his time, his devotion, and everything else to the wife.
From the wife’s’ point of view, this is SECURITY. A house. A home. A steady and growing lifestyle. Children, and all the good that comes from the family unit.
SIGNS OF LACK OF RESPECT
Saying derogatory comments about the husband.
No or little amount of sex.
No intimacy.
Hurtful comments.
Truth Three
Wife Instituted change.
When there is a loss in RESPECT by the wife, the husband will change.
He will start to get depressed, and sad.
He will start to get angry and short tempered.
He will see as cascading of troubles to his life.
In every case, to some matter of degree, the SECURITY (of the wife) will diminish.
Perhaps he will lose his job. Maybe he will take on addictive behaviors. Maybe get sick and ill. Maybe he will go “nuclear” with a divorce.
SECURITY is intimately tied to a man’s RESPECT.
If respect is reduced, so too will be the security.
In every event, the SECURITY (of the wife) will reduce. In worst case scenarios, it could be a precipitous fall.
Truth Four
If you have it “good”, human nature will assume that it will stay that way.
So many times, a wife is fine and content with her family life. But it is missing something. So she takes and makes efforts to “improve” it. Thinking “what he doesn’t know, won’t hurt him”, and additionally (and most importantly) my lifestyle is immune to change.
People, not just women, are great at making rationalizations.
He’s not as intuitive as myself. He’ll never know.
He would NEVER do this to our kids.
I deserve this, after all <enter excuse here>.
He cannot do anything. I’ve gotten away with it before, so…
A woman who cheats on her husband risks a great deal.
A sub-par life with a weakened spouse.
A divorce.
A very enraged and violent husband, and a life chained to a living Hell.
Torture and death.
All of the above mentioned outcomes are historically accurate. Do not think that anyone is immune.
Truth Five
RESPECT can be quantified.
Here are some elements that men consider to be strongly tied to RESPECT.
Sex on demand.
NEVER saying anything bad about the husband outside the home.
No infidelity.
Husband comes before friends, family, work and all else. Husband is #1.
There is a woke movement that says the opposite of this. Don’t believe it. Most women of the “woke movement” are retiring in single lives with pet animals.
Truth Six
SECURITY can be quantified.
Here are some elements that men consider to be strongly tied to SECURITY.
Shelter; home, house.
Transportation; car.
Food.
Being an active parent.
Shared future.
A man who is Respected will do his best to maintain the highest quality of SECURITY for his family.
Truth Seven
Precautions.
If you do decide to have a relationship out of marriage (even if it is trivial a “one night stand”) the following precautions will help postpone discovery.
No text messaging. Do not even think about it. Often texting is a #1 sure-fire tell-tail that indicates infidelity. ZERO text messaging, and do not think about “work arounds” like getting the message and then deleting it. The Server, often by law, keeps full records of all texts.
Nophone calls. What can be said about texting goes double for all phone and video conferences and calls.
No sex pictures, and videos. Absolutely. No exceptions. Once recorded, and you are told that they will be deleted, or are secure, and all the rest; do not believe them. In a hostile divorce proceeding, nothing goes against you more than the entire judicial chamber watching you take in three husky men plowing into every one of your orifices while you moan in pleasure.
Do not change routine work hours. This is a common gambit. You state that you have to work extra hours, and then use the time for dating and sexual activities. This is often one of the first lies that are uncovered. Do not even think about it.
Pictures. Never, ever, ever stand beside your “boyfriend” (or girlfriend) in group photos, or in any photos. Don’t do it. No excuses.
Home Visits. Nothing enrages a spouse more than to find out that the interloper has invaded their home and defiled it. This is a big no-no. It can mean all the difference from a simple divorce, to a torture session. Do not even dare contemplate it.
Presents. If you feel the need to purchase a present for your “special friend” never hide it in your house. Never use a credit card to purchase. Never use a QR to purchase. Pay in cash. Hide it outside of the home.
Truth Eight
Maintenance
You must (as a woman) perform three times (3x) to your husband for every act of infidelity. It is not one on one. It might seem like a lot. However, you NEED to over compensate to dispel any doubts.
Even if caught, your husband will think that he is too much of a “lover” than any outsider.
So here’s the guidelines…
Fuck a lover = fuck your husband three times the day after.
Oral or anal sex. Do it three times with your husband.
Give a gift to your lover, provide something of value x3 times in value to your husband.
You do not want to get caught. Right?
And if you are caught, at least your husband would be “scratching his head” as to why you would want someone else. As it would not make sense to him. He would think “Shit! We are fucking like animals all week, where in Hell would she ever have time for an outsider?”
Truth Nine
Cautious behavior.
You can never get your aggrieved spouse to see your point of view. But you can perform “damage control” to minimize the impact of the horror that will be unleashed once discovered.
Avoid local and well-used restaurants. If you are out in public with your lover, go to places “off the beaten path”.
Never compare your lover to your spouse. Ever!
Never “confide” your secrets to anyone (outside of your husband).
Be careful about your new lover. If they are getting emotionally involved then a stop-watch is started for the collapse of your life.
Truth Ten
It is a slow descent into Hell.
It is unusual for a husband to discover cheating immediately. It will take time, but he will notice a few things. No matter how smart and careful you are, and how dull and dim-witted he is, he will eventually know.
It’s not an EQ thing, but rather being married, you two are emotionally and spiritually joined. And he will FEEL something different.
Initially, the man is apt to “brush it off” as his imagination.
But all it takes is one tangible minor issue that will trigger the detective in himself.
And the elevator to Hell will begin.
The stages generally are (variations in duration, and investigation, with actions) will vary from person to person.
Feeling off.
Strange changes in life and behavior.
Detective mode.
Discovery with SHOCK!
Planning to resolve, or end the situation.
Implementation.
Truth Eleven
Fighting a man.
To have an extramarital affair out of wedlock with your husband is to violate your marriage, and attack him personally.
Your actions with your lover is a personal violation of your husband. Period.
You are now in a battle with him.
It might not look like it, and it might seem that everything is just fine and stable, but battles and wars are often fought in secret long before the eruption of violence.
The tools of battle available to the man…
Deletion, erasure, and corruption of all SECURITY.
This means that your savings will disappear, any joint accounts will be emptied, your workplace will fire you, and your possessions will disappear. He might alienate your children from you, and will try to erase your friendships and turn your parents and siblings against you.
Violence
Your husband would get very violent against you. And he could really hurt your lover. He could do this himself, or hire goons / friends, or associates to perform the actions.
Abandonment
This is the softest but most infuriating technique. He just disappears. And the wife is left with a mind spinning trying to figure out what is going on. This is an intentional MIND-FUCK. And it will change body chemistry for the worst.
Head Games
The husband would start dating outside the marriage. He would start playing games and doing things that would trigger the detective in every woman to go into over-drive. A woman's mind can be set into a whirling nightmare, and a husband though careful manipulation wan whip that mind-fuck into a hurricane and tornado.
Truth Twelve
Detaching from your lover
The smart wife (or man) would realize that the road that they are on will result in a fiery crash with significant collateral damage. Sooner or later an off-ramp must be put in place, and the illicit romance or series of escapades must end.
There are many ways to do this. But the most important one is to go “cold turkey” and abruptly call it off immediately with ZERO follow up communication.
Depending on where you are in your marriage, it can be timely and productive, or far too late.
NOTE: Your lover will NOT go “quietly into the night”.
Truth Thirteen
Sorting out the truth for full closure
If the husband finds out, and WANTS to resolve this and keep his marriage intact… then the good news is that your affair will be forgiven.
However, invariably, he will ask for the FULL truthful story as to what actually happened.
Human nature, mean and women, will minimize the truth. This is for all kinds of reasons, but the real truth will never be admitted to.
“a single fling while drunk”
When in reality the wife was having monthly swinger sessions with multiple men at group orgies.
“Sex was fine, but he wasn’t as good as you”
When she is caught on tape saying terrible things about her husband and comparing him to her studly lover.
“It was only once”
When the husband knows of multiple occasions though friends, associates and the internet.
No matter how you parse it, the odds are VERY HIGH that the husband knows much more than what he is letting on.
If what you say does not match his proof, he will call you a liar, and your opportunity is shit-canned.
When he asks for the TRUTH, he means a truth that will match and fit with his evidence in hand. And believe me, when he comes to you and offers to forgive in exchange for truth… this is D-Day. You must be completely forthcoming.
Truth Fourteen
Truth is difficult to obtain
It is in our nature to keep things private and secretive. Even if you want to be open and honest, you will invariably avoid saying the raw truth. And this problem, being serious, can absolutely torpedo any resolution to the infidelity issue.
There are techniques that are guaranteed to get the truth.
Sodium pentathol (truth serum)
You can have family doctor administer the serum while a social worker or psychologist asks questions in a relaxed environment.
Hypnosis
A trained hypnotist can ask questions to the person, and invariably in that relaxed state, the person will more likely than not, tell the truth.
Truth Detection Equipment
Truth Detection Equipment often works on changes in amplitude or frequency of voice, electrochemical reactions in the body or the combination of both.
LSD, MDMA
These illegal drugs offer an unconventional means of dealing with the issue. You will need to both take the drugs together, and you both will talk and emote about this issue.
It NEEDS to be said, that unless professional means are obtained to extract the truth, the husband will continue to doubt his wife for the rest of his life.
You cannot fake this.
It has to be solid and tangible; something that the husband will believe.
I recommend a trained hypnotist, or a doctor administered shot.
Refusal to do this WILL result in unintended consequences to the opportunity presented to you at this time.
Truth Fifteen
The crawl back from the edge of the pit is possible.
But, the solutions are Black and White with absolutely no ambiguity.
Non-contested divorce.
Contested divorce.
Full STOP with the infidelity, and zero communication with the lover.
Staged decoupling, husband, lover, or both.
Open marriage.
Start an alternative lifestyle.
You pick one. Both of you agree to it. And you stick to that decision.
Truth Sixteen
Closure and Future
When a wife cheats on her family, a change in the relationship occurs. How the couple works it out is wildly interconnected, but it really just boils down to two solid events.
Closure. The full truth is shared. Guarantees are made to prevent reoccurrence.
Future. What changes will be made in the relationship and the expectations with them.
Final Comments
This post is about a wife cheating on her husband.
I experienced that myself.
We resolved it by the two-choice method. After my wife returned from a weekend in a distant city with her boyfriend, I sat down with her and made the situation very clear.
[1] Say with me, or [2] go with the lover.
Pick one, and we will move on from there.
But having both a lover and a husband can not continue.
Long story short. My wife chose me, and left him.
And he was pissed!
…
I did not ask for details. I already knew enough. And, you know, I really didn’t need a blow-by-blow of events.
She had sex numerous times. Ok. Meh. This is a no-brainer. Of-course.
She spent a lot of time with him, too much.
He was active in trying to peel her away from me. (A big headache!)
He was /is an investment banker. (He had a LOT of money to spend on her.)
I was just then getting back on my feet. (I was just scraping by.)
He was younger, studlier than myself. Alpha male.
His parents already made arrangements for a mansion, cars, and a lavish lifestyle under the observation of his mother once they “got married” after our marriage was annulled.
Sigh. MM life. Not for the feint of heart. Eh?
My concern (my “big deal”) was “shared relationship” and one where large portions of time was not spent with me, instead she was emotionally attached with her lover. Guys. I don’t like sharing emotions. It’s difficult for me.
Us guys are like that.
When your wife spends “too much time” with another guy, we start to get insecure. Whether it is just talking, writing, texting, or sex… it doesn’t matter. We want your undivided attention. Otherwise, we get insecure.
Insecurity is the result of a lack of RESPECT.
So, I had to end it.
And I respect any man or woman that makes the same decision. Including certain MM influencers living in Europe. Don’t you know.
…
The wife initiated this chain of events.
But it is husband’s responsibility to end them. And, you know, so I did.
I did what I preach. The decision on how to proceed must be clear and unambiguous. The choices were clear and stark. Two men. One a husband, the other a lover. The wife had to choose, and the loser could NEVER, ever communicate with the wife ever again.
Once presented, it was up to the wife to make the decision.
And my wife chose me.
Most wife’s will not want to throw away the relationship that they have with their spouse, but the guardrails and rules must be firm and adhered to. Or else it is just a continuation of torture.
…
In the future, I will make another post about men cheating on their wives. I also have experience in this. And it’s called life experience. Ugh!
Please don’t judge.
It is natural to do so, but we all experience the highs and lows of life, and some are not pretty to look at. And, as I have repeatedly said, I am not an angel. Just a man, full of mistakes and faults.
Relationships change. People change. Life changes us.
No one is an angel. Accept that fact, and be understanding to your spouse who has made mistakes. It’s not a forgiveness; it is rather an acceptance.
Men. Do not be an absolutist.
Be understanding, show kindness and compassion. Most especially to your wife. Everyone deserves to have one major fuck-up. Let her absolve her sins, and move on forward.
Be like water. Adapt to the changes.
…
It is common to be devastated and turn into a solid cube of ice. Fight that force.
Offer the wife a choice, and a firm and clear option with “guardrails”. Allow her a “face saving” out, and a chance to repair the marriage, and then build something new and better from the ruins.
Some good Videos
The following videos will help explain what is discussed herein. They were difficult for me to watch. If you want to watch just a few videos, then just watch the first three.
VIDEO #1
Husband Finds Spicy Video Of Wife With Coworker, Sends It To Her ENTIRE Family And Then Leaves Town!
This video illustrates well what is at stake.
VIDEO #2
Husband Took My Dad’s Business & Left Me W/ No Inheritance Cuz Of My Small Misstep.
This is a pretty good story. Probably the best on the Internet. And well illustrates all the points made up and above.
VIDEO #3
She participated in group sex for years!
This is also a pretty good video.
VIDEO #4
My Cheating Wife Is Going To Be Homeless Because Of A Prenuptial Agreement
When I lived in Indiana USA, we (my wife and I) took a welding class for fun and enjoyment. This was a college course out of the local college, and we attended classes on Saturday morning. We really enjoyed the class, aside from learning how to weld.
I had a blast, and my wife really thought it was fun.
Anyways, we were in a class of around 30 students, and we were the oldest students. The rest were kids in their 20’s. Maybe one or two almost our age.
But there was one kid, a teenager, who came every Saturday, signed his name and left.
In and then two minutes later… gone.
He never stuck around.
Never learned anything.
Didn’t chat or talk with any of us and never even attempted to learn.
He never actually learned anything. He didn’t get to enjoy any fun, and he certainly didn’t get anything out of it. I couldn’t figure out why he came, signed in and left.
So I asked the instructor.
He was arrested on possession and sales of illegal drugs. He was 18 years old. The judge cut him a deal instead of sending him off to prison for a few years. He would be free and not go to jail or prison, as long as he attended the welding class to learn a skill. If he did that, his record would be purged, and he would be a better person with a skill to rely upon.
I think that the judge made the right decision, but failed to police the actions of the young kid. Now, that kid will “on paper” appear to have a skill, but in truth all that happened is that he is going to keep on doing what he has been doing, no hope off the treadmill, and he has no idea that he is on one to begin with.
Next problem will be far worse, and then the recovery will be equally worse.
Dumb smuck.
…
Take advantage of every opportunity, never think that you are getting more for less by cutting corners. Life does not work that way.
Today…
RUSSIA LAUNCHES 50 MISSILES INTO UKRAINE; 48 HIT ***NATO*** INFRA-STRUCTURE AND AMMO DUMPS!
Breaking: Russia has bombed NATO Infrastructure across Ukraine as an apparent message is sent . . . loud and clear.
Logistics Hubs, “Mercenary” (NATO, UK, and USA) barracks, quarters and Bases, Weapons and Depleted Uranium Ammunition Depots have all been set ablaze in a gigantic strike with more than 50 missiles.
The __only__ purely Ukraine target was the Rivne thermal power station . . . which was was completely destroyed.
Carpetbagger Steak
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 cup fresh oysters, drained and chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh mushrooms
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons melted butter
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 ounce crumbled bleu cheese
1/4 cup sauterne or other dry white wine
4 thick-sliced rib eye or filet steaks
Instructions
Sauté oysters, mushrooms and parsley in butter until mushrooms are tender; drain.
Stir in bacon, cheese and sauterne; set aside.
Make pocket in side of steak. Stuff pocket with oyster mixture; secure with wooden picks.
Broil steaks about 6 inches from heat for 8 to 10 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness.
Give a kid dinner, and he eats for a day. Teach a kid to make dinner, and THE PARENTS EAT UNTIL HE MOVES OUT.
Before our 11-year old had even finished expressing his interest in cooking, we were handing him whisks and salted butter. Get started, kid!
Kids curing their boredom by cooking? That is SO much better than building model rockets. Can you eat a model rocket? You cannot. And, half the time they wind up stuck in trees.
But can I eat this pasta sauce that he made? Yes. Yes, I can.
Wait, he wants to start a restaurant in the kitchen, so that mom & dad can sit at the table on a Sunday morning and be waited on? SOLD.
Sure, he forgot to put coffee on the menu, but the waiter was accommodating when we asked for it.
Mom opted for the egg sandwich:
I went for the BLT because… bacon:
I’d give him 5-stars on Yelp, if he were on Yelp.
After he suggested he wanted to try his hand at baking, I was immediately racing to the store to get him a 9″ springform pan. I had no idea what that even was until he mentioned it. It helps him make things like this:
I’m all for it.
After school yesterday, he decided he wanted to make a dessert. I told him to pick out a recipe. I had to make a special trip that evening to buy almond flour, but the payoff was I got to have his Olive Oil Cake:
Will he stick with it? We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, while there are plenty of things for an 11-year old to do when bored, this is one of my favorites.
No. The US has had four years of trying to kill Huawei and it is not working.
While Huawei has dropped to #6 position in global smartphone sales. It has created its own Operating System thereby avoiding android. Their OS is available for other phone manufacturers to use. The company has also designed its own chipset. Production of their own 14nm and 7nm 5G chips is said to begin this year.
Meanwhile Huawei has been working on 6G which expectations for 2030.
Huawei Q2 2023 revenue was up 4.8% y/o/y to $25 billion USD.
I was looking for old mystery novels—the kind of 1950’s cheap pulp crap that never even hits a second printing. I didn’t find any, but I did find a couple of Agatha Christies, so I went to check out.
The shop owner was unpacking a new box from somebody who’d gone “you can have the whole thing for five bucks, I just want it gone.” She’d set aside one book about the same size as an adult woman’s hand, a nasty little grubby thing that looked like it might have a bad case of mold. I was curious, so I asked about it.
Her reply: “I don’t think I even have a place for it on the shelf. It’s going to sit forever.”
I bought it for 50 cents and took it home.
There was no title page, and neither my mom nor I recognized the work in it, so my mom—now also curious—bought a baby toothbrush and spent a lot of hours teasing the dirt off the cover with the barest amounts of water and a lot of paper towels. Just one word for a title: “Essays.” But now we knew what the cover looked like—not grunge black, but a pretty tan and green—so she started doing research.
First edition of Emerson’s Essays, as confirmed by the cloth color on the cover and the lack of a title page.
BUT WAIT.
You think that’s the find of a lifetime. And for someone else in another bookshop, it is.
But here’s the thing. There were TWO first editions of Emerson’s Essays. A binding error led to the release of a few hundred copies with about 20 pages missing, and a couple of others upside-down. These error copies were quickly destroyed, barring those that had already been purchased, and the current going price for such a copy was several hundred dollars, possibly as much as a thousand—as opposed to the $50 or so garnered for a “first” (corrected) edition.
My mom and I read this on an appraiser’s website and stared at each other, barely daring to breathe. I asked if she’d looked. She said no. “You bought it, you look.”
I picked it up and flipped to the page numbers indicated. Missing—but that wasn’t good enough. Pages can be removed. I had to confirm the other error, too.
I flipped the pages—so, so carefully. I was shaking. I looked.
I gasped so loudly you could have heard me three counties over, dropped the book, caught it, and set it down like it was made out of glass.
And that’s the story of how I paid our mortgage AND electricity for a month for just fifty cents.
VIKING tells the COLDEST truth about the female nature
“At 55 years old. I live on my own now for 6 years. Never will I allow myself to be treated poorly again. I relate to this man.”
At every level, America is ready to explode.
He is speaking TRUTH. It stings. And it is real. Agony.
My ex gf had a son around 10 years old at the time who is on the Autism spectrum. He was the sweetest, smartest little boy just didn’t have the best socializing skills. One day I stopped by their home to pick up my watch that I left there that morning. Me stopping by wasn’t part of the daily routine or planned ahead of time, and he was surprised when I got there. Every time I’d get to their house and he was home I would always talk to him first before even giving my gf a hug. So after saying hello and telling him why I was there I sat on the couch with him to chat while he was playing with play doh. While we were talking he was writing something in a flat piece of play doh. Then he handed it to me. It said “why don’t you leave?” I read and it thought I’d mess with him a little. I said out loud, “don’t leave!” I said ok, bud! I’ll stay all day!” He yells “No! It says why don’t you leave!?!” “oh ok, I said I didn’t see that part. Ok, I’ll leave I didn’t mean to bother you.” Mom jumps in while hearing this and tells him that was very rude and blah blah blah. I interrupted her and told him it’s all good!!! I always want you to tell me the truth about how you feel. You never have to hide your feelings because of me. So if you don’t want company when I’m here you just have to say so. You can always talk to me. I asked him if I could give him a hug before I left and he said yes. I gave him a hug and gf walked me out. She apologized over and over. It was all good. I know he has a hard time socializing so I wasn’t too upset.
It all began when the US started playing dirty and Trump sanctioned Huawei
Other players in China began to start stockpiling Chips and placed large orders with TSMC
So TSMC sales boomed but in reality all that was happening was the mainland was buying more and more chips to stockpile
Every smartphone maker feared a similar ban from the demented United States
Today China has between 140% -170% of the 7 nm Chips it needs
Global Demand has weakened which means these Chips can last until 2025 November
Until then TSMC won’t get any more orders from China or will get minimal orders
Who else buys 7 nm Chips?
So TSMC will see a fall in sales for the next few quarters
Meanwhile if the Chinese in these two years cost effectively crack the 7/5 DUV Stacking Chip process of Huawei and make the imported equivalent of 18 Billion ICs a year, then it’s likely Chinas TSMC imports will fall by as much as 70% from 2026 onwards
So obviously they have slashed 40% of their orders from 40 to 24 EUV Lithography Machines
No need for Xi Xinping to say it, the world already know it and the world except for some dozen or so cronies and slave nation do not like it and the world will slowly but surely, step by step dismantle this so called International Rules Based Order.
To the world every nation or group of nations cannot have a right to fxxk up any nation using arbitrary sanctions. And the world have acted. The unfair and unjust U.S. and European actions on Russia in war blamed on Russia although fully goaded and provoked by the U.S. and UK. Is the straw that break the camel’s back.
International norm must be truly international not set by some white Caucasian Anglo nations. Especially when a nation like the U.S. and UK failed every test on a truly international norm. Plundering, looting, stealing, bombings, war mongering, unilateral sanctions, regime change, orchestrating coups, demonstrations, revolutions are not international norm. They are bullying, mafia behaviour. Coercion by force.
The world has moved on from this western bullying.
On June 17, 2022, the FDA authorized emergency use of the mRNA Covid vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech to include use in children down to 6 months of age. Turns out, it KILLED a lot of them.
Just over a year later, the report – which was quietly released by CDC and subsequently suppressed by the mainstream media – revealed that nearly half a million children and young adults have now died since the injections were approved for use on most children.
Over 118,000 of those deaths are suspected to be DIRECTLY linked to the Covid vaccines’ side effects.
Despite the staggering death toll revealed in the report, it has been met with deafening silence from the mainstream media.
The latest data from the CDC has just been published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OEC).
The OEC is an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries and it hosts a wealth of data on excess deaths, including data from the CDC that isn’t easily available to the American people.
The thing about nm claims is that they turn out to be marketing.
So you have to go with the economics of semiconductors. The first company that invests in top of the line semiconductors has to spend a ton of money on research and development that go nowhere. For example, there are two ways you can produce 7nm, one that works and one that doesn’t. Intel put all their money on a process that just doesn’t work, whereas TSMC put billions of dollars in two different processes, once of which worked, which means that you spent billions on a dead end.
Because the leading companies have to recover the costs of dead ends, they will sell the best chips at a huge premium. Once you’ve figured out how to produce the chips the cost of the chip is low and you are just recovering R&D costs.
This is why China can produce mature chips super chip. Once you know that you can produce chip X using process Y, then you just do it. It turns out that this is really symbotic because it means that Taiwan and South Korea can focus on R&D and then Mainland China focuses on mature chips. The thing about this is that most of the advanced chips end up in Mainland China where you have Santa’s elves put these together into consumer goods.
The thing about Biden’s semiconductor policy is that there seems to be absolutely no strategic thinking behind them, and a lot of this has to do with US politics in which different groups want different things. The basic problem is that you have people that want to “starve”China from semiconductors, whereas most of the people that actually understand how semiconductors work haven’t bought in on decoupling.
My personal opinion is that US policy will end up screwing over Taiwan, and by 2028 this is going to be so obvious that you will have a blue wave in 2028.
Did you feel the earth move?
On April 19, 2010, a Muslim cleric in Iran blamed earthquakes on women who dressed – immodestly.
Jen McCreight was a student at Purdue University when she heard this. She didn’t like the idea of natural disasters being blamed on sinful women so decided to do something about it. She wrote a blog post entitled: “In the name of science, I offer my boobs”.
I was playing Galaga in the basement of the Student Union building at CUNY Queens College about 35 years ago. There was this gorgeous, Asian, punk girl who I was somewhat acquainted with who sat opposite me. We played for about 15 minutes and I said, “crap. I’m all out of quarters”.
She said, “What do you want to do now?”
I said, “Take you up to the roof and bang the hell out of you.”
I had no idea how this just came out. I wasn’t thinking at all. I had removed the filter between my brain and mouth and it just happened.
The discoveries will help shorten mining time by about 70 percent, reduce the impurity content by 70 percent and increases the recovery rate of rare earths by about 30 percent.
The findings were made by He Hongping’s team from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. They presented the research results at a scientific evaluation meeting in Meizhou City, South China’s Guangdong Province.
This new mining technology is mainly applied to the mining of weathered crust rare earth ores, a characteristic resource in China. It aims to solve the problems of present in-situ leaching technology in ecology, resource efficiency, and to promote efficient and green utilization of rare earth resources in China.
Professor He’s team creatively developed a new way of using electric currents to extract rare earth elements (REEs), compared to traditional methods which uses ammonium chloride as leaching agents to extract REEs. The new technology is more environmental friendly as it avoids soil contamination caused by leaching agents, which responded to Chinese government’s demand for environmental protection and green and efficient mining.
With a 5,000-ton earth-moving scale demonstration area, professor He’s team was able to test his findings on soil and achieved design outcomes on the ground. This key technology and its results have helped He’s team publish 11 high-level papers in journals such as Nature Sustainability, and to obtain 7 patents for inventions. Citing a report from Nature Sustainability, Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven called the strategy “A game changer, providing that it is feasible on a large scale.”
Through years of efforts, China has formed a complete industrial chain around REEs. In 2022, China accounted for 63 percent of the world’s rare-earth mining, 85 percent of rare-earth processing, and 92 percent of rare-earth magnet production, according to Politico.
The new rare-earth extraction technology could increase China’s advantage in rare-earth sectors by making the extraction process greener and more efficient. The strategy could help China keep its leading position in the global rare-earth industrial chain.
If You Think The Last Few Years Were Difficult…
Mark Twain once said that “If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”
“This sense of unease. People of upset. There is a sense of anger and frustration.”
China’s total national debt to GDP is high, pushing 300%. Government wants to control it. It sees this as a serious impediment to sustainable growth. This is a critical part of the structural change in the country. Another critical part of the structural change is to drive consumer expenditure, such as to improve consumer confidence, such as through better access to healthcare, personal insurances, and pension and retirement plans. These structural changes underway have slowed growth, which could persist in the next 2–3 years.
Overwhelmingly, the debt is owed by corporates, as part of business finance, and by local authorities, in pursuit of their development plan. The debt owed by the central government is very small, at 21% of GDP. The overwhelming amount of the debts are domestic debts in RMB. RMB is issued by PBOC, the legal tender in China. China has very little foreign debts. Its net international financial position is in surplus. Indeed, the single most important factor for the slow take-off to internationalize the RMB is that it has low international liquidity, due to China’s persistent current account surplus.
China has no problem to borrow more money. (1) Central government has low debt at only 21% of GDP, (2) the overwhelming debts are owed by corporates and local authorities in RMB, (3) PBOC has full control over the RMB, and (4) China’s net international financial position is in surplus. Quite the opposite. China does not want the debt to rise in the country. The most visible of this is the 3 red lines regulations on the real estate sector.
US government debt at about $33 trillion is pushing 130% of GDP (compared with 21% for China). It rose dramatically from $31.4 trillion when debt ceiling was raised in June, to $33 trillion at end-August. About 30% of US TBs are held by foreigners, the 3 largest are Japan, China, and UK. China has reduced its holdings from the high of over $1.1 trillion to less than $850 billion.
US government is in chronic deficit, running at an annual rate of over $1 trillion, and rising. US government debt will rise in consonant. Rising issue of TBs will require an elevated interest rates regime to attract investors, which increasingly will be domestic investors as foreigners could shy away. Elevated interest rates have driven the government’s interest bill towards $1 trillion, growing faster and exceeding the defense budget.
Rising US government borrowings and elevated interest rates could distort the financial markets. One consequence of the Fed’s interest hikes has been the loss of the market value of TBs. It has stressed the banking system, including the collapse of a few regional banks. Bloomberg estimated that as of May, the banking system was sitting on unrealized losses of $1.84 trillion on their holdings of TBs. The regional banks are the most stressed. They are the main lenders to commercial real estates. An estimate by Newmark Group, a brokerage, has it that $1.2 trillion of such debts are potentially troubled when refinancing is due, the combination of lower quantum from falling property prices and lower leverage, as well as, higher interest rates. Many property owners have defaulted and let the lenders take the properties rather than to put up more money.
You are right that borrowing more money in the US may become more difficult.
China Laughs at American Sanctions
It seems that when the United States can’t compete fairly they revert to underhanded tactics. They can’t handle a peer competitor and that is exactly what China has become.
The Chinese automotive manufacturing is the largest in the world as is most sections of manufacturing. China built their own space station and now 7nm Semiconductors built by SMIC. Huawei although sanctioned has come up with an amazing cell phone Mate 60 Pro that the Americans say can’t be possible.
It seems sanctions no longer work against Chinese growing economy and the United States is getting nervous.
Taiwan is in China. The island of Taiwan is surrounded by Chinese warships and the American, Japanese and Australian fleets are unable to approach Taiwan.
Biden did not tell the US citizens that he wanted to invade China, only “to defend Taiwan”.
So, I ask, how does the US plan on doing that? with some sort of video game competition?
I mean, in order to “defend Taiwan”, you have to have military troops pertorming military actions, aka combat inside of China – And that’s because Taiwan is in China.
So currently America has soldiers in Taiwan, which is either illegal, or at the very least gray area because that’s part of China. And the government of China doesn’t approve of that and hasn’t allowed it. So that’s the current status.
If US start performing miltary action, that’s an effort to militarily conquer at least China or push them back inside of China.
That‘s called an invasion.
Sorry, everybody, if you don’t agree with this definition, but that’s what it is.
The 1.4 billion Chinese people have told the small hooligans led by the United States countless times that the Taiwan question is the bottom line of the Chinese people, and foreign forces are not allowed to get their hands on it.
China can use all its forces to resist the invasion, and after this naval battle all the warships of China, the United States, Japan and Australia will be destroyed.
Do you think that after the end of the naval war, it will stop here? No, it has not come to a stop yet.
At the same time, China will fight back against its territory. Although all of China’s warships were sunk in the war with the United States, Japan and Australia, let us not forget that China has the largest number of civilian ships in the world, and Chinese soldiers will be present in those countries.
No matter what era we are in, apart from the indiscriminate bombing in the early stage of the war, the later stage of the war will be a ground war.
Does Australia have 50,000 soldiers combined? China can send 500,000 troops to Australia and take it over.
Japan: China does not need to send troops to occupy, dropping a few atomic bombs would be enough. The four Japanese islands are so resource-poor that even if China occupied them, they would be a liability and would be better off being completely destroyed.As for the US, China wouldn’t send troops to occupy it either, but a huge army landing on US soil would be enough to make the US pay. China’s huge population could provide a steady stream of soldiers. You have to be prepared for America to become a battlefield.
The United States is keen on Preemptive war. However, China has always adheres to the principles of defense, self-defense and post-strike response, and adopts active defense. It keeps to the stance that “we will not attack unless we are attacked, but we will surely counterattack if attacked”.
“post-strike response“,”we will surely counterattack if attacked” →→→ We have already told you what we will do!
Don’t think that if China is bullied, it will swallow its anger and not take revenge. There are limits to tolerance. Modern China is no longer the China a hundred years ago.
This is like a group of American hooligans always bullying a high-achieving Chinese student at school. Chinese students usually don’t give a damn about the provocations of American hooligans, but once they can’t stand it anymore and decide to fight back, the American hooligans will have to start paying a high price for their previous stupid provocations.
This question has been asked for years, if not decades.
The key problem is that, as a westerner, you have no idea how fast China has been developed.
In the place where you live, things around you don’t change much even after one or two decades. The layout of streets, the buildings, even the stores don’t change much.
They also don’t know the size and population of China. They just assume that China is more or less the same as where they live, maybe slightly bigger.
Above link is about a man called Kevin and his family.
He went to China from Belgium when he was 6 with his parents, to one of the poorest province, Guizhou, and lived there for 20 years. In this video, he talked about things when they went back to Belgium.
He described the scene when he was chatting with his relatives about China. His relatives in Belgium thought that when Kevin said they need to go to another city to take a plane, they assume it is like 50 kilo or something, but the reality is 300KM. People in Belgium cannot imagine a country which is about the same size as Europe.
Then they mentioned certain people think China is all city, and others think China is all village and nature.
Then the camera guy asked them a question: “Don’t they go online?”, and this is how they react:
“Yeah… but what could we do?”
While the west enjoying their nice infrastructure, meanwhile in China:
The country was developed in a speed which the world had never seen.
Same thing happned in Shenzhen too.
The urbanization ratio was very low in China, and began to grow up rapidly.
In 1978, China had 17.92% urban resident, in 2022 it was 65.2%.
In comparison: The US in 80%, Germany is 77.65%, the UK is 84.4%.
If we set China’s standard with the lowest of the 3, Germany, then there is still 77.65–62.2=12.42% of Chinese people waiting to move into urban areas.
That is 1400×12.42%=173.88 million people.
This is a Japanese news in 2017 reporting about a subway station called Cao Jia Wan in Chongqing.
I don’t fully understand the title, but I can read the Kanjis. It says somthing about looking like a ruin or military base.
In 2020, a Japanese posting on Twitter about Cao Jia Wan station. It looked very differently already.
It was not very crowed, because of the pandemic.
In 2022, it looks like this.
China doesn’t count on the invisible hand,
not entirely at least.
The government plans ahead, then lay down the infrastucture for people to move in.
The actual move happens after most of the plan is finished: shopping, transportation, education, medical care, etc.
It’s rarely that a western media could do a follow up about the “ghost town” they reported. Because in several years, there will be crowded.
They will just make more ghost town news to make their audiences thinking that China is full of ghost town.
Just think about this: If China’s GDP and other aspects are indeed faked as the western media say, then how come that white house considers China as its top rival?
The US national debt reached $33 trillion for the first time
The fiscal milestone comes as Congress is facing a new spending fight with a government shutdown looming – NYT.
Since the “debt ceiling crisis”, the US has been adding $1 trillion to its debt every month. Over the past 5 years, the US debt has increased by a total of $11.5 trillion.
This should be the real ‘war’ Americans should be fighting against. The ‘war’ of relentless money printing but not seeing any significant upgrades to Americans’ standard of living, where did the money go? why no accountability from the leaders who were elected into the office?
Why I’m Raising My Children in CHINA – NOT the UK or US!
What was the stupidest thing someone has called the police on you for?
I lived in a large apartment building, with lots of nosy neighbors.
I was going to a work conference for a long weekend. My kids were teenagers, but I didn’t want to leave them alone. My (very able) mother was available, so I asked her to stay with them while I was gone. No big deal. (They watched out for her more than she did for them.)
The very first night I was gone, the police showed up at my door. My daughter, (all six-foot-two of her) answered the door. The police were a little flummoxed (and shorter). They said they had a report that I had abandoned my kids. (Apparently, they were expecting little children.) My mother, who was very able-bodied, confronted the police. Let’s just say that my mother could teach a sailor how to curse, and she knew a version of the riot act that was applicable. The police didn’t come back.
But the nosy neighbors certainly got an earful regarding their ill behavior. So did the manager of the apartment complex as there was a “police report” on me. He wrote a threatening letter to me. I filed a counter-complaint about harassment, and I wasn’t having it. Again, the riot act was applied.
Children’s Protective Services were also called. And again, we had to have the confrontation. All of this drama because I was doing my job. My mistake was that I was seen carrying my suitcase to my car.
I’ll never understand why some people are happily destructive requiring an overkill of drama, even if it’s not their own.
Online Safety Bill becomes law – internet freedom destroyed
I was 22 and had sudden, sharp pain low in my groin. It was so bad I couldn’t stand up straight and could barely walk. I made an emergency appointment with my OB/GYN. After a very brief and cursory exam he told me it was a “swollen ovary” and it would go away in TWO OR THREE MONTHS.
I went home and told my then-husband what the doctor said. He insisted I get a second opinion. I made many calls. Most doctors didn’t “do” second opinions. I finally got one nurse who (in a bored voice) asked “What are your symptoms?” I explained and she said she’d talk to the doctor and call me back. This was at 11 am one workday. She called back and said he’d see me at 1. I went to his office straight from lunch.
That doctor did an exam then turned to the nurse and said, “She’s the one.” I asked what he meant. He said that 1 in 1000 women claiming they had an emergency actually did, and I was that one. Then he asked, “What did you have for lunch?” I responded (a burger) and he frowned, then said, “You need surgery.” I tried to tell him I needed to go back to the office and close out some projects first. He said, “Oh, you’re not leaving here.”
They put me in a wheelchair and rolled me 200 feet across the parking lot to the hospital. I was given time to make 2 phone calls — one to my husband (I had to leave a message with the office admin — this is long before the days of cell phones) and one to my parents (since I couldn’t reach my husband).
Later, in the recovery room Dr. Horowitz explained. I had an ovarian torsion on my right side. That happens when an ovaries (and in my case also the fallopian tube) bent and twisted around the tissue they’re connected to. The torsion happened because there was a grapefruit-sized tumor on that ovary. It was benign, thankfully, but he said it was so close to bursting (and probably killing me) that he didn’t dare let me go home.
My husband returned to the first doctor’s office and read him the riot act for “almost killing my wife”.
Chicken Fried Steak
Yield: 6 to 8 servings; 2 cups Cream Gravy
Ingredients
1 (2 1/2 to 3 pound) round steak
1 (5 ounce) can evaporated milk
2 tablespoons green Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
2 teaspoons paprika
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon each salt and cracked pepper
Vegetable oil
Instructions
Trim steak and pound, if needed, to 1/2 inch thick; cut into 6 to 8 pieces.
Combine milk, Tabasco sauce and salt in a bowl.
Measure 1 cup of flour into a bowl.
Combine remaining flour, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper in another bowl. Dip steak into flour, into milk mixture, and then into seasoned flour. Set aside until all meat is coated.
Heat 1 or 2 inches of oil in a heavy fry pan. Fry meat until both sides are golden brown, about 2 minutes per side.
Drain on paper towels. Serve with cream gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits.
Cream Gravy: Pour off all but 6 tablespoons of fat from fry pan; add 6 tablespoons flour into pan (use any leftover seasoned flour) and blend well. Gradually stir in 2 1/2 cups of milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened.
Hi, Krennick . Thanks for your very interesting question!
In China, we only have 56 official ethnic groups. I’m sure this pales in comparison to the number of ethnic groups in Western countries, but it is what it is, and your question appears to be asking for a number, so ask and ye shall receive, bruv!
Yes, 56.
There you go! Sorted! Done and dusted!
I don’t have time to post pictures of all 56 ethnic groups, so instead, I’ll just post the traditional wedding attire of a few of those 56 ethnic groups.
Because who doesn’t like looking at pretty wedding dresses, amirite? 😀
So, without further ado, here we go!
The traditional wedding attire for Han, Miao, Mongolian, and Hui:
The traditional wedding attire for Zhuang, Qiang, Manchu, and Tibetan:
The traditional wedding attire for Yi and Bai:
There you go! 10 out of the 56 should do for now, aye.
As always, I’m happy to help with your questions, Krennick ! I hope this has helped sate your curiosity!
The Rock ANGRILY Oprah Winfrey True Role In Maui Wildfire
In early August 2023, a series of devastating wildfires broke out in Hawaii, primarily on the island of Maui. These wind-driven wildfires led to extensive evacuations and widespread destruction, particularly in the town of Lahaina, Hawaii. As a result of these fires, at least 115 people lost their lives, and over 1,000 others were reported missing.
A preacher
A preacher was making his rounds to his parishioners on a bicycle when he came upon little Johnny trying to sell a lawn mower. “How much do you want for the mower?” asked the preacher.
“I just want enough money to go out and buy me a bicycle,” said little Johnny.
After a moment of consideration, the preacher asked, “Will you take my bike in trade for it?”
Little Johnny said, “Mister, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
The preacher took the mower and tried to start it. He pulled and pulled on the rope until he was dripping with sweat but the mower refuses to start.
The preacher called little Johnny over and said, “I can’t get this mower to start.”
Little Johnny said, “That’s because you have to cuss at it to get it started.”
The preacher said, “I’m a man of the church and I can’t cuss. It’s been so long since I’ve been saved that I don’t even remember how to cuss.”
Little Johnny looked at him happily and said, “Just keep pulling on that rope. It’ll come back to ya.”
China’s cancellation of UK’s $240bn nuclear power plant order shocks Europe US!
In this video, host Steffan explores China’s recent withdrawal from a £24 billion nuclear project in the UK. Nuclear technology’s global evolution and its applications in various sectors are discussed, highlighting China’s leadership in nuclear technology. The video delves into the reasons behind China’s withdrawal, touching on carbon neutrality goals, coal combustion phase-out, and the UK’s role in the project.
Confession of the Day
My husband(31M) has never gone beyond a kiss to me (28F) in the 4 years we’ve been married.
My husband was my best friend: knew each other in 2014, and I wanted him to stay with me (he’s from England) with the hope everything would turn into more.
First year of marriage, he had severe back problems and I understood.
Second year was COVID and I understood then.
Third year, we bought our house and I told him I wasn’t happy. He was overtly affectionate for a couple weeks and went back to the same routine.
Now I’m coming up on 4 years and he went through my messages last Monday with some friends and came across me venting to a guy friend I had been semi-flirtatious with about our marriage and how I felt ugly and unloved.
Now he tells me it’s because when he was 15/16 and was an apprentice, an older man took him out back and did things, which is why he has intimacy issues. Which, I completely understand how that is traumatic, as I was sexually assaulted when I was a young teen.
But the past 4 years I’ve felt inadequate while catering to his life. Paying for green card paperwork, driving him everywhere as he has no license (he works nights, I wake up at 5:40am every morning tuesday thru saturday to pick him up), making his doctor appointments for him, handling all the loans and bills, and all big decisions that really should be joint decisions. All while feeling unloved and ugly.
On Saturday he tried to initiate sex with me while drunk and it made me so mad and upset. That the only way he could fuck me is if he was intoxicated. And now I feel I am so mentally and emotionally clocked out that unless he pulls a miracle change, that I will leave him by the end of the year.
I don’t know what to do going forward but I’m just so sad because he was my best friend and if it weren’t for this issue, I think we’d be fine. But I’m not equipped to be anyone’s therapist, and this was definitely something I should have been told, as he has kept hanging the possibility of children over my head, knowing I desperately want them.
Before anyone says anything: I have initiated every single aspect of our relationship. I wanted him to do this one thing and made it clear to him. Never has he said anything. I’m just. Ugh.
Saudi Arabia Rejects US Demand, Send $70 Billion in Project Orders To China
My husband and I have raised 4 kids to adults. When our youngest was an infant, we found out she had brain cancer. Talk about a stressful time for our family! My MIL was and is very close to us geographically, as well as one I consider a friend and ally. With 3 kids in school and a seriously ill baby, we leaned on her for emotional support and she was there! We tried to go on snowmobile trips with our kids, her and extended family. (The oncologists gave us suggestions on how and when we could safely take our youngest with us — we followed his advice and still maintained her drug regimen protocols.)
One member who accompanied us all was one of my SILs. She didn’t have any kids at that time and was impatient to get on the trails the first morning. I got my three older kids ready and equipped with extra hats, gloves, snacks, drinks, helmets and snowsuits as well as any other cold-weather gear they would need. Next was my baby. Cleaning her Hickman Catheter (her drugs and all blood draws were done through it), making sure she had the blankets, toys, vanilla PediaSure (the ONLY thing she could hold down and that was the only flavor she would drink), making sure I had her anti-nausea and anti-seizure medications, as well as diapers and extra clothing she might need in case of accidents or nausea. Most of this was packed the night before, but I am in the habit of double checking (I HAVE forgotten her meds before).
My SIL complained about my incompetence as a mother to our MIL. Our MIL looked her in the eye and asked her if she had ever had to mobilize an army of sleepy young children before dawn and take care of the needs of a baby with cancer that was well enough to go on this trip? My SIL said “NO!” Our MIL then said, “I have experience with 6 sleepy kids. All of them were healthy. It is not easy in the best of circumstances. I think she is doing an excellent job.” When our MIL finished what she was doing, she went and helped me. I am blessed to have her in my life!
When my husband met my family for the first time we were all so nervous.
As you may know, he’s American. Meaning he’s pretty clueless about some of our traditions and concepts.
As he and my father were discussing important matters and the tension rising in the air… he did something he shouldn’t have…:-
He crossed his legs, putting his calf on his knee!
My inner self was going “no no no Mike please put that leg down!!!”
My parents’ eyes went to the his feet. I could already see what they are going to say later.
Anyhow, after we went home. My mother said “He really lacks respect. He talks aggressively and did you see how he put his leg up so rudely?!”
I was like “ugh I saw that coming”.
I had to take them a step back and tell them that he’s not an Arab and he doesn’t know that this is rude in our culture. They didn’t seem convinced.
So yeah, if you’re in a serious setting with an Egyptian, don’t ever let the sole of your shoes/ feet be seen. Especially if it’s in front of someone older than you.
Feet here symbolize humiliation.
So for example some people here would view a woman rubbing her husband’s feet as a humiliating act.
And a man giving his wife a foot rub is so rare and if it’s done then it’s in private.
That’s why until this day I feel very guilty if I’m getting feet pedicures at salons. Similarly, if I’m sitting at home, spreading my legs on the couch, my father would yell at me to move my feet because they are facing him.
My mother was astonished to know that my husband gives me foot rubs, and prayed for god to always make him so good and humble haha !
The US commerce minister’s confession that the US does not know how, when, or the scale of Huawei Mate 60 series production could be seen as evidence that the Huawei Mate series are the world’s most advanced, most secure, and only spy-proof smartphones in the world. However, it is important to note that there is no definitive proof that this is the case.
Huawei has been under intense US scrutiny for several years now, and the US has repeatedly accused Huawei of being a security risk. The US has also imposed a number of sanctions on Huawei, which have made it difficult for the company to do business with US companies.
Despite these challenges, Huawei has continued to develop and produce advanced smartphones. The Huawei Mate series is one of Huawei’s most popular and critically acclaimed smartphone lines. The Mate series is known for its large screens, powerful processors, and impressive camera systems.
The fact that the US does not know how Huawei is able to produce the Mate 60 series could be seen as a sign that Huawei is using advanced technologies that the US is not aware of. However, it is also possible that the US simply does not have access to the necessary information.
Whether or not the Huawei Mate series are the world’s most advanced, most secure, and only spy-proof smartphones in the world is a matter of opinion. There is no definitive proof to support or refute this claim.
It is important to note that the US has a vested interest in discrediting Huawei. The US is currently in a trade war with China, and Huawei is one of China’s most successful technology companies. By accusing Huawei of being a security risk, the US is trying to damage Huawei’s reputation and make it more difficult for the company to compete in the global market.
Ultimately, it is up to each individual consumer to decide whether or not they believe that the Huawei Mate series are the world’s most advanced, most secure, and only spy-proof smartphones in the world.
In my early 20s I lived in an apartment complex. My direct neighbor was an elderly Hispanic man. He always seemed so nice. He would speak to me in Spanish, which, at the time, I knew very little of (had taken 2 years mandatory class in high school). He would say this phrase and nod his head. I would always nod back, assuming we were somehow communicating pleasantries across a language barrier.
5 months go by and a friend I had made in that town, who was a Latina, saw our interaction one day. She got SO mad at the man and started yelling at him in Spanish. I was mortified. I was raised to respect my elders and I thought she was being disrespectful. She grabs my arm and drags me into my house. She explained to me what the man had said to me, HAD been saying to me since the day I moved in was “do you want to see my big fat d$%k?” I was so shocked! Turns out, every time I was nodding to him, I WAS communicating with him 🤣🤣🤣.
To this day, 20 something years later, my friend and I still get a laugh out of that story.
I did decide to take some Spanish classes at college after that. I’m glad i did too! It has been a valuable asset to my work in the medical field. Probably would have never taken those classes if it wasn’t for senor pervy.
A cat was found on the stairs of an apartment building. Two weeks later, his life completely changed
During my senior year in High School, I was blossoming into a fine young man. I was a cultural icon of the time. I wore a “choke collar” around my neck, puffy sleeved and colorful nylon shirt, a big colorful belt buckle, and bell bottom jeans.
I had longish hair to my shoulders. Parted in the middle up top. It was light brown in color. Oh those were the days…
I cruised around in my GTO (that I affectionately referred to as “the goat”) and alternated between Senior year in High school and my work life.
Evenings were spent “hanging out”, going to “keggers” in the “bony dumps” (old abandoned strip mined areas) and popping “white crosses” (tiny white amphetamine pills used for weight reduction. We used to take four at a time.) and drinking beer (Miller in Pony bottles).
The “white cross” pills were tiny, tiny white wafers with a cross on one side. We popped them and got “the rush”, and then buzzed, we smoked the marijuana, and drank the beer while we cruised the roads though the countryside.
Typically, we kept the trunk filled with ice, and the beer would be placed in the trunk to keep them cool. You would be amazed how long the ice would last, too. Easily into the middle of the next day.
Then we would fill up the trunk with more ice for the night’s activities.
Two dollars would fill up the gas tank.
I lived in the countryside. My city cousins spent far more time in bars and clubs, but that wasn’t really possible for me at the time. It wasn’t until I was older, that I started to frequent clubs and bars, and that type of lifestyle.
This falls well into my “room theory” of life. You live in one room, and then enter another room, and you life becomes a long series of rooms. Each one different from the rest. This “room” was my “Senior Year in High School prior to College” room. And come September, I entered my “Freshman year in college” room. New friends. New lifestyle. New place, and new everything.
What “room” are you in now, and what does your next “room” gonna look like?
Dazed and Confused (1993) | *First Time Watching* | Movie Reaction
There was a case in Prince Edward Island about 15 years ago where a lady was being sued because part of her house was on her neighbour’s property.
So she hired a surveyor – who told her her house was partly on her neighbour’s property.
So she didn’t pay him. The surveyor sued. He won. The court noted that when you hire an expert, you pay for their expertise and their informed opinion, not for the result you want.
But let me tell you something else. There was a mall in Northern Ontario. Three engineers over a period of thirty years were hired to investigate water leaks. They all said the water leaks were the result of the waterproofing being done improperly but the structure of the building was fine. A month after the third engineer pronounced the building “structurally sound”, part of it collapsed catastrophically, killing two people. The inquiry noted that the engineer had equipment to ultrasonically examine the steel beams, but didn’t use it. The forensic engineers hired after the collapse noted the steel connection that failed was 89% corroded (meaning the connection was 10 times stronger than it needed to be, but still failed). I’m assuming that’s the kind of inspection you were looking for.
America Finally Did It, The Fuse Has Been Lit!
I’m American and I’m disgusted with the corporate control of our domestic and foreign policies.
I will share with you one of the most moving acts of compassion I’ve witnessed.
When my youngest son, Luke, was 10 years old, he played football on a local rec-league team. One evening his team played against one of the big rival teams from a neighboring town. I was surprised at how many people were at this game. After all, these were young children playing.
At a crucial time in the game, my son got the football and was running for a touchdown. He zigged and zagged, dodging and evading players on the opposing team. His teammates did a remarkable job blocking, as well. Finally, there was only one opponent between my son and a touchdown, and one of Luke’s teammates (Mario) made a hard block, knocking the opposing player to the ground.
There was now nothing between the goal and my son, who ran all out, then, slowed, stopped, turned around, ran back to the boy writhing on the ground, and took a knee.
The crowd went wild. Spectators on my son’s team hurled horrific insults at my young son. People I had known for years said the most hateful things, glaring at my son, threatening him, shooting daggers at me.
I ran down onto the field to be with Luke. As I ran down the bleachers, people said hateful things to me about my son.
When I arrived at Lukes’ side, before I could ask if he was okay, Luke looked up at me and said, “Dad, I had to do it. I had to come back.”
“Okay,” I said.
Luke continued, “Mario hit that kid hard. Real hard. When he hit him, I heard a bone snap. I heard it! I knew he was hurt bad, and I knew if I scored, it would take more time for anyone to notice him, and he would be hurting in all that time.”
I nodded my head. I could barely see at this point, my eyes welling with tears, proud of my son.
Luke continued, “And I remembered that you always teach us that being a good sport is about more than winning, so I stopped and came back.”
He looked at me, his eyes wondering how I would react. I had never been prouder of him. I hugged him and told him how proud I was.
Luke was correct — the boy suffered a broken leg. He had to go to hospital.
This is one of the finest acts of compassion I ever witnessed. And a valuable lesson for me.
Have they threatened anyone? The way I see it US and the former colonials are scary! They come to South China Sea from as far away as 10 thousand miles away to pick a fight with China. I did not hear or see China travelling to English Channel or Florida coast to threaten the U.S.! Did you? Last I check And it is NATO wanting to expand to Asia not CCP expanding to Europe or North America!
So who is scary? To us you are scary. It wasn’t that long ago that the British force fed 100 million Chinese to get addicted to Opium and burn down the imperial palace in Beijing and stole Hong Kong for 156 years! And unsatisfied it cohort with the evil US to pay hoodlums an unemployed to pretend to protest for CNN as props. The U.S. and UK orchestrated a protest! The west is scary not China. You guys are spoiling for a fight. China just wants to do business?
What is so scary about a society wanting to do well for its people. Did they asked the world to be like them and adopt their Socialism with Chinese characteristics. They did not. They went further! The says that every nation should adopt what they see as best for them.
They think that Chinese political system may not be suitable for any nation. And that it is not exportable. The U.S. murdered 3 million to stop communism. The U.S. also murdered another 3 million in Iraq to bring democracy to them. And another 2 million to stop Talibanism in Afghanistan! Don’t you think US behaviour is more scary! I thinks so. And so does 87% of the world.
Where do you get “half” the world? You dream it up? You simply follow some lies from the media? No more than 5% of the world disagree with China. 87% disagree with the U.S. outright!
You know what us scary. You! Yes if there are 5% of the world thinking like you. So wrong, so ignorant and so naive. That is very scary!
My husband and his first wife went from Chicago to New York for a long weekend.
As they waited to cross a busy street, they heard two businessmen behind them discuss how they were going to get the better of someone they were doing a deal with—in St. Louis.
Their ears pricked up because his first wife was from St. Louis originally.
As they walked along the next street, they were able to hear and identify enough details to realize that these two men were going to trick her uncle by not disclosing certain information.
When they got to the hotel, his wife called her uncle—who verified that indeed he was in the middle of doing a deal with these two guys in New York!
So no deal happened then!
What are the chances?
China Warns US on Its Ridiculous Plan to Make 150 Nations Leave Belt and Road Initiative!
On the 9th of June 2021, USA introduced a bill, which passed by 68 votes to 32, known officially as the “US Innovation and Competition Act”. In Washington it is colloquially known simply as the “anti-China bill”. Part of USA’s Anti-China bill, USA has allocated over $300 Million every year, for 3 years, to media trash China.
I just WISH USA would stop their warmongering ways, and join China in uniting the World.
I was struggling for over a year looking for steady work. I finally landed a job unloading trailers at UPS. Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t pay very well.
Growing up, I hung out with some guys whose parents had money. This instilled a sense of undeserved entitlement and pretentiousness in me. Looking down on people who worked these, “sh*t jobs.”
Anyways, I had been down on my luck for a bit in more aspects than one, and one day after a long evening of working my tail off I went to a local McDonald’s (McDonald’s employees being one of those jobs/people I’d mocked). After pulling into the drive-thru I checked my bank account. $3.47. I was so, so hungry. I ordered a few things off of the dollar menu, and proceeded to pull up to the window. Thinking I kept the order minimal, I assumed I had enough. The lady there ran one card, declined. Now, somewhat frantic, I pulled my credit card out. Declined. I, embarrassed as all get out, asked the lady if she could take some things off of my order for me. She paused and looked at me for a moment. I don’t know if she could hear the despair in my voice or saw it in my body language, but she looked around before dropping those items back in the bag with a little extra and handed it right back to me. She wished me a good rest of my evening with a quiet smile.
I told her she didn’t have to do that, but she happily insisted. I thanked her as I pulled away from the window. I pulled out of the parking lot, and immediately broke down crying. An uncontrollable sobbing that I’d never felt before. After all of these years of frowning upon people like this lady, she was the one to help me when I just needed something to eat.
McDonald’s lady, wherever you may be, your small act of kindness changed my life.
The global shift away from the US dollar has increased tenfold since February 2022 compared to the previous 15 years, Stephen Jen, the CEO of Eurizon SLJ Capital Limited, told Die Welt on Thursday.
According to the former International Monetary Fund and Morgan Stanley economist, the majority of analysts are missing the trend because they evaluate the nominal value of central banks’ dollar holdings on the basis of data released by the IMF.
“However, if we take into account changes in the value of the dollar, then, according to our calculations, we’ll see that the dollar share in foreign reserves has lost about 11% since 2016,” Jen explained.
He argued that Washington’s decision to freeze Russia’s dollar reserves after the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraen had been the decisive event.
“This has fueled fear and anxiety in Beijing, but also in other emerging countries,” he said, adding that holding reserves in US dollars had been always considered absolutely safe until the drastic move.
Jen explained that the BRICS countries had been increasingly focused on alternatives to the greenback.
According to the economist, since the BRICS group of emerging economies – which presently comprises Russia, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, but is due to add six new members next year – the economic power of the union has multiplied. Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia will officially join the group in January 2024.
James Gandolfini’s Best Scene from The Sopranos
The range of emotions showcased here is amazing; anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, contempt, and lil’ compassion, all within three minutes. A master class for any actor.
Chinese Innovation Foils U.S. Tech War — Clifford A. Kiracofe
Washington calculated that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.
China’s rapid advances in technology will inevitably foil the United States-led Western technology war against China. Huawei unveiled its stunning new high tech Mate60 cell phone and timed the announcement with the visit of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Sending a message?
The Donald Trump administration launched an intensive trade war and a tech war against China. President Joe Biden continued Trump’s policies and ratcheted them up to a new level. Rather than engage in mutually beneficial trade relations and scientific and technological cooperation, Washington openly admits it seeks to contain and suppress China’s economic growth and development.
Playing this zero-sum game is a dead end for the United States. China is very well equipped in the pursuit of technological innovation. Fundamental to China’s tech progress is the human factor. For example, it is no secret that China every year produces far more STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math) students than does the U.S.
Tech war is economic war
Export controls and restrictions on technology development are nothing new in international commerce. During its colonial period, the North American colonies faced an array of trade restrictions and technology restrictions imposed by the British Empire. These were designed to prevent the colonies from becoming rivals to British manufactures. They also were a factor leading to the American Revolution and War of Independence.
In World War I, the United Kingdom enacted a “Trading with the Enemy Act” which created an export control regime deigned to deny Germany war related imports. After the U.S. entered the war, Congress passed its own Trading with the Enemy Act modeled on the British legislation. These wartime legislative measures were applied again during World War II.
After World War II, export controls on a multilateral basis were created by the West to restrict various exports to the Soviet Union and Communist bloc. The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) was created at the beginning of the Cold War. The U.S. thus coordinates, in turn, with NATO allies, Australia, and Japan to restrict the export of sensitive technologies to designated countries.
So the Western use of export controls for the purposes of economic warfare is nothing new. But the revival of this mechanism intensively directed specifically against China is a key feature of the U.S.-led New Cold War. The technological encirclement and blockade of China, however, is not sustainable.
Washington miscalculates
Washington calculates that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.
Logically, because China’s population is four times larger than that of the United States, there would at some point be a larger pool of STEM trained specialists in China than in the U.S. This is so because of the continuous upgrading of higher education in China and the massive commitment to research and development.
Several years ago, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. released a study on the STEM issue. The university’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology reported that in 2000 the U.S. issued twice as many doctorates in STEM field as did China. But in 2007, China began outpacing U.S. universities. The report assessed that by 2025 China would produce twice as many STEM Ph.D. graduates.
Because the U.S. cannot compete with its own population base, Washington seeks to import specialists in STEM fields from India as one stop gap measure.
But Chinese innovation is very dynamic and advanced with great future potential. Therefore, it should have been no surprise that China would develop the necessary technology for state-of-the-art semiconductors. This national objective combines the growing pool of high-tech specialists with a large pool of skilled labor together with billions of yuan for investment.
It was not difficult to foresee that China, through innovation and targeted investment, would be able over time to produce the machines and industrial processes to fabricate advanced state-of-the-art semiconductors. This applies to Chinese semiconductor design capability as well.
Why did the Washington miscalculate?
An inter-agency task force on the Chinese semiconductor issue would have concluded that the attempt to block and limit Chinese advances is not sustainable and thus would fail.
Some critics of the administration point to the lack of competence in President Biden’s foreign policy team. They say that Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are just not up to their jobs.
Be that as it may, it is possible that racial prejudice affects Washington’s assessments. There was a time after World War II when it was common to look down on “cheap” Japanese goods. But Japanese success in electronics and auto manufacture by the 1980s showed another story.
Anyone from the U.S., a tourist or an official who visits China’s National Museum in Beijing will see exhibits displaying many centuries of Chinese skill and innovation not only in art, such as ceramics and bronze, but also in inventions and technology. China’s history of science and technology goes back millennia.
What does the Huawei Mate60 portend?
Clearly, the advanced smartphone is a perception changer at a minimum. No doubt, it will be seen as a game changer as well. Other high-tech breakthroughs are in the news.
It is now reported that the Chinese firm SMIC has a 7 nanometer (nm) N+2 process semiconductor project that is produced entirely in China with no access to Western equipment and technologies. All of the core components in China’s EUV lithography machines are said to be ready and that the prototype is being tested.
On the day that the new Mate60 phone was announced it was sold out in one minute online. Huawei boosted production to 15-17 million units and beginning September 10 Chinese can purchase the smartphone in Huawei’s offline stores. The phone has a satellite capability.
As Chinese firms develop independent semiconductor design and fabrication capacity, U.S. firms inevitably will lose out on this vast export market. It seems logical that the more intense the anti-China trade and tech wars become the more Chinese consumers will turn to homegrown products other than those from the U.S.
The U.S. lifted a stone only to hit its own feet.
The U.S. politicians must come to their senses and adopt a China policy of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, cooperation, and mutual benefit. Washington’s belligerent and destabilizing foreign policy disrupts the international community, increases tensions, and can lead to a war which will harm the U.S. side in the end.
The Special Cat Looked Sadly Around At the People Passing by His Cage
Life was idyllic for Pinat until the inevitable struck. His beloved owner passed away, leaving the poor cat alone and vulnerable.
I had a cherry tree in my back yard. I was really looking forward to them. I got home from work and there were 6 or more kids in the tree, stuffing my cherries into all sorts of containers. I yelled and they all took off. It wasn’t possible to get to the remaining cherries. Some of them left containers in my yard. A mom showed up and yelled at me for not giving her back her Tupperware.
SMIC has been making 7nm custom GPUs for the past 2–3 years, mostly for crypto customers who couldn’t get in the TSMC queue.
This filled real market demand that other players didn’t, or couldn’t.
SMIC used this opportunity to refine its process, on the quiet.
Huawei, in the meantime, found willing partners to share talent and resources, in a concerted effort to save the high-tech industry on the mainland from American destruction through the threat of sanction.
How did Huawei et. al. find the tools necessary for chip design, especially the GPU? What black magic did Huawei use to improve the transistor geometry? How did they penetrate the Qualcomm 5g patent wall? I don’t know. Neither does my friend in TSMC. It’s a separate ecosystem now, and quite independent.
The fog of war has descended, but the outcome point to solidarity across the ranks, with competitors working together like they are part of a conglomerate.
The Chinese are capable of cooperation on unheard of scale, because of long history.
The Mate 60 Pro is merely a first step, lacking polish and maturity. What’s coming though, will be a deluge.
American reacts to: america – What they don’t show you
Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to america – What they don’t show you…
President Zelensky’s top aide has suggested that Beijing and New Delhi are unable to analyze the consequences of their moves China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.
Beijing has demanded clarification from Kiev after Mikhail Podoliak, a top aide to Ukraenion President Vladimir Zelensky, suggested that authorities in China and India weren’t smart enough to figure out what the actual national interests of their countries were.
Podoliak characterized the two Asian countries as having “low intellectual potential,” in an interview with channel Vlast vs Vaschenko published Tuesday on YouTube. Speaking about the increasing cooperation of Beijing and New Delhi with Moscow amid the conflict in Ukraen, he claimed that China and India “don’t analyze the consequences of the steps they make.”
The aide accused China, India and also Türkiye of “earning money” on the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The Chinese authorities believe that doing so is in their country’s national interests, but Beijing is better off distancing itself from Russia as it’s “an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts,” he said.
1.) No matter how calm and focused a doctor sounds when delivering bad news, they take that shit home with them.
Now a neurologist has to deliver a lot of shit news. Pretty much, if you end up in my wife’s office, something out of the ordinary has gone wrong. Migraines are the least of her worries. She’s dealing with MS, Dementia, Strokes, Epilepsy, Gullien Barre, Neuropathy, Parkinson’s, Brain Tumors, and the mother fucker of all mother fuckers, ALS.
The last one is the worst for her. Because she knows. Almost right away, and can’t say anything. Because a lot of things mimic the symptoms of ALS on the surface, so the process of diagnosing it is not so much to look for ALS symptoms but to systematically rule everything else that it MIGHT be out. Which takes weeks. And weeks. During which the whole time, she knows. But she hopes. And hopes that one of these tests will show another culprit. You know. Like cancer. Yes. It’s a case where she would celebrate finding cancer. At least they can do something about that.
Can you imagine opening up the files of a brain scan and praying you’ll see tumors?
By the time she’s done and can deliver the worst of all hunks of shit news, it’s been weeks of anguish for her. And when she comes home, it’s time to let all the little petty shit from my day go, because it’s NOTHING.
2.) Care and feeding of your physician is essential to maintaining your physician’s health.
Seriously. How my wife managed to get to work before I arrived on scene to make coffee in the morning, I’ll never know. A doctor’s work is never done, once they get home, it’s time to catch up on charting, and if they have a complicated specialty like my wife (neurologist) those charts are extremely complicated.
You know though? It’s important work, so if I can help just a bit by taking care of dinner? Or cranking out coffee strong enough to wake a triceratops fossil? I’m good with that.
3.) It’s friggin EXPENSIVE being a doctor.
What most people know about being a doctor is that doctors make a lot of money.
Yeah. She has no complaints there (it’s probably not as much as you think, but it’s a damn good living)
But Board Certifications, Continuing Medical Education, Malpractice Insurance, about a Quarter Million in Student Loan debt from 10 years of school, this association fees, that one, fee, fee, fee, fee, fee, it’s no wonder the first thing I learned from my wife was “looking for a doctor? Find the cheapest rattiest set of scrubs, there they are!”
4.) They get into it to practice medicine and usually love that, but generally, find themselves buried in a ton of other crap
I mentioned charts. Not the half of it, although for pure volume of work and time spent, it’s just lovely.
They didn’t mind so much when they were marking up paper charts as they were examining you. Now it all has to be done in an Electronic Medical Records system, and there is apparently no such thing as a halfway decent EMR.
Want to see a doctor fly into a violent volcanic rage? Ask them how they feel about their EMR.
Then there’s just the pile of administrative shit. Especially if you’re running the practice which thank God mine doesn’t have to worry about. But there is always a shitton to do that has not a damn thing to do with healing.
I’m keeping count of the number of times mine laments for the carefree days of being a Starbucks barista.
5.) In my experience, they’re usually just genuinely good people.
Now, I’m biased, I admit it. And I suppose I only meet genuinely good-people doctors because I’m married to one who wouldn’t give someone who wasn’t a minute of her time.
And yes, there are some genuine pieces of shit in the profession, just like any other.
But the vast majority of the dozens of doctors I’ve met as a result of being married to one are just good solid people who usually get into the profession to make a real difference in people’s lives, and out of a genuine desire to do good.
As a citizen of PR China who knows a thing or two about history, I must say that I understand why they do that.
Because Republic of China was and is totally a coward.
Because of the good relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and USSR, during Cairo Conference, the US proposed to give the authority of Ryukyu (Okinawa) to China, also part of Japan’s authority, and invited China to garrison in Japan.
Chiang rejected it.
He rejected the proposal from the US to take over Ryukyu and part of Japan, because he wanted to be humble, and he was a mean character when massacring Chinese.
Above is the photo of surrender ceremony of Chinese war zone. Take a guess about who is the winning side.
The answer is the one on the left, eventhough he looked more humble.
On the left it’s He Yingqin, first degree admiral and 2nd place in Republic of China militray.
On the right it’s Asasaburo Kobayashi, Imperial Japanese Army lieutenant general.
They are not even at an equal level. From Japan side, it should be Yasuji Okamura, the commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army from November 1944 to the end of World War II, handed in the Instrument of Surrender.
In the negotiation conferece of surrender ceremony, ROC sent a lieutenant general, and Japan sent a major general. Not in equal position too.
According to Yasuji Okamura’s memoir:
About the ceremony decoration, ROC side initially wanted to have a round table, to avoid being aggressive. It was because of the US intervention, ROC eventually choose long table.
It was agreed when handing in the Instrument of Surrender, Asasaburo Kobayashi was supposed to salute to He Yingqin for 3 times, and He Yingqin didn’t salute back. This idea was probably from the US “suggestions”. However, when Asasaburo Kobayashi saluted for the 3rd time, General He stood up as a return to the salute.
It was not the same when the US and USSR accepting surrender from Germany and Japan. They both ordered Germany and Japan to redo everything they are not satisfied, until everything’s fine. After all, it was a world war, and they were the winners.
Whereas in China, He Yingqin had to lean forward and stretch his arms all the way to the cernter line of the table, which makes him handing in the paper to Japanese.
Everything Chiang did is to tell Japan that “we don’t want to you misunderstood us, and we are not aggressive at all”.
From Japan side, in their opinion, it was the US which defeated Japan, and China is of course just a weakass shit which survived only because the glory of the US.
I don’t blame Japanese for this. As a matter of fact, they do have reasons to think so.
After all, PR China never kicked Japan’s ass since 1949.
I blame Chiang Kai-Shek.
Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) ‘Confirmation’ & Admiral Husband E. Kimmel’s famous historical quote
“I’ve seen this film so many times as a kid, because it’s really really good. But I always follow it up with the other one, Midway. I joined the US Navy, 89-93, I think these films helped inspire me to sign up. I actually got the USS Lexington AVT-16 as my first ship, I can not describe the chills and feelings I had when I first stepped on board the Lady Lex. I was a little choked up and teary eyed with pride. I had the pleasure of working in nearly every department of that ship for two years, Deck 1st div -Supply Captains Country -Engineering E div – and Air V2. The flight deck crash of October 89 was my first sea cruise. After decommissioning the Lex, the Navy sent me to the USS Normandy CG-60 and straight into war. True story. I got my US Navy Adventure for sure. I only got out to save a doomed marriage.”
I have 13 kids, I have always wanted a big family. I adopted one from China, she is deaf and the sweetest 5 year old ever. We adopted her when she was 3. We get a few racist remarks because we are black and she is Chinese, they think she needs a Chinese family to have a good life. She is happy with us, so nope!
She can’t talk because she is completely deaf and no hearing ads or a cochlear implant will help, she will be deaf forever, unless there is something invented in the future that helps. She is able to say mama because she reads our lips and tries to copy the shape our lips make and make sound, that’s the only word she can say.
She came home from school one day, since she can read lips really good, she is in a hearing school, but in a special class for deaf people or hard of hearing people.
She told her siblings who then told us, that her teacher told her she was “sick” in sign language, Because she is from china. In sign language, you can’t name a virus unless you finger spell it, my daughter is only 5 so it’s hard for her to put words together by spelling it out.
Her teacher was telling her that she brought Covid into this world and that she was sick with it because it started out in China. She was only 2 when Covid started, she didn’t even fully understand about Covid.
The teacher believed every Chinese person had Covid, no matter how old or young. Since my daughter had “Covid” She wasn’t allowed to go to lunch that day and eat, she wasn’t allowed to learn with the class, and she wasn’t allowed to go outside and play. When they were learning, she was sitting in a chair far away with a mask on. I didn’t call the police, but I called the school and got her fired and she might be going to court for a hate crime.
Watch Before it’s Deleted,This is my 3rd Attempt, Oprah & The Rock on Maui
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Oprah Winfrey face backlash for asking fans to donate to Maui fund instead of contributing more themselves The family of a woman who died trying to flee a wildfire on Maui is suing the county, the state and one of Hawaii’s largest landowners, alleging they neglected to maintain their fire-prone property.
No. The guy with a rifle is not the scariest. That distinction belongs to the guy with a much more dangerous piece of equipment:
The humble radio. This is the guy that could pull down everything from a single mortar round up to and including a bombing run by a fully loaded B-52 to naval missiles to armored cavalry reinforcements. He can tell this support exactly where, what spot at what height in what position, needs a proper lesson in violence. He can tell artillery which direction to adjust their fire, he can warn pilots of infantry with MANPADS, he is the man in control of the tactical battlefield.
You have an ankle bracelet that monitors everyone and their movements?
How do you know people disappear?
Anyone you know who disappeared?
A Relative, Friend, Cousin, Girlfriend?
Even the Foreign Minister of China
He didn’t disappear. The Chinese openly said he was no longer minister.
The Defense Minister who apparently disappeared
Turns out he was in secret meetings with the Venezuelans and North Koreans and later in a Military facility taking treatment
People disappear in other places too
They commit crimes and flee
They are kidnapped and killed
They are murdered and bodies dumped
They fall sick and want recuperation from public life
In India or US, because the Public elects you, you have a public responsibility to inform them about your absence
In China, you only inform the party. Same as if you take medical leave from TCS, you don’t publish it on Twitter
1027 Men disappeared in the US and the West and remained missing for an average of 4 1/2 years
They were incarcerated against their will in Guantanamo and tortured and harrassed
No justification to this day
Its harder to disappear in China than it is in India or US
Your digital footprint is so strong and your records are almost everywhere and you have thousands of cameras recording all around you
What you need to know about PHARMACIES in THAILAND before you visit!
Thailand passed most western countries years ago when it comes to medicine, medical aid, medical treatment and certainly when it comes to quick access to medical professionals and advanced imaging systems. In fact, even in many countries in Latin America, a MRI scan is a walk-in compared to canada where it can take 6 months. Thailand in general is AMAZING!
I sometimes buy frozen food online, and the food always arrives in a large styrofoam shipping container.
The first time I got one, I didn’t know what to do with the box after I unpacked the food. I like to recycle all my cardboard boxes and plastic containers, but none of the facilities in my area would take styrofoam.
The styrofoam cooler was thick and sturdy, and it seemed a shame to throw it out after one use. So I chucked it into my garage. Every time I got another cooler, I put it in the garage.
A few years ago, my husband and I were moving, and I was cleaning out the garage. By then, I had amassed over a dozen of these styrofoam boxes. They were stacked up in three stacks, collectively about 4 to 5 feet wide and over 4 feet high. We had to get rid of these boxes before we could move.
I tried to find the containers a home. I looked online for a place within driving distance that would recycle styrofoam. No luck.
As a last ditch effort, I contacted the stores where I purchased my food asking if I could ship them back. They had no use for used shipping coolers.
I resigned myself to the fact that we would have to throw them out. As my husband and I were getting ready to take the boxes to the dump, I suddenly had an epiphany. I ran to the computer and did a search.
Yes! As I thought, there were people on eBay who would pay money for a used styrofoam cooler. I wouldn’t have to throw them away and they would get a second life.
So I listed all the coolers on eBay, and over several weeks, they all sold.
The strangest way I’ve made money was selling my trash on eBay.
Now every time I buy frozen food online, I immediately list the box for sale on eBay after I unpack the food. I get between $7 to $15 per box, plus the cost of shipping to the buyer. It’s not much, but it’s a nice little coupon towards my frozen food purchase.
TSMC lays off 60% of its U.S. factories,Workers demand a doubling of wages;Mate 60 pro
TSMC lays off 60% of its U.S. factories, Workers demand a doubling of wages;
Huawei orders completely lost.
A couple had come to the upscale restaurant, but the woman started screaming at the waitress, wanting her to be fired.
Does the customer always have the right? Does going to a restaurant give you the right to humiliate the people who work there? I hope not!
This is the story of a girl who worked as a waitress in a restaurant! The story was told by her, let’s listen:
“I was lucky to find a job at an upscale restaurant!
Even though I don’t hear very well with my left ear, and not at all with my right ear, I was given a chance to work here. I wear a hearing aid, so I can hear almost everything that is said to me very clearly.
But one day, an elderly couple came to have dinner.
Me: I’m glad you chose our restaurant! Are you ready to order? Wife: Call the manager, NOW!
Me: One moment. Maybe I can help you myself? Wife: No!
So, I had to go and call the manager.
Manager: Good evening! How can I assist you?
Wife: Why do your employees wear headphones? Are they listening to music? We pay a lot of money here, and believe me, we deserve perfect service! This is not acceptable!
Everyone in the restaurant froze.
Manager: Our waitstaff knows they are not allowed to wear headphones.
But if you notice anyone breaking this rule, please let me know. I guarantee that person will be fired!
Wife: Please. It’s her!
The woman pointed at me.
Manager: I’m sorry. Her behavior is beyond any limit. Wife: I agree!
Manager: I was talking about you! Your behavior is inappropriate! The waitress is wearing a hearing aid.
I kindly ask you to leave this restaurant and never come back!
The woman’s husband did not support her at all. The enraged woman left the restaurant in a fit of anger.
I would like to express my gratitude to all the people who defended me! Thank you!”
US phone and chip companies like Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm don’t produce chips. They design the chips but outsource it to TSMC, Intel and Samsung to manufacture them. Fabless chip designers have been the in-thing for some decades already, popularised first by companies like Broadcom in the 90s.
Same for Huawei – they design it via subsidiary HiSilicon but don’t produce the chips themselves. They outsource it to TSMC and SMIC in particular. TSMC has been banned by the US Commerce from supporting Huawei and other Chinese companies.
Can the USA companies produce the chips themselves today? The answer is YES. It takes time to develop the volume manufacturing expertise all over again. It is a very complex business and it takes guts to put in the money to invest in R&D resources, mainly PhD-type technical talents and capital intensive wafer fabrication facilities and processing machines, packaging and test equipments. Unless you have deep pockets, this is not the business for everyone.
A high-end wafer fab today requires some $12B upfront capital investment. It also requires a whole long list of vertically integrated suppliers locally to support the wafer fab industry – only Asia has it as the cost is low. At the same time, you must have a flexible and disciplined team of technical personnel and production workers who can work 24/7 round the clock to make the business viable. One mistake out of 1000s of process steps can cause a total disruption to production schedules, customer order delivery slips and production scraps. Automation has its own challenges. Manufacturing yields can be impacted from batch to batch due to workmanship and process variations. Honestly, it is not a business for the faint-hearted investors and demanding customers who expect perfection.
USA has the science but not the art of high volume cost competitive manufacturing anymore. To think that the Biden Administration can bring back wafer fabrication industry back home even with the help of Samsung, Intel and TSMC, is a pipe dream. It will fail badly, very badly. Tens or hundreds of billions of dollars will be flushed down the drain when they realised they can’t make it work. Trust me, failure will be the end outcome and it is already full of production delays and major make or break problems between the investors and the government.
M*A*S*H Winchester looses his temper with a bureaucrat over abandoned baby
Unlike Frank, Charles wasn’t a bad person. He had a shield of arrogance, but he was a superior surgeon and a good-hearted individual. At worst, he was used to being removed from the suffering of the world, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about it. See the Christmas episode where he recounts a family tradition of giving candy and toys to the poor, but realizes that the value of the candy would provide a month’s worth of staple foods for starving orphans.
While at Treasure island in 1962, waiting to be seperated from active duty, in the Navy,i had a lot of free time to see San Francisco. I was and still am, a fan of jazz, so I ended up at a jazz club ( Jazz Workshop, Blackhawk, I don’t recall which one) mid afternoon one day. The bar was open, so I took a stool at the bar next to a well dressed guy. At his feet was a horn case. I ordered a beer and raised my glass to the stranger next to me, to which he responded with a raised glass and a few words.
We talked a little about what I was doing, why I was in San Francisco, where I called home, just a little chit-chat. He mentioned that he was a musician and said something about sitting in for the performances later on. We never did introduce ourselves, we just started talking.He finished his drink, picked up his horn case and bid me goodbye. The bartender asked if was ready for another beer and asked me how I came to know Miles. I replied by saying “Miles who?” Davis, he replied. You have been talking with him since you came in. I carried his Kind of Blue album with me all the years I spent aboard ship and never put his face and name together. Yup, jaw dropped, but as it turned out, it was best that I did not recognize him. We were just a couple strangers having a beer. I still play that LP today.Damn, that was 60 years ago and still fresh in my mind.
“We have alien bodies and the DNA to prove it” Mexican Congress | Redacted with Clayton Morris
You want alien bodies? Here they are. Ufologist Jaime Massaun rolled out two coffins holding “non-human” bodies in front of Mexico’s congress yesterday. He says these bodies are 1,000 years old and were fossilized in a mine. He also presented DNA evidence showing these bodies are not human.
Imagine a world where there are two ways to conduct commerce. One half of the world chooses one method, and the other half chooses another.
In the West, led by the United States, is a commerce system based on an extraction of wealth.
People work, and they labor. The government take a part of that labor in the form of taxes, fees, clauses, penalties, and regulations. Under that layer is another layer. These are the banking transfer fees, the interest and debt schedules and all the associated rules that one must abide by to use that system. Beneath that system, is a system of organizations. Where to use that organization or society, fees are extracted, prices are managed, and profits are massaged. Beneath that system is a system of businesses, that have their own fees, charges, and profit schedules, and then beneath that is the worker.
For a worker to labor and make money, all of the systems of wealth extraction gets paid first. What ever is left, goes to the worker. Who is then taxes on it, and uses it for his and her own purposes.
In the East, led by China, is a commerce system based on ownership.
If a person earns money though labor, that money is converted electronically into a value, and the mass amount of that value is accessible to the worker. No government, person, entity, organization can siphon income away from that value. It is against the law.
…
Now that is the “quick and dirty” overview. Both systems, have very, very complex subsystems of control and monitoring. Both systems have those that get rich and those that get poor. Both systems are independent of each other, and collaboration between the two systems is possible with “guardrails”.
But what about the question?
Why doesn’t China use “credit cards”?
Credit cards is a Western fabrication and means of wealth extraction. A person is not using money they earned. They are borrowing money from a bank and renting the use of it from the bank.
China uses a system of ownership. A person earns money, and it goes into a bank. Then the Chinese person uses a QR, and biometic scan to extract the money to buy something with it.
That being said, there are areas of overlap between the Western system and the Eastern system of commerce. For instance, you can get loans and mortgages inside of China, just like you can in the United States. The big difference is that the vast bulk of transactions differ substantially between the East and the West.
West = Wealth Extraction.
East = Ownership.
Geo-political manifestations
And it is the FUNDAMENTAL differences in systems why the rest of the world (such as Africa, for example) is turning towards China instead of working “with” the United States on massive Geopolitical ventures.
China. Africa sees results from China. They see dams, hospitals, road and rail. they see ports, and real tangible aid. The African nations OWN these properties, and these systems. They are tangible. They can be seen. They can be touched. they can be felt.
United States. Africa hears a lot of “flowery words” from the United States. Promises of this and that, and military weapons, and military bases. But no roads. No hospitals. No trains. No ports. An occasional plane-load of “greenbacks” that are delivered to the wealthy in a nations, but that is about it. Those African nations so entangled in agreements with the United States enter into debt with them. It’s all nice numbers on spreadsheets, and documents with many impressive signatures, but for the average person “on the street” there isn’t any change in lifestyle.
Meanwhile the entirety of the Global South, via the BRI, are investing in a “basket of currencies” one based on tangible commodities; hard physical items that can be touched, felt and measured.
While the West, led by the United States, are forcing a system of debt upon their allies and “friends”.
Let’s perform a sanity check.
If this description, one where the West and the East differ in means of fundamental commerce and economic theory, then it should manifest in a myriad of ways. Let’s look at home ownership.
Obviously, the nation that functions via wealth extraction will have the bulk of it’s citizenry in debt. While the nation that functions on an ownership basis would have the bulk of it’s citizenry invested in self ownership of properties.
Southern Biscuits
Ingredients
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons Crisco
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon Crisco (for frying pan)
Instructions
Mix dry ingredients together.
Blend in the Crisco until the mixture is coarse and grainy.
Stir in the buttermilk with a fork. Do not over-mix.
Put out onto a floured board and knead just a few times. Pat out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter or glass. Flour the cutter. Do not handle the dough too much or it will get tough.
Using a heavy cast iron frying pan, place 1 tablespoon of Crisco in the pan and put the frying pan in the oven for about 7 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and place the biscuits in the pan. Turn each once in the oil and bake the biscuits at 500 degrees F for 10 minutes, or until light brown.
Kitten Abandoned In The Rain, Cold, Shrinking for Protect Herself – No one heeded his plea for help
My main “beef” with my parents was a simple one. At every opportunity for me to do something outside of the school narrative…
“Study hard. Get a good job, and you will be set for life with a good pension.”
…They pretty much sucked at helping me.
I asked my mother; “How do I buy land”? And she looked at me for a moment and answered…
“You just go and buy it.”
Gosh, Mom. That was so helpful.
NOT!
At that time, there wasn’t any Google about. No internet. Only a small town library, and neither the teachers or anyone would help me out. No one could answer my questions.
I’d ask my dad; “How do I buy stocks”?
He would chuckled. Then thought about it, and he answered…
“You just go and buy them.”
Gosh dad. That was so helpful.
NOT!
And it wasn’t just that.
I asked my dad, “How do I ask a girl out for a date”?
And his answer was…
“What, who’s the girl?”
And I would say, “No one you know. So how do I do it”?
And he would chuckle, and he said…
“Oh, you just go up to her and ask her if she wanted to go out with you.”
Wow! So very helpful.
NOT!
…
Do not make the same mistakes that my parents made. Take the time. Enunciate. Explain. Be empathic, and be kind and considerate.
It will make a BIG difference.
Todays…
How China Destroyed US Sanctions and Changed Microchip Forever!
The USA did not declare war on Huawei. They declared war on hundreds of thousands of motivated Chinese set to go starving on the streets, unless they pushed themselves…
What many people don’t know is Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei only owns roughly 1% of the company, and the employees own 99% of the company, so imagine a body of hundreds of thousands of supercharged and super-talented people giving their all, not only for survival of their families but also with a vengeance to prove that they can’t be suppressed and will fight back.
Huawei is a networking equipment maker which makes mobile phones. This means it knows the backend first, and then how to connect the network to its Frontend devices, including mobile phones.
Apple only focuses on Frontend consumer devices, and not connecting with backend devices because its focus is on the user experience.
Apple relies on Qualcomm for its 5G transceiver; Huawei designs its own 5G transceiver.
That is the difference.
Newborn kitten cries when she sees her mother lying motionless on her left side full of thorns
Newborn kitten cries when she sees her mother lying motionless on her left side full of thorns The mother cat and her cubs have an accident on a strange fruit full of thorns A mother cat crashes next to the fruit back.
We have seen the mother cat and her two young children lying here. kittens just a few days old swaddled around their mother. and cried out of voice when he saw his mother in trouble.
next to it is a fruit full of thorns. This cat family is pitiful.
when I thought the fruit from the other corner fell on the mother cat. but luckily the other fruit is just next to the mother cat and the kittens.
Maybe the mother cat was exhausted.
We are walking in a tropical forest. There are a lot of dry leaves here. I came across a family of cats in distress here.
The kittens were crying when they saw their mother lying motionless. The mother cat lies next to the thorny fruit weevil. I come closer to check and will help the cat family.
The kittens are quite small. Luckily this thorny fruit didn’t hit the kitten. The mother cat is very weak. it needs immediate care. I will help this poor meod family.
Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add sweet potato, water and vanilla extract; mix well.
In a small mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff; fold into the sweet potato mixture.
Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; add to potato mixture.
Stir in pecans.
Pour into three greased 9-inch round cake pans.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 22 to 27 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks.
Frosting: Melt the butter in a saucepan; whisk in sugar, milk and egg yolks until smooth. Cook and stir over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes or until thickened and bubbly.
Remove from the heat; stir in the coconut, pecans and vanilla extract. Cool slightly.
Place one cake layer on a serving plate; spread with a third of the frosting.
When I was in high school, in my senior year, I had a co-op job as an electronic tech, and worked for a small business. The business was on Rt 11, in a business district leading into Bloomsburg Pa.
One afternoon, while at my bench, we heard a car accident occur outside our building. Apparently, a young man no older than me was speeding and decided to use the enter lane to pass people, and caught a young family getting read to turn off to the seasonal hamburger place next door to so (to the right when facing the highway)
Tye family was ok, but a group of workers from the welding/fabrication shop next to us (on the left) ran out to the car and attempted to pull the young driver out.
But he apparently had a broken neck… I will never forget seeing how his head moved, it just sort of flopped around on his shoulders. That was 43 years ago, and I still remember that part vividly.
A day or two later his sister dropped by and asked us if we had seen a ring of his that was missing. We did walk around the accident scene but never found it.
Because he broke his neck on his steering wheel, I started to wear my seatbelt while driving, long before there was a campaign to require it.
Don’t know if this was a thief or not, but a number of years ago there was a rise in fake “Utility Company Representatives” knocking on people’s doors. In many cases things went missing if these people were allowed into people’s homes (they worked in pairs).
At the time we were living in a duplex. The first floor level was about 6–8 inches higher than the level of the front porch. We had a Siberian Husky/German Shepherd mix (both sides of his parentage were pure blood pedigrees), and he was the best burglar alarm even invented. 60–70 lbs of solid muscle, the face of a wolf, and the most disconcerting part, 1 blue eye and one brown eye. Our storm door had a solid panel that went about halfway up the door. High enough that you couldn’t see the dog if he approached the door. The top was screened.
My wife answered the door and was faced with 2 “Utility Company Representatives” that were checking the water meters which were inside, down in the basement. Their trick was to gain entry, get the person who answered to accompany one down to the meter while the other one stayed in side the front door and “waited”, picking up anything they could find that might be valuable. Like wallets from purses. True to form, they wanted to come in and check the meter. My wife knows better and told them they couldn’t come in without some sort of ID. They started arguing that they had a legal right to inspect their hardware (they didn’t), and she kept telling them no and flicked the lock on the storm door.
Our ever faithful guard dog had walked over to the door while they were trying to talk their way in. When their tone started changing he got interested and decided to see who was talking to the boss-lady like that. He popped up on his hind legs which put his face not too far from level with the people on the porch, who suddenly decided they no longer had to gain entry, and said ‘someone else will contact you later’ as they left for greener pastures.
Best alarm system ever.
EDIT… Punctuation repairs (Thanks Ed), and I thought you all might like to see this buddy of mine. We lost him to The Bridge from cancer 29 years ago now, and still miss him every day. Sadly, we didn’t do a lot of picture taking back then, so my choice of pictures is limited.
He had the black and white Husky markings, and the longer snout and some brown from the Shepherd side. Check out his eyes, and imagine them staring at you through a screen door at eye level.
China and technology
The reason Trump thought that he could stop China from making DUV machines is because DUV machines encompass a lot of technologies.
If China is unable to produce any of these technologies then the DUV machines China purchased from ASML would be completely useless in a year or so. The parts need to be replaced. No parts, no working machine.
The light source breaks down all the time. The coating on the lenses only last for a few months. 1 year at most. All those machines that China bought from ASML for over $500 billion would become very expensive scrap metal.
But China managed to develop these core technologies. And it required the entire Chinese scientific community to do so.
But now that China has the core technologies, there is nothing the US can do to stop China from advancing. The US no longer controls Chinese chip industry.
This video explains just how intricate chip production is and how much leading edge technology is required to make on of these machines work.
The Sopranos || Get It Up
This should get more views, it’s such a perfect clean edit
Start buying them lavish gifts, like expensive vacations at 5-star luxury resorts, free airline flights to exotic destinations, Rolexes, things like that. Then buy their mom’s house and let mom continue to live there for free. Then donate the money for their kid’s education at an expensive university.
Okay, that’s an extreme case, but it works. Most famously, the first black mayors of Los Angeles and Detroit suspiciously became a lot more pro-business after they were elected than before, and that was just the result of freely given campaign contributions, invitations to nice dinners, and perks like the odd bottle of whisky that remain within the rules for gifts.
Take a look at Krysten Sinema, who got elected mostly because she had a massive team of young volunteers who saw her as a progressive. After she got elected, she started getting massive donations from pharmaceutical companies and, all of a sudden, she’s shifted a lot further to the right.
One of the reasons why this works is that running for office is incredibly expensive. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign cost $2 million, mostly spent on the Democratic primary. She was funded by a group who wanted someone more progressive, and now she’s elected to a safe Democratic seat, she will need less money going forward, but her $170,000 salary (seems a lot doesn’t it) still doesn’t pay for her New York rent, her Washington rent, and her student loans.
One of the best tricks plays on vanity. The politician writes a book, which gets published, and “friends” buy enough copies to make it a best seller. This is really sleazy, but it happens all the time, and it is in no way illegal. There are allegations that Hilary Clinton’s success in the futures market was a set up where a benefactor essentially ate losses and just passed on the gains.
This is why the rich are heavily into “charity”, showing how good they are by building college buildings and universities (with their name on them of course). It’s certainly cheaper than paying taxes for the same thing, that’s for sure. Andrew Carnegie started it with libraries, and is seen as a saint, but governments still had to maintain those (most are now over a century old, including one or two in my home town of Toronto) and the donors usually don’t pay for the upkeep.
I’ve already written about some shocking things I’ve come across in the states in another post, so I suppose this is part 2, but here we go:
Heard people going at it…you cannot imagine my shock as a person coming from a conservative area, one who hasn’t even seen her parents kissing, to witness such a thing. But while staying at a hotel, for the first time in my life, I heard two people going at it very loudly so that it was impossible to ignore them. I was so embarrassed and my husband was laughing at me for looking so shocked.
Serving water for free in restaurants. For a capitalist country like the states, I was surprised they didn’t benefit from this one thing that people will undoubtedly pay for. You certainly have to pay for water over here in restaurants.
Ice.. always. Continuing from the last point, water is always served with ice. Someone like me who can’t have very cold water had to specifically ask for it to be omitted.
Medical issues. I needed antibiotics during my visit because of an infection that I get frequently. Not having insurance as a simple visitor, we had to pay 400$ to see a doctor and get this simple prescription. Meanwhile back home, I got it for less than a dollar. So I swore to pack lots of meds next time I come over.
Vast spaces. Perhaps because I’ve been only to Buffalo, Niagara, and Oregon but there was always a ton of space between buildings. The markets were huge with vast parking lots. And the roads were very big for the most part.
Black people everywhere. In New York airport (JFK), almost all workers were black! That was a surprise because I always heard of the diversity in the states. But even later in Oregon, almost everyone was white.
Security at the airport. That one was quite funny. When you get scanned at the JFK airport, you have to stand in a certain cabin, face your right, raise your arms like a criminal, then they scan you. The woman worker shouted, “Put your arms up!” and I had no clue what she was talking about. She kept repeating then showed me the exact position and where to face. Then she said “Seems like you don’t travel often”. I wanted to say “Excuse me? I’ve been traveling since I was 4 but this doesn’t exist anywhere else I’ve been!”.
Coffee. That was no coffee. That was dirty water. Period. Lol. For real though, our definition of coffee in Egypt is Turkish coffee which is very heavy, dense, and intense in flavor.
Huge meals. Everyone said so before and yet I made the mistake of ordering an appetizer before the main dish, only to be surprised that the appetizer is so big that it’s a meal on its own. I felt so sad throwing half the food away as we were traveling and I couldn’t take it with me.
Reese’s everywhere. It was Reese’s heaven! All sort of sizes, shapes, and mixes. Like mixed with Cadbury, Oreos, and so on.
Credit card everywhere. I am not exaggerating when I tell you there hasn’t been a single place I’ve been to that doesn’t take credit.
Rich wildlife. Coming from a desert, it was so impressive to just casually come across deer and squirrels. And at some point, I saw a massive number of seals. I learned the hard way that they stink.
They use their attractions wisely. I’ve been to countries that don’t give enough attention to grand places that leave you in awe, meanwhile, the states try to give such attention to whatever place they feel people may like visiting. Whenever you go to an especially cool place, you’ll find stores near it selling stamps, mugs, and stickers with pictures of that attraction. I’ve seen that at Niagara Falls and the redwoods in California. Did I mention that I’d never seen such huge trees in my life?
The world’s third-largest contract semiconductor maker, GlobalFoundries, on Tuesday opened a $4-billion manufacturing plant in Singapore as part of a global expansion to help ease an industry supply crunch.
The new Singapore facility will produce an additional 450,000 wafers annually at full capacity by 2025 to 2026, general manager Tan Yew Kong told reporters, raising the city-state’s overall capacity to 1.5 million wafers each year.
The chips, usually used in smartphones and other mobile devices, are also increasingly in demand by automakers, especially for electric vehicles, adding to the pressure to raise production.
“The key megatrends of our industry — digitisation, connectivity, cloud computing — are all driving acceleration to a more connected and data-centric world,” GlobalFoundries president and chief executive Thomas Caulfield said at the launch.
“It demonstrates how central and critical the industry is to the world economy and how pervasive semiconductors are in enabling and enhancing all aspects of human life.”
Caulfield said that despite current economic headwinds, the company estimates the industry will double in the next decade.
“The catalyst for this growth will be AI (artificial intelligence),” he said.
The firm’s 23,000-square meter Singapore facility, which broke ground in 2021, will expand the global footprint of the company, which already has plants in the United States and Europe.
Singapore’s chip output currently makes up 11% of the global semiconductor market.
The global semiconductor market is predicted to experience a downturn of 10.3 percent this year but recover in 2024 and grow by 11.8%, according to estimates by the industry monitor World Semiconductor Trade Statistics.
Very often, the answer is no. Not only do intelligent people very often fail to realize how much smarter they are than everyone else, they also tend to overestimate other people’s intelligence even when they do. Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time, I was at a bar with some friends. The bar had an outdoor area where you could stand around and drink beer. There was a guy who thought it would be funny to ride past the bar repeatedly on an extremely loud moped. At certain times, he would stop, rev the moped so loud that nobody could hear themselves think, and begin whooping loudly. This same guy had been at it all day, not just by the bar, but riding up and down the streets and residential neighborhoods, screaming and hollering and bothering everyone he could with his moped.
I mentioned, casually, that I wouldn’t mind chucking my beer mug at his head if he were close enough. A friend of mine, whom we shall call Angus (not his real name), said, “Well, you should probably leave someone as unstable as that guy alone. He obviously has some serious emotional difficulties.”
Angus is a smart dude, but he misread the guy on the moped. The issue is that the guy on the moped was probably not suffering from some deep emotional trauma that had made him so obstreperous. Rather, Moped Guy’s thought process was, most likely, no more complicated than this: “YEAH! YEAH! LOUD! LOUD MOTHERFUCKER! YEAH LOOK AT IT MAN! YEAH! LOUD!”
The issue that Angus was having is that Angus, being an intelligent and empathetic individual, was trying to understand Moped Guy’s motivations and look at things from Moped Guy’s perspective. Angus was thinking to himself, “What would have to happen to me to get me to act that obnoxiously?” The thing is, intelligent people of high character, like Angus, are not moved to act like idiots unless they suffer something really bad, at which point a complicated emotional process leads to bad behavior. Angus’ miscalculation was that Moped Guy would have to have suffered some horrible trauma to act in the way he did. The big issue is that Angus did not account for Moped Guy’s stupidity, and forgot the simple fact that stupid people will act stupid without any suffering or instability. Dumb people just act dumb.
I have suffered from this problem myself. For the longest time, I did not realize that so much of human behavior was posturing, and did not realize how to read people correctly. I thought that, when someone talked to me about their interests, they were merely stating facts and not trying to talk to me about themselves. The vast majority of humans are so subjective that most of their communication is about themselves and not about things or ideas or even other people. Intelligent people have problems grasping that.
My father, as I may have said before, is an ER doctor.
One night, a case arrived to the hospital of a teen girl with what seemed like a regular fever. The team gave her the necessary meds and started running a few tests.
Her mother had rushed to the hospital with her and looked particularly nervous. The doctor asked her some typical questions such as when her daughter showed signs and so on, but she would have vague half-assed answers.
However, within a few hours, the girls fever was sky rocketing, and her blood pressure was getting very low, and for some reason she wasn’t responding to regular meds or fluids.
The mother looked very nervous then she timidly approached a nurse and told her “actually, I forgot to tell you something. My daughter just went through a liposuction a couple of days ago. I don’t know if these two things are related”.
Yet by the time this piece of information reached the doctors, the girl had already died. She was being treated for a regular fever until test results showed the real issue.
Turns out that the mother took her daughter, who was not even chubby to begin with, to undergo a liposuction. Given that the girl was underage, a parent’s approval is a must. Her father was completely against it but the mother went ahead and sneaked it with the daughter anyway.
And she was too scared of her husband knowing what she did so she didn’t want to let the secret out until she realized that the complications are more serious than she thought. But it was too late by then.
Lessons of the day:
1-Don’t put your child through unnecessary plastic surgery.
2-And don’t hold back information from the doctor for God’s sake.
Christopher Moltisanti – So Far (The Sopranos)
The most tragic character in fiction, even with all his flaws he will always be one of the greatest characters in the history of television…
The Chinese government is a lot lot lot more transparent than the western government on the economy. It is simple Chinese government don’t need to be popular it need to be effective!
The U.S. government need to and use their media to fool Americans and hoodwinked them so that Yanks will always be highly naive and ignorant. How do they do that? Western media are profit motivated so they are free to make money by writing what westerners like to hear. So they write or broadcast what westerners like to hear.
After conniving you that China is at fault, China is your enemy, China is backward, China is evil, China steal your technology, China cheats, China take your jobs…..What do you like to hear? China fail and U.S. is great, it is exceptional, its economy is still wonderful. Your technology is unmatched. So you media cohort with your government to fool you and guess what that is what you want!
Chinese government don’t face election and popularity contest every 2 years! You do! China says and report as it is and encourage or motivate its citizens that it needs to buck up and work harder. Hence all the superlatives such ad the U.S. is exceptional, Britain is Great, US is the mist innovative, Britain invents everything…
China don’t do that. To us Empty vessels makes the most noise! Western media are simply lying media that spread half truths, fake news, misinformation, fabrications. Demonising others to distract your people from your impending collapse.
I was studious, which resulted into me getting a scholarship in college. One of my friends asked me for some money (2500/-). He was my good friend, not best, and I was completely aware of his gambling and drinking habits.
I wanted to say “No”, because I knew the importance of money at that moment of my life. I was aware of the fact that he will never return it, but I still lent him the money, which was obviously never returned.
It was my first breakup and I was leading a miserable life. There was this girl who was my junior and she started taking interest in me.
I was uncomfortable, but she was pretty. I wasn’t ready for a relationship and she kept pushing me. Again, I wanted to say “No”, but it could have hurt her feelings.
Unwillingly, I said Yes. And that relationship survived for a month only.
Don’t judge me, I was an immature teenager back then.
There were many incidents in my life where I desperately wanted to say “No”, but ended up saying otherwise. And in return, I paid a huge price, not monetarily, but emotionally and mentally.
But today, things have changed. I have changed for my own good. And I have learned the art of saying “No”. People call me rude, arrogant etc, but who cares about their opinion?
This is my life, these are my struggles. They will only give their absurd opinion which is never required. Sometimes people think that saying “NO” is hard because your image will get maligned or it will hurt other people.
My question is, what will you do with your false pride? Maybe momentarily you will hurt people by saying “No”, but in the long term it will save you from huge disappointment.
This is what I learned the hard way: How to say “No” to the face when/where I am hesitant/uncomfortable.
It comes with multiple benefits:
You don’t have to lie.
You don’t have to make excuses.
You don’t have to justify anything.
I refused to please others at the expense of my emotional well being. Even if it is saying “No” to thepeople who are used to hearing “Yes”.
Learn the art of saying “No”. Don’t lie, don’t make excuses, don’t over explain yourself. Just simply decline.
The Sopranos || Easier
“Man, thanks for this awesome work! This gives me power every time I rewatch it to deal with tough shit in evercold Moscow. I’d love to see more motivating sopranos vids from ya!”
When I first started High School, I had a guy that rode the bus with me every day, and made my life a living hell. His name was David R-. He was 18 years old and still in the tenth grade. He was bigger than me, and cussed like a sailor. He was mean and vicious, and he absolutely scared me to death.
I have vivid memories of him sitting behind me on the bus, slapping me in the back of the head as we rode home from school. It happened almost every day. This was 27 years ago and, back then, bullying was just a “common thing.” It was something you had to deal with. You had to learn to stand up for yourself and “be a man”. I would complain to the bus driver and the principal. Mr. Dave would get a good scolding, but he was right back at it the next day.
Well, after six months of this B/S, I’d finally had enough. I just snapped one day. I turned around and dove over the seat, and started pounding on him. Everyone went crazy. The driver slammed on the brakes, and brought the bus to a stop.
I was getting my tail kicked by this guy. He was bigger, faster and stronger, and the only thing I had on my side, was rage. We were up against the emergency exit, slugging it out, when, all of a sudden, the door just popped open, and we went tumbling into the street.
When we hit the pavement, Mr. Dave had his arm twisted behind his back. He landed on it, and I heard it snap like a piece of kindling. He pushed me off of him, and got up with a bone jutting out of his wrist. He was screaming his head off, and blood was pouring onto the asphalt.
Maybe I should have backed off at that point, but this guy had made my life hell for several months, and I wanted revenge. I twisted his broken arm behind his back, and took him down on the ground where I proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him. There were several cars that had stopped by this time, and it took two grown men to pull me off of him. It was the worst fight I’d ever had in my life, and it remains so to this day. My nose was busted and I had a black eye. Mr. Dave had a broken arm, a busted lip, two missing teeth, and a huge laceration across his forehead. They actually called an ambulance for him.
Both of us were suspended. Dave’s mother contacted my dad a few days later, and threatened to sue us. She wanted us to pay for Dave’s medical bills. However, I had a bus full of people, who absolutely hated Dave, and all of them were telling the principal about my six months of hell, and insisting that Dave had started the fight.
I was suspended for two weeks. I also got a month of detention, and couldn’t ride the bus for the rest of the year, but that was the end of my punishment. As far as I know, Dave never returned to school at all. I didn’t see him again for 15 years.
Then, right around 2005, I moved from Mississippi back to my hometown in Georgia. One day as I was walking out of a convenience store, I spotted my old high school bully picking up aluminum cans along the side of the road.
It totally shocked me, and I wasn’t absolutely sure that it was really him. After all, it had been 15 years. Still, I was PRETTY sure. So, I strolled over to the edge of the parking lot for a better look. Just as I walked up, he turned to stare at me, and I recognized him beyond a shadow of doubt. I’m not very good with names, but I rarely forget a face.
He looked terrible. His hair was long. He hadn’t shaved in several days. His clothes were torn and ragged, and he smelled like a wet dog. He was very thin and dirty, and half of his teeth appeared to be missing. He also had an old duffle bag slung across his shoulder, and I got the distinct impression that he was homeless.
“I’m sorry, you’re David R-, aren’t you?” I asked.
His eyes brightened for a moment, and he looked at me long and hard before responding. “Yeah, who are you?”
My first impulse was to tell him. I wanted to remind him of all those days that he had harassed the hell out of me, and then ask him if he remembered our little brawl and his trip to the hospital. Then I wanted to let him know how much money I had made the year before, and tell him all about the new job I had just started down in Atlanta. Instead, I just stood there, staring at him.
“I think we might have gone to school together,” I replied.
His eyes narrowed again, and he really studied my face. Still, I don’t think he had a clue who I was. Apparently, I had changed a lot in 15 years.
“What’s your name?” He finally asked.
I shook my head. “Not important”, I replied. I dug in my wallet, and pulled out a ten dollar bill. I held it out to him, and he took it. I said, “God bless”, and then slowly walked away.
A push-back against Western influence is reportedly prompting countries to reject the pro-Ukraen agenda. Zelensky during a UN General Assembly session.
Western officials have overestimated the willingness of neutral nations to join anti-Russia policies in support of Ukraen, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It’s clear that the West overall has been surprised by the pretty widespread reluctance by many of the countries in the so-called Global South… to come on board.
“animosity toward the US and Europe” in some parts of the world and the desire of rising powers, such as Brazil and South Africa, to “assert their independence”, the article said.
The WSJ detailed purported successes and failures of Western diplomacy to rally the support of neutral nations for what it called “a fair peace settlement for Ukraen” ahead of next week’s gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
Loozensky has been internationally promoting his “peace formula” with Western backing. It includes Ukraen regaining control over all former territories, war reparations from Russia, and a tribunal for the Russian leadership. Moscow has dismissed the Zelensky plan as being detached from reality.
My oldest son was driving a red Toyota 4×4 pick up . It was used but solid .
He worked at an auto parts store and had done a pretty good job of fixing it up . One weekend he did a tune up . Plugs , rotor , cap, plugs etc .. about a week later while I was working , he called and said it had statrting running rough then died.
At that point I had more money than time so we had it towed to a shop I had used before .
Next day shop calls me to tell me it jumped time and the engine was a complete loss .
Quoted me 2500 to rebuild .
Only paid 1500 for the truck .
I told them never mind and had it towed to the house .
Finally I was off work a few day and decided to check it out . Pulled the timing belt cover and checked the orientation of the cams to the crankshaft . It was perfect ! So at their point I’m a bit confused . Pop the distributor cap and noticed the rotor was on the wrong cylinder .
Come to find out my son forgot to put the holding screw back in the rotor and it had turned just a bit . This meant the timing was so far off it wouldn’t run .
Put the screw back in, cranked it up and it ran like a champ !
Drove it up to the shop and called out the boss .
Showed him and explained what was found .
His face turned 4 shades of red lol ! Come to find out the tech that looked at it got paid extra to do rebuilds and was condemning engines every chance he got !
Needless to say the tech got fired .3 hours of my time and I saved 2500$ and my son got his truck back .
As an Ordinary user of a smartphone, can you really tell the difference between the 3nm and the 7nm Chips?
You can’t
The difference is more from an engineering point of view and a design point of view than a commercial point of view
The Average customer doesn’t understand 3nm and 7nm.
There is Zero difference from the POV of a retail customer who doesn’t understand Semiconductor Design Or Power Consumption Efficiency (99.9% of the world’s retail customers)
Here are the top six parameters based on which people decide which Smartphones to buy :-
Price
Camera
Battery & Charging
Gaming
Color & Design
BRAND
Do you see ‘Performance’ anywhere?
No
Performance is impossible to gauge for a normal user
You need advanced tools that tech blogger guys from YT have
Sure you can see the difference between a 32 nm Laptop Chip and a 7 nm Smartphone Chip
However it becomes tougher as you come closer and closer to each successive process
Take the I7 vs Loongson 3AC6000
Assuming Loongson had Windows integration
An Average user could not distinguish the two apart unless by GPU performance or Memory superiority
Yet a professional with tools can see that the Loongson is performing only at 50% the rate of the I7
So the answer is YES
My guess is the 3/2nm Chips are redundant for modern smartphones. They are too advanced and unnecessary for the average retail user
Cost effective 7/5 nm Chips are the Uppermost limit for smartphones
The Iphone 15 vs Mate 60 is the best example
The greatest advantage of the Iphone 15 was the GPU of NVDIA according to retail users
Mate60 won with the Camera, Gestures, Satellite Calling, 5G speeds etc
Iphone won with the Graphics
Nobody mentions the A17 Chip except as part of the textbook spec comparison table
3/2 nm Chips will be pathbreaking for the NEXT GENERATION after the Smartphone like maybe Advanced AI systems etc
TSMC will find the 3nm process overkill
Yet if they keep at it, they may find it easier to progress to the next generation of communication technology
We have built a vacation home in a nearby province. Husband took on the contracting while maintaining his full-time police job – so proud of him!
I did not announce this; I dislike the comparison games people play and do not want to be perceived as bragging.
A good friend asked to see pictures at a reunion luncheon. As I flipped through pix on my phone, an acquaintance from long ago came up behind us.
She peered over our shoulders and exclaimed, “When you married that low-ranked cop, I knew you’d end up this way! How far you’ve fallen! How can you live like THAT!!”
The look on her face was not one of concern, but a sneer.
She was looking at a picture of the shed where building materials had been kept (that has since been removed).
*sigh*
*Note Some have asked about my response. I smiled, told her that it was the raw materials shed and went back to my conversation.
Why didn’t I snap back, go for her throat, etc?
Because that (and to embarrass me) is what she expected, what she wanted. She is in her element when someone defends herself or gets angry.
But she has never been able to handle a calm, non-defensive response.
My time in the Marines didn’t go at all as I expected; in fact, I was disappointed with almost all of it. However, I am grateful for these very disappointments. It took me a long time to come this viewpoint, but I am finally able to see the experience in a more wholistic way. As a Christian, I see it through the lens of Romans 8:28:
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (ESV)
When I was planning to go into the Marines, my father encouraged me as he always had. He thought I had sound judgment and that I had made a wise decision. It was a sickening shock for me to find out in the Marines that very few people, men or women, thought this way.
I was generally despised as a woman Aircraft Maintenance Officer. Women hadn’t been allowed into this MOS for very long. I was about the sixth woman to choose it. People thought women couldn’t understand machinery or aircraft.
I personally got ugly comments. One was a note passed to me in AMO school that read, “A woman is a life support system for a cunt.” I was very quiet back then and kept to myself a lot, but other Marines’ hatred for me was so great they went out of their way to humiliate me.
At some point I found out I could not be assigned to a deploying squadron; no women Marines could deploy back then. So this fact meant I would not be assigned to any unit that actually had aircraft, unless it was to a training squadron. My dream of going to a deploying squadron and to a carrier ended.
I was so miserable. I had no friends after a while. A woman captain I knew went to Germany, and a woman TBS classmate with whom I was also close had to take a medical discharge. I was lonely and frightened and made bad personal decisions as a result.
But when I was at my lowest point, I reached out to God in desperation, and He answered. It was the beginning of our relationship which continues to this day. It was about that time my EAS rolled around, so I was then set free from the Marine Corps.
In spite of the traumatic stuff and in addition to my now having God in my life, I did however benefit from my service.
I was able to work for Sikorsky Aircraft as a technical writer. I wrote repair manuals for the SH-60B helicopter when it first came out. The job included testing the manuals out on the helicopter by doing an R and R (remove and replace) of all the parts on it, including the engines, blades, and rotor head.
Being a Marine helped me get a job with the Texas Department of Public Safety as a security officer. Marines are highly respected in the Department, and there are a lot of them in it. To my surprise, many other members of the Department admired me for my Marine service and accepted me because of it. That had hardly ever happened before.
A huge benefit was that my husband, a highly decorated combat Marine, chose me to be his wife. He said that when he learned I was a Marine, he knew I could understand him like no other woman could. We got married six weeks after we met.
So my military service was a rough go, but it prepared me for the rough life I had ahead of me. But most importantly, God used it to bring me to Him and to my wonderful husband.
At so many levels… I was a small child in the 60’s. I remember on the news there was a symbol- a silhouette of a soldier walking – with a number in it, and that number was the number of casualties there had been that day. My cousin was in the 101st Airborne- it would take forever to hear anything so we both were encouraged and afraid when they mentioned the 101st.
Many people say the Gulf War was the first war played out on television. It wasn’t. It was Vietnam. I remember it so distinctly. It was terrifying. I asked my Dad what the war was for… he started to explain but in the end, he just said “There is never a good reason for war, and in the end, it won’t change anything anyway…” Looking back now, what did all that death and pain- on both sides- accomplish?
The city I lived in had a Marine base. Many of the kids I played with had dads who were “in country”, or mothers and fathers who worked at the base. I saw many of them saying goodbye because their lives had suddenly changed, either because their dad would not be coming home, or that he had come home and was now facing extended time in rehab. I remember playing in the stadium right in front of the entrance to the housing area for the base… when we saw a black car with a driver, an officer… and a chaplain… all the kids would run home in terror. Someone was about to get some bad news.
I was grateful that my Dad didn’t have to go to Vietnam. He was in the navy as the war started but I was a sick baby and he was discharged on compassionate grounds.
I remembering wearing a bracelet with the name of an MIA soldier… he didn’t come home, well, his remains didn’t come home, until the late 1970’s, I folded up his bracelet and sent it up to his family.
One of my dearest friends, “Sarge” Robert Hultgren, was a 2 tour vet- he campaigned tirelessly for the MIA and POW. “I can’t forget a single brother” he said. Sarge died several years, of Alzheimer’s Dementia. He forgot his daughter, his wife, his own name… but he thought he was in Vietnam. His PTSD pierced his soul so deeply it was too deep even for Dementia to wash away.
Sarge used to put up a bamboo Christmas Tree in front of Boston’s City Hall each Christmas. Lest we forget.
I remember standing on the front steps with my Mom when all the church bells and sirens from Fire Trucks and Civil Defense were sounding to say the war was over. But how could it be over? My friends were still waiting for their dads.
That next year at Memorial Day, the 1st World War vets marched, all snappily dressed and although old were orderly and looked dignified. The same was true of the World War 2 vets, the Korean War vets… then came the Vietnam vets. The looked slouched, and where people had cheered for the other men, they yelled things at the Vietnam Vets… Baby killer. Rapist. Bastards. WHy didn’t you just die there….
Some of the my friends were there watching their dads marching and they winced at the hatred. We had already seen it, protests at the gates of the base, “peace protesters” telling the small children there that their daddies were murderers and rapists. Who did they think they were to “peacefully” destroy these kids?
Neighbours of my grandparents, the place where we spent every spare minute, were a military family. One day when visiting them, the news came on the TV and they turned it off. “We don’t listen to that when we are here… this is our escape” said the lovely Mrs Wittman. Her husband was a senior military officer. This was the reason:
Lance Corporal Narvin O WIttman 26–9–1946 – 7–8–1967 Their son had died in Vietnam. When I went to see the “Wall”, I took a rubbing of his name. He didn’t even make it to 21.
It was years before we learned our lesson. It is this deep wound of guilt that led to Americans thanking Vets for their service… never again would we forget that it’s not the soldier’s fault when he does what his country asks him to do. I hope.
All those of my generation had the same experience… the pain and horror of Vietnam was all over the news, inescapable, imbedding itself in our psyche.
Thanks for your service… as my generation joins those who pass away, I just pray we as a human race never forget. We inflicted pain on those young men- draftees- and their families. For what?
The Sopranos || Lovely
Breaking bad is my all-time favorite show.. But this show is… its a masterpiece. I remember the first time i finished it. Had a feeling i need to watch it again right away…. They don’t make them like they used to before. What a great time it was for entertainment back then.
Southern Crusty Coconut Pie
Ingredients
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 cups shredded coconut
1/4 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie shell
Instructions
Pour milk over coconut and set aside while creaming butter and sugar together.
Add eggs to creamed mixture and beat well.
Add milk, coconut and vanilla extract.
Pour into an unbaked pie shell.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until pie is golden brown and firm.
Chinese are not closed off from the world; more than 130M Chinese travel outside China annually, and they spend about US$250B annually on their travels, making them the single largest tourist group by nation, and the biggest spending one.
Just because you disagree with Chinese government policies, do not say that Chinese are closed off from the rest of the world. It is you who are out of touch with what is really going on.
Here’s a fun fact, once you become a grannie in China, you get to wear a grannie “uniform”. These grannies all wear outlandish crazy floral patterned tops. And it seems to be the unofficial “uniform” of the grannie sect inside of China.
I don’t know quite how it works, but seriously… all the grannies wear these God-awful floral tops; the busier, and more abrasive the better.
Don’t you know.
…
Let me tell you all the sad tale of my mistakes in cooking hamburgers.
You see, as a teenager, my father was trying to lose weight, and at that time he believed that all the fat in hamburgers must be removed for it to be “healthy”. And so, whenever he cooked hamburgers, he would squeeze all the delicious juices out of the burger. Whether on the grill or in the pan. And the result would be a dry burger.
I didn’t know any better. Being all of 12 or 13 at the time, and so I thought that this was the way that you cook hamburgers. You squeeze all the fat out.
Stupid silly me.
No wonder no one wanted me to cook the hamburgers at family get-togethers. I made dry and tasteless hamburgers.
I feel so bad about it, and I wince when I remember that particular memory.
Today, I leave all the precious juices inside the burger. Let it cook just that way. Don’t ever…ever…EVER squeeze out the juices! The juices are what you want in a fine greasy delicious burger.
Go get yourself a nice burger. Make sure that it is tasty and delicious and do not skimp on the sides. Have a great meal and a great day!
Being disabled and looking like I do there are two things I always get to overhear. Going through TSA my name comes up red flagged. Meaning check him completely.
A customs agent told me “it’s due to your Military career and past knowledge.”
What the hell does that mean? I’m in a wheelchair and have metal in my leg, shoulder, and back. I am a wand beep show. All hands pat downs in a wheelchair. You need two hips to stand, so I can’t stand. Any chance I am taking over the plane? Gunpowder tests on hands AND ARMS. OK so the Navy/CIA service made me an enemy of the state or something?
I think it is BS and it’s profiling but my wife said “no it’s not.”
Then you have people whispering when we get on first. “Bet they fake it to board first…”
I tore into a woman I heard say that. I yelled so loud the airport got quiet. Does it look like I’m faking it? I tried to get out of wheelchair and fell. Hurt. But I felt better with that. Maybe she’ll get it some day.
My wife wasn’t happy about my antics but I’m so tired of it. And she knows. On the plane though I overheard a mom telling their kid there is no difference between disabled people and us. Except a part of their body just doesn’t work like ours. She had me in tears. The best explanation of a disabled person I have ever heard explained. And plainly so a child could understand it. The kid kept asking me if I needed any help?
Thats mainly because The Ruble is not a very Publicly Traded Currency & Russia is a Net Exporter
Putin did three strategic things:-
Firstly , he rose the interest rates to 20% Short term. That helped when a huge amount of rubles entered into the Banking system, reducing the Supply and subsequently making the Ruble more valuable.
Secondly, he had a rule where all Companies in Russia had to ensure 80% of all Foreign Payments were mandatorily in Russian Rubles. As a result – Companies within Russia had to buy Rubles from Russian Central Bank and this helped the Ruble gain traction and demand.
Thirdly, he announced that he would only take paymets for Gas in Rubles. Now while G7 governments keep talking nonsense as Politicians do, the Businessmen – ie:- The Refineries, The Gas Distributors etc had to assume the worst case scenario and be prepared and so they collectively purchased roughly 160 Billion Rubles over 4 days (Around Euro 1.53 Billion). If they really have to pay for Gas in Rubles – they will need around 1.5 Trillion Rubles but still…this Ruble purchase also took the Ruble rate up.
In this way – the Ruble strengthened from 141 Rubles to a Dollar on 7th March 2022 to 93 Rubles to a Dollar on 28th March 2022.
Meanwhile – Why exactly did the Ruble crash in value???
Its not traded on any Exchange right? No Major Country carries Ruble reserves? Its not as if Rubles are sold in US or EU and they dumped the Rubles right?
I believe this was because the West dumped their entire stock of Rubles
Prior to 24th February – You had 900 Billion Rubles or around US$ 13 Billion with Foreign Countries in the form of Securities or actual Ruble Deposits.
My guess is – the West dumped this entire $ 13 Billion or 900 Billion of Rubles with the intention of causing a major crash in the Ruble and create an economic turmoil in Russia.
My guess was – Crash the value of the Ruble, Make Necessary Imports very expensive , mainly Drugs and Pharma and bring Putin to his knees.
Sadly someone spoilt the party:-
China has the largest Ruble Reserves outside of Russia ($ 55.1 Billion or around 1.5% of its foreign reserves). The West had hoped China would be panic driven to sell their Rubles as well which could have crashed the Ruble even further.
Luckily China didn’t fall for the trap and instead kept their Rubles and even rose the price band between the Yuan and Ruble by 10% instead of 5% to prevent panic sales of Rubles.
No Wonder the West is SO ANGRY WITH CHINA
Its why i always say – A NON CONVERTIBLE CURRENCY is the Greatest Asset for a NET EXPORTER
And another thing
900 Billion Ruble dumping – caused a 13 day turmoil for the Ruble
IMAGINE IF CHINA DUMPS $ 1.273 TRILLION OF US DOLLAR DEBT !!!!!!
I was flying home to Mom’s funeral. Had our 13 month old son with me. A young soldier took the aisle seat. We exchanged pleasantries and then I busied myself keeping N. occupied. Mealtime came and I noticed the young man talking to the flight attendant. Turns out he had told her to hold his meal and he offered to hold N. while I ate and then happily ate his own. When we landed he helped me with my carry-on luggage and wished me luck with the next leg of my trip. I’ve never forgotten that young soldier.
If someone is trying to make you decide in a hurry, they are probably giving you a bad deal. Walk away.
Sometimes pretending that you are naive gets you more information.
Pretending is helpful many times.
If you want to avoid office politics, say good things about coworkers behind their backs.
Physical contact makes you more likely to say yes to a request.
If you want to make someone feel uncomfortable, look at their forehead when you’re talking to them.
When a group of people laugh, they tend to look at the person they like the most.
Nervousness and excitement have the same body reaction, so if you’re nervous for a speech, instead convince yourself you’re excited. Its proven to give better speeches, too.
Ask for something that seems small, but is related, to what you really want. Then, once they’ve agreed to the small thing, just work up with slightly larger requests until you achieve your goals.
I can reverse that. My father recounted the story of a massive brick chimney on the OSU campus. They wanted it down, so put it out for bids. The bids came in the thousands of dollars (a lot of money in the ‘50s), except one. An old guy with a beat-up pickup came by and bid $50. He chiseled out a number of the bricks, replacing them with wood blocks. When he’d replaced enough of them, he threw gasoline on it, lit it, and retreated. When the thing came down, he hauled away all of the brick (what he really wanted).
One of the great media injustices took place in 1994 — and it began a pattern of malignment that escalates to this day.
The case was Liebeck v. McDonald’s. It’s one of the most widely recognized and highly misunderstood lawsuits in history. Most people know it as, “The greedy lady who spilled coffee on herself and wanted an easy payday.”
It’s also the precursor to social media harassment campaigns — including a list of targets I hesitate to even mention — because I know people buy into the nonsense.
Here’s what really happened.
The lead-up to the legal showdown
Stella Liebeck did indeed order coffee and spill it on herself. After pulling through the drive-through, she put the coffee between her legs, and the lid popped off. The coffee then spilled on her inner thighs and crotch region.
What people often miss is that the coffee didn’t burn her — it completely scorched her body.
McDonald’s was keeping the coffee far, far hotter than it needed to be, at temperatures that cause third-degree burns in an instant. Remember: Heat damage is also a proxy of exposure of duration — and there was little time to react (which was exacerbated by her old age).
Liebeck spent more than a week in the hospital battling life-threatening infections.
The media also conveniently ignore that there were more than 700 hot coffee complaints and lawsuits filed against McDonald’s in the lead-up to this case. More than $500,000 in payouts had been given to burn victims.
But when the casual consumer scanned headlines and saw, “Woman Wins Millions After Mistakenly Spilling Coffee On Herself”, it turned McDonald’s into a martyr for lazy, greedy consumers — and the customer into an avatar of laziness and opportunism.
It became so easy to conclude the woman was a fool for not knowing coffee was hot, and that she should have been more careful and taken responsibility for her mistakes.
She’s lucky there was no Twitter back then.
The court case was a hot mess too
During my MBA program, we studied this case in corporate law class. I remember being so surprised at the number of contradictions to public perception within it.
First, Liebeck never sued for millions.
She asked for $20,000 just to cover her medical expenses (the costs her insurance didn’t cover). For six months, McDonald’s refused and instead offered her $800. Eventually, she hired a lawyer. His eyes went wide as he saw the facts of the case. That’s when their claim went way up.
The jury was initially skeptical of Liebeck. They thought she was just another ambulance chaser.
And then they saw the actual images of the burns
Liebeck had permanent damage to her private areas. The images are hard to look at and I can’t even describe them without getting very graphic.
Doctors performed several skin grafts. Liebeck’s physician testified in front of the jury that her burns were one of the worst he’d ever seen, as bad as people who’d been on fire.
Conversely, McDonald’s defense lawyers were flamboyant and pompous. In one of the all-time great legal screw-ups, they responded to the fact that 700+ people had been burned by saying it was “little more than a rounding error”. Regardless of the company’s customer volume, it reflected a callous disregard for the harm they had — and were — causing.
After the jury saw McDonald’s track record of burns, the arrogance of their lawyers, and their refusal to accept any blame, the tide turned.
Even worse, Liebeck’s attorney cross-examined McDonald’s quality control manager and squeezed three painful confessions out of him:
That their coffee was not served at a temperature safe for consumption.
That consumers were not adequately warned of the burn risk.
He also buried his foot in his mouth by saying he had more important matters to attend to than the burn injuries. He said they didn’t constitute a change in policy.
Between these missteps and the facts of the case, the jury awarded Liebeck $640,000. However, the judge added punitive damages totaling $2.7 million, equal to two days of Mcdonald’s coffee sales.
Punitive damages are a judge’s way of saying, “You messed this up so bad that I’m going to add extra damages just to send a stronger message to everyone watching this.”
The aftermath
Sadly, Liebeck never got the millions.
She instead settled out of court for a half-million dollars. She spent the remaining 12 years of her life in poor health while her settlement only covered her medical care and a live-in nurse.
She was never some dumb, greedy, careless woman who didn’t know that coffee was hot. The public’s misconception was a major disservice to someone who genuinely suffered.
This should have been a PR nightmare for McDonald’s. Between the 700+ incidents and the pattern of lava-hot coffee, it was just a matter of time before this happened.
McDonald’s was big enough to take the hit and was blessed with a rare media hall pass. Conservative political talk shows needed an anti-business case study to spin for election season.
The public drew quick conclusions about this woman before even knowing the facts of the case. It highlights a continuing clouding of the truth — often about things that don’t even affect your personal life — yet damage someone else’s.
In recent years, I’ve seen rampant campaigns to target and harass people on social media — Twitter especially — by people who don’t actually know what happened in some person’s divorce. I see Medal of Honor winners being targeted because of bogus campaigns about what happened on a mission — by people who have probably never been in combat.
Taking sides is fun. It’s in our nature to enjoy combative feuds and pick a team. Just remember that we aren’t usually working with hard evidence or perfect information.
It’s so easy to let your own experiences inform your opinion more than the facts.
In short: stay empathetic. Know that even if someone made a mistake — you could easily have been them, looking out from their eyes, seeing all the people holding torches and shouting your name.
The first and only brand new car that I ever bought. About a month later I was driving down the highway doing about 60 mph and the engine shut down without warning. I managed to coast onto the shoulder and it would not start. I waited about 20 minutes and it fired right up! I took the car back to the dealership and they could not find any issues to get the problem to happen again. I picked the car up and while driving home the engine shut down again. S.O.A.B! So I had the car towed back to the dealership and they kept it for 2 days and still couldn’t find the problem. I went home and the next day it happened again. Shut down – wait 20 minutes – then start right up again. This went on for about a week and I was about to contact the dealer again to get this covered under the lemon law.
Then a friend suggested that I replace the magnetic pickup. This is a sensor in the distributor that detects the rotation of the distributor shaft. If is faulty it can trick the computer into thinking there’s an engine failure and shutoff the engine.
I bought the part, took off the distributor cap, pulled the magnetic pickup and there is was. Sticking on-end to the magnet was the tiniest sliver of metal no more than 1/16″ long! Probably left over from when the block was machined. I wiped the sliver off with my finger and put the original part back in and never had the problem again.
Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm DISAGREE With Biden’s Export Control
From a pro-USA source…
In a complex tug-of-war between national security and economic interests, the United States is facing a conundrum in its semiconductor strategy. Discover why the CEOs of major American chip giants, Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, are urging the Biden administration to rethink its stringent export controls on computer chips to China. These restrictions were initially imposed to curb China’s military modernization efforts, but their unintended consequences are starting to surface.
Ukraine SitRep: Western Military Commentators Finally Accept The Obvious
The Kuebler-Ross model of grief describes the human coping mechanism to deal with extremely difficult situations. It has five phases:
denial – “No, not me, it cannot be true”
anger – “Why me?”
bargaining – attempting to postpone death with “good behaviour”
depression – when reacting to their illness, and preparing for their death
acceptance – “The final rest before the long journey”
With regard to the Ukrainian counter-offensive the last phase of the grief model has now been reached.
While not all politician are yet there, the military and intelligence specialists, who are part of the western propaganda squads, have made their conclusions. From their mouth the truth is dripping to the media. While the headlines below may not express it, the content of those pieces, especially in the first four, is finally admitting the obvious. It didn’t work and the counter-offensive is done:
Nothing of the above is new to Moon of Alabama readers. I may have helped to spare you the grief by not clinging to a the narrative but to the reality of the battlefield:
This outcome of the counteroffensive against the hardened Russian defense lines was predictable (May 11!):
In military books this is know as ‘echeloned defense’ with three lines of well prepared positions ten kilometer apart from each other. Each line consists of tank obstacles, mine belts, prepared anti-tank positions to monitor and counter potential breach attempts and well prepared artillery support from behind the next defense line.
To crack such a nut without air support and without significant artillery advantage is nearly impossible.
But the Ukrainians did even worse than I had thought. The delaying action by the Russian army stopped them before they even reached the first defense line.
What may come next was predicted here on June 5, the day the counter-offensive was launched:
I strongly suspect that the Russian military will let the Ukrainian attacks run their course to then launch its own larger scale attacks against weakened Ukrainian defenses.
But to this day and while taking heavy losses the Ukrainian army is still running head first into a wall of Russian fire and concrete barriers. It may well keep going for another few weeks until the rain seasons sets in. That will lessen the chance of a renewed Russian attack. I have no idea yet of what might come instead of one.
To cope with the situation and bad news the U.S. will now send in a new wonder-weapon, the ATAMCS missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometer (190 miles). They come in several variants but the U.S. army will only be willing to hand over its older ones and only a few. The missiles are GPS guided which is unlikely to work well as Russia has sufficient electronic warfare assets that will disturb those signals. Some of these missiles will just divert from their target. Some will be shot down by air defenses. Some will come through. The 230 kilogram warhead can create quite a mess if it hits a large headquarter.
But keep in mind that the Russian forces are now regularly using FAB 500 glide bombs that come with nearly 500 kilogram of explosives. The bigger FAB 1500 have been tested too and are ready to be deployed. The new ATAMCS missiles will thereby not change the balance of force.
Former ambassador MK Bhadrakumar is sensing some diplomatic noise that might point to upcoming talks.
Talks may well follow but I would not expect any agreement. The Russian side will hold up its demands and the U.S. will still be unwilling to fulfill them. Not even a ceasefire will result from them.
Posted by b on September 9, 2023 at 14:44 UTC | Permalink
The road not taken: Dilemma in filling application forms for universities in China
Dean of the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) delivered a speech to the freshmen of the journalism major at the opening ceremony, in which he mentioned Zhang Xuefeng, a teacher who has recently become a hit on the Internet.
After this year’s college entrance examination, Zhang, like many other teachers in high schools and colleges, provided candidates with suggestions on live broadcasting. But what made him stand out is that his suggestions to each candidate are very customized, with a very sharp and extremely realistic tongue.
According to Zhang, one shouldn’t even think about finding a job at a big Internet company without a Diploma from Project 211 (a Chinese project of developing comprehensive universities and colleges, which, to some extent, symbolizes the quality of the universities and students).
“I’m going to beat my son’s arse off if he wants to study journalism (in China),” he also said.
As an online tutor who focuses on practical benefits, Zhang cares nothing less than helping students find satisfying jobs and living a stable life. His words, however, are very harsh in the ears of many who have already stepped into the university or even the society, because he talks down their past choices and future paths to nothing, and also reveals the cruel reality.
In the dean’s speech, he said in response to Zhang’s view, “Going to university is not only about finding jobs. If it is that way, in today’s highly informationized society, even without going to university people can still achieve this goal.”
Many people working on journalism refuted Zhang’s views before, thinking that he was too one-sided and shallow, and maliciously smeared the journalism major. At the same time, there are students of this major who agree with his views, and more are the parents of the candidates who regard his words as the Bible.
As we can see, the biggest conflict that lies in front of the young generation is the conflict between a sure future and dream chasing.
In East Asian countries, especially in China, voluntary application after the college entrance examination is regarded as an extremely important step in determining the direction of life, and everyone is afraid that their future will collapse if any mistake occurs.
Students face not only the choice between majors, but also the dilemma of huge income differences, overflow in the talent market, and, probably, the only child supporting the whole family under the influence of the abolished one-child policy.
From this point of view, Zhang is just starting from an ordinary student who has studied hard for many years, hoping to live a better life in line with his efforts. Scholars, nevertheless, talk the talk from the academic angle, which includes idealistic elements. In their eyes, Zhang is no more than a “cynic”. Life also has many turning points in store for you, all of which depend on both how hard you work and how lucky you are.
Though experienced, Zhang can never ensure a student’s whole future life with his words. The final decision is still in their own hands.
As far as I can see, the trial and error cost lies not only in whether you are in a well-established family, but also in how much you’d like to sacrifice the time, the pressure, and the fierce competition……every least expected incident may run over you and crush you down.
It’s still ruthless to talk about dreams without mentioning their cost. However, a person who is willing to go through mature deliberation and take advice prudently, always deserves good results.
Freezing Stray Cat Banged On The Door With His Paw, Begging For Help
One evening a woman from Quebec City heard someone scratching at her front door. It turned out to be a cat, probably quite elderly, and it should be noted that the weather outside was already very cold. The woman did not think long and let the traveling cat into her house.
Hi, John McEnany. Thanks for your interesting question!
I’m going to be tackling your question in three parts.
Part One:
Your question, as at September 10, 2023, at approximately 1308 hours (GMT +8), is:
“Do they sell cats on wet markets in China?”
English might not be your first language, so you might have gotten your prepositions mixed up.
“On” – we use this preposition when something (or someone) is touching the surface of something. For example: “Danny is dancing on the roof!” or “Milli has a tattoo of a spider on her right arm.”
“In” – we use this preposition when something (or someone) is located inside of a defined space. It could be a flat space, like in a yard, or a three-dimensional space, like in a building or plane. For example, “Brett is studying in the library.” or “Can you put the potato in my bag, please?”
The question should really read:
“Do they sell cats inwet markets in China?”
Part Two:
Now, to your question.
I’ve been to more than a few wet markets in China (and the rest of East and Southeast Asia), but as of today, there hasn’t been a wet market that sells cats.
If you’re looking to buy a cat in China, I would suggest going to a large pet store.
The larger pet stores tend to have cats for sale. The smaller pet stores may only sell pet food and accessories.
OR, you could go to a reputable cat breeder.
If you’re one of those who are into “pure breeds”, a cat breeder might be your best bet. But the prices can be astronomical.
For example, my cat-owning friend tells me that a Maine Coon can easily cost you 20,000 yuan (approximately $ 2700, USD).
However, as someone who used to be the owner of three dogs (no, not all three at the same time), I would suggest that instead of buying a cat, you might want to go down to a local animal rescue and shelter to adopt a cat instead.
Unfortunately, stray cats are still a common sight in many cities in China.
But there are many animal rescue and shelter groups trying to change that.
Last year, one of this groups opened “Cat Island” in Shanghai.
This “Cat Island” is actually an artificial island with an area of about 800 square meters, located in Laogang town, Shanghai. According to the group, they intend to accommodate 200 to 300 stray cats in the future.
The public can visit “Cat Island” to learn about how to control the stray cat and dog population as well as how to feed and take care of cats and dogs in general.
You can also apply to “Cat Island” to adopt one of their stray cats. From what I’ve gleaned on Chinese social media, many cats that were initially sent to the island have already been adopted.
If you live in Shanghai, you can try adopting from “Cat Island”. I’m sure they’d love to hear from you!
I’ve not come across a wet market selling cats yet.
Like I said above, if you’re looking for a cat, it’s best if you go down to a local animal rescue & shelter and see about adopting a stray cat.
I have come across stray cats that are loitering around wet markets, yes.
But, no, you won’t find wet markets selling them.
Wet markets tend to sell meat, seafood, produce, etc.
They’re like supermarkets or grocery stores, but prices tend to be cheaper and many people believe that wet market stuff is fresher than what you would find in a supermarket/grocery store.
Conclusion (a.k.a. TLDR)
So, just a quick recap:
If you want to buy a cat, you can do so at a large pet store or look for a breeder. However, I would suggest going down to your local animal rescue & shelter operation to adopt a stray cat instead – unfortunately, there are still a lot of stray cats in China and they all need warm homes and caring, loving fur-parents.
Wet markets might not be able to satisfy your need for a cat, but they do sell stuff like vegetables, fruits, meats, seafood, and other food products, so if you’re looking for produce and stuff that’s cheaper than those sold at supermarkets and groceries, wet markets might be the place where you can get some really good deals.
China SHOCKED Whole Industry: The New Twin-Tailed Scorpion Is Launched
Wow, china’s unmanned two-tailed “Scorpion” drone has been launched with a capability of carrying many missiles. This UAV is a remarkable technology as the 3-engines drone is completely autonomous that can fly non stop for 35 hours using precision navigation system. It’s high aspect ratio and two vertical stabilizers guarantee its long range capability and excellent stability.
Researchers at the Zhejiang University in China have devised a new method that allows for easier and cost-effective production of gallium oxide, an alternative to silicon for semiconductors. The discovery assumes importance amidst the ban on gallium export to China.
Silicon may be a significant component powering semiconductor-based applications. Still, the industry has evolved to use compounds such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide in production processes over the years. Gallium oxide is the newest entrant in the arena.
What is gallium oxide?
Gallium oxide is a fourth-generation ultra-wide band gap semiconductor that can withstand a strong electric field and consumes little power. A band gap is the amount of energy needed to free electrons inside a semiconductor material, and an ultra-wide band gap allows the material to be used for high-voltage applications.
Among other ultra-wide band gap materials, such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide, gallium oxide has many advantages. However, its production is much more challenging.
Gallium oxide is the only material that can form single crystals at atmospheric pressure after solidification from a melt. This can drastically reduce fabrication costs, but the process needs large amounts of iridium to make a crucible for the melt.
A four-inch crucible requires about 11 pounds (five kg) of iridium; since the price of iridium is three times that of gold, this increases production costs. It also raises concerns about intellectual property in China since Japan and the US have used the method.
Chinese innovation amidst US ban
Last year, researchers at the State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials at Zhejiang University made two-inch gallium oxide wafers. This year, they have improved their approach and made four-inch wafers.
Their improved approach involved a casting method that uses up to 80 percent less iridium. This will help reduce production costs and make the process shorter and more manageable for mass production.
The team has spun off a company that holds the patents for these improved methods and is currently working on using a temperature gradient to increase the size of the crystals produced.
Due to their low energy consumption, gallium oxide semiconductors are ideal for use in communications, aerospace, radar, and electrified transportation like cars and trains.
Last year, the US Commerce Department imposed an export ban on gallium oxide to China, citing concerns about national security since they can also be used for military purposes. The ban aimed to prevent China from gaining experience in next-generation semiconductors, where gallium oxide alone is expected to be a $1.5 billion opportunity by the end of the decade.
Not only has China overcome the aims of the ban but, in a tit-for-tat response, imposed a ban on the export of gallium and germanium from August 1 this year.
Inside Michael Imperioli’s History-Filled New York Home | Open Door | Architectural Digest
Competition is always a challenge, right? More than competition, Huawei is a Cinderella story. Remember, it was ranked #1 before Donald Trump torpedoed it.
Now, let’s use a little logic. If Huawei is able to manufacture enough chips to supply the global market, how long do you think it will take Huawei to rocket back to #1? It will have a reputation as the best smartphone on the planet, bar none. It will also have a reputation as the comeback kid.
Do you suppose some people might buy one just to spite Donald Trump or America? That’s precisely why I bought mine.
The Western media never stopped crowing about Huawei’s dependence on Google. In fact, more intelligent people might buy a Huawei phone to escape Google. That was part of my motivation. Unfortunately, my phone runs on Google’s Android program. No problem, I’m going to upgrade to a new Huawei, now that it’s running on Harmony OS.
The iPhone may remain #1 in the U.S., but I predict it will fall to 2nd place (or worse) just about everywhere else.
One thing helping the iPhone is the Apple ecosystem. If you own a Mac, as I do, an iPhone might seem a logical peripheral. Unfortunately, the U.S. tech sector is rotten to the core. I like Apple far more than Microsoft, but I still don’t completely trust it. It also seems like it has become just a little buggier in recent years.
My dream is to someday migrate to a Chinese system, leaving all that U.S. crapware behind once and for all. Unfortunately, I use Adobe software extensively, and I don’t know how long it will be before Adobe software will be compatible with Harmony OS or some other Chinese operating system. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if it happens in the next few years.
Oops, I almost forgot to mention 5G and 6G. China is clearly in the lead here. I don’t know how much that will affect the average person, but it’s certainly a good selling point.
After being wowed by Apple for two decades, I never thought I’d abandon ship, but the Chinese can outperform and undersell Apple at the same time. As a U.S. citizen who’s getting tired of being screwed by the tech sector and my own government, I appreciate bargains, don’t you?
The One and Only Authentic Southern Strawberry Shortcake
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 large egg, beaten
2/3 cup Half-and-Half
Butter for spreading
4 cups fresh, ripe strawberries, rinsed, hulled, sliced in half, and sugared, to taste
1 cup heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks
Instructions
Heat the oven to 450 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and mix well. Add the butter and using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the butter into the mixture until crumbly.
In a small bowl, combine the egg and Half-and-Half and mix until well blended. Then add the flour mixture and stir until the mixture is thoroughly moist. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead very briefly. With your hands, pat out the dough to about a 1/2 inch thickness, then, using a floured 3 inch biscuit cutter, cut out six biscuits.
Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and bake on the upper rack of the oven until slightly brown on top, about 10 minutes.
While they’re still hot, split open the biscuits, spread lightly with butter, and arrange close together on a plate. Spoon berries and cream onto the biscuits and serve while still warm.
HE EXPOSES THE SYSTEM! FIRST TIME REACTING TO ANTHONY OLIVER (Rapper Reacts Series)
For the scene depicting the atomic detonation during the famous Trinity test in the New Mexico desert in July 1945, Christopher Nolan and his creative team did not rely on CGI. Instead, they recreated a real explosion using gasoline, propane, magnesium, and aluminum powder to enhance the blinding light and initial flash of the explosion.
The explosion was filmed at 48 frames per second using 65mm IMAX cameras and Panavision Panaflex System 65 Studio cameras. Additional detailed shots were captured using 35mm cameras at 50 FPS. All elements were shot in a way that made them appear much larger than they were and then composited together in post-production to create ‘a colossal event made up of many small pieces.’ The final product was assembled by overlaying 100 shots and over 400 practical elements, all crafted by a team of more than 150 artists.
This is one of the reasons why I absolutely admire Nolan and his films
Africa SHOCKS the world: EXPOSING France Oppression in Africa!
When I lived in American Samoa (Pago Pago), there were many unique aspects of it that I have long since forgotten. But today, well something jogged my mind. And you know what came up? Yes.
Turkey-ass sandwiches.
Yupper. Very popular in Samoa. They (for some reason that I do not understand) inherit a large amount of turkey-ass meat. And the locals take this cheap meat, and cook it and make sandwiches out of it.
Two slices of bread; mayonnaise, and turkey ass meat.
It’s not exactly my “cup of tea”, but I had a few sandwiches (back in the day). It fills your stomach. But not as good as you would hope for them to be. I’ll tell you what.
Long post today. Many videos. More than average number of Oliver Anthony reaction videos. Kinda like a mother-load. But overall thoughts on the absolute devastation of Western culture and Western society today.
Krugman initially made such a report based on the Western Model and predicted Chinas collapse in 2005
Krugman wrote a paper where he established that the Banking Crisis of the 1990s would surface by 2005 and displace China
It didn’t happen
Because as I keep saying Repeatedly – the Chinese work and think differently and their economy works as per their own system
Now Americans and the Western systems HATE Saving money. Money is meant to be spent. Money has to keep being spent and drive consumption.
If you don’t have the money – BORROW or avail what is another major driver – CREDIT
The Chinese on the other land love saving money. They love having money in the bank. They prefer to spend only money from their current earnings or from any PROFIT or INTEREST they earn on those savings
Likewise Americans invest very heavily in paper or non asset backed instruments
It’s very easy to go to New York tomorrow and raise $ 50 Million capital from a small hedge fund who will simply call someone else who will invest the money from an Insurance or Pension Fund
In the 1980s – the Americans loved the free market
Today they are confident of a Federal Bailout ever since the 2009 Crisis
Chinese don’t trust paper instruments
They trust ASSETS
They like Land, Gold, Resources, Buildings, Windmills
In 2002 – The Government of China converted 160 Billion Yuan of Bad Debt ($ 18.3 Billion) by Banks into Units of Land Holdings owned by the Banks
They offered these units as sale
The Debt was paid off in 8 Days!!!!
A Debt that was 10 years old, paid off in just 8 days
So unless an Economist knows China, Chinese Culture and the Chinese system including the fact that the State owns all the land and resources – they cannot understand China
They always judge China by the Western Standard and when China thrives and doesn’t collapse like they predicted
They don’t apologize and realize their mistakes
They double down and keep assuming China must have done SOMETHING SHADY
It’s fodder for the MSM Propaganda against China
These Experts, they apply the Western System everywhere
BASEL was fine in Switzerland and developing companiss
However applying it in India destroyed almost our entire enterprise and banking so far
So Krugman, he simply tries applying the Western system to China
He tried this in 2005 and failed badly
Now he is doubling down
Unless he truly understands the Chinese people and the Chinese system – his predictions aren’t worth a damn
Nobel Prize or No Nobel Prize
I Finally Heard the Viral Country Song EVERYONE is Talking About.
Yep you are right – NATO+G7 hold around 65% of the World’s Gold Reserves
They also hold $ 81.79 Trillion in External Debt combined
If you have a Gold Backed currency, it means the NATO and G7, they can’t keep printing notes anymore
Tomorrow every note they print can legally be redeemed against a few micrograms of gold
Their Printing fun is OVER
Now BRICS
BRICS have 20% of the World’s Gold Reserves
Their Cumulative External Debt is only $ 5.105 Trillion
So now YOU DO THE MATH
NATO +G7+ Japan have 3.25 times more gold
They have a whopping 16 times more external Debt
That’s the Big problem here
Low Country Chicken Bog
Ingredients
1 (3 pound) whole chicken
6 cups water
1 tablespoon salt
1 onion, chopped
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup long-grain white rice
1/2 pound smoked sausage of your choice, sliced
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
2 cubes chicken bouillon
Instructions
Place chicken, water, salt and onion in a large pot. Bring to a boil; cook until chicken is tender, about 1 hour.
Remove chicken from pot and let cool. Remove skin and bones and chop remaining meat into bite-size pieces.
Skim off fat from cooking liquid and measure 3 1/2 cups of this chicken broth into a 6 quart saucepan.
Add rice, chicken pieces, sausage, herb seasoning and bouillon to the saucepan. Cover the saucepan. Let come to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for 30 minutes. If mixture is too watery or juicy, cook over medium low heat, uncovered, until it reaches the desired consistency. Stir often while cooking.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS!!! | Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North of Richmond
All the focus is on the CHIP, the Chip and it’s stacking and it’s revolutionary inhouse design
In reality the real breakthrough by Huawei isn’t the damn Chip.
It’s the FILTER
The Bulk Accoustic wave Filter, the small component that in laymans terms enables those different latent speeds on your smartphone and gives you 5G connectivity
The Chip is great news
Yet that’s nothing amazing or new. Yes China can make 5nm Chips with Foreign DUV equipment
That’s why US sanctioned the equipment which is probably why China now uses stacking to get the same processing power but with higher power consumption
The BAW filter is the BIG BREAKTHROUGH and China is diverting all the attention from this to the CHIP hoping that idiots like Raimondo or Blinken go after the Chips
In reality the BAW Filter made entirely of Chinese Design is the killer here
I bet the Chinese commercially make it at 60% cost
Now China can make it’s entire 5G network spectrum without any dependence on the West
Zero Dependence
They control the raw materials, the equipment, the design and the process entirely in house
Companies that design and make the BAWs are entirely anyway on the US Blacklist so they won’t be affected in the least
Plus now that Huawei has designed a BAW for 5G Latents, it’s only one step for higher latents (6G)
It’s why China and Huawei are diverting everyone’s attention towards the CHIPS again and again
The West will say “They were made using ASML and we have restricted the exports of ASML so this will end”
Nobody will look at the 5G BAW filter designed and made by China from scratch and scaled efficiently
Helping China scale it’s way to 6G without any dependence on the West and KEEPING THEIR LEAD
That’s the big breakthrough Huawei has achieved which they are masking from the world to remain undisturbed for another 2–3 years while the Idiots focus on the Chip again and again
Originally Answered: What does it feel like to go from being wealthy to being poor?
It’s absolutely horrible. I was 50, had recently sold my very successful car washes, had a $1MM in my checking account, the big house, kids in private school and life was grand. I was focused on growing my other business (car wash equipment sales) when the manufacturer we represented lost a client that accounted 1/3 of our business, Hurricane Katrina hit (followed by several other hurricanes), and then the great recession. I had stopped taking a salary and started loaning the company money. I was determined to work through this. I even spent my retirement in a last attempt to turn things around. Fast forward, the company was broke, I was broke, and I couldn’t pay the house mortgage. I had to give up the house and shut down the business. A personal bankruptcy soon followed, and then a separation from my wife of 30 years. The stress was unbearable, and I contemplated suicide. The only thing that stopped me was that my dad had taken his life when I was 26, and I knew first hand the pain that my loved ones would bear for my actions.
The worst part is the loss of self confidence and depression, followed by the loss of “friends”. It’s amazing how quickly they disappear! I will say that two friends stuck by me. One in particular would check on me and take me out to ride his motorcycles to help take my mind off of things. I moved into a friend’s rental property and I started looking for work. I had owned my own companies since college, was a past Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, and had never really worked for anyone. At the worst, I was working at a construction company repairing equipment in their yard, collecting food stamps and living alone.
Fast forward a couple of years. My wife and I got back together, we moved to Texas, and I took a job back in my industry (building car washes). We now rent a nice home, and were recently able to buy a nice used car. It gets better every day. I love my job, and I hope to get back into car wash ownership (with investors), while continuing to do what I do.
In summary, there are a couple of important lessons to take from this:
Good times don’t last; bad times don’t last.
Most of the people who claim to be your friend are only there for the good times.
Business associates that you’ve spent millions of dollars with over decades will instantly turn their back on you when the money stops.
Don’t ever stop taking care of yourself. Exercise is great for relieving the stress.
Face facts. Recognize when you have a losing hand and walk away. And if bankruptcy is inevitable, just do it. Don’t procrastinate and stick your head in the sand.
Do not EVER use your retirement money. I used mine to try and save the company, and I am now 60 years old and starting over.
Never stop believing in yourself.
The Left RAGES Over Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North Of Richmond” | Tomi Lahren Is Fearless
China’s core competence is manufacturing and logistic. It has IP independence in numerous areas, and the industrial chain can collaborate to bring complex, world-class projects online in record time.
As I’ve said repeatedly over the years, China class is world class, because the Chinese competition has to beat the world’s best in order to be counted as domestic champions. There are few absentees in the world’s largest single market. Chinese corporations do not compete in sandboxed silos, unlike elsewhere.
The best thing is, the Chinese are among the best informed people when it comes to business intelligence, because of the completeness of the supply chain.
Case in point: Kuo Ming-Chi has been one of the best-informed and accurate Apple “analyst” over the past decade, because he taps the Greater China-centered supply chain directly.
That is also why only Apple is left in the brutal handset business in China, with the Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese and Europeans all relegated to “others” or complete irrelevance on the mainland. Transsion, a company few have heard of, outsells Samsung in Africa, a market that Chinese handset vendors dominate. The competition that China offers is multidimensional and immense.
We will see entire industries being remade on a global scale as China moves up the tech ladder and redefine the 21st century factory. Today, a journalist who wants to showcase industrial innovation will find the best material in China, and not Germany, Japan and the US. Instead of going wild over AI’s use as a human-like chatbot, China is deploying AI, ML and big data on an industrial scale to run intelligent factories, automating the often tumultuous marriage between lean manufacturing and quality improvement.
What impressed me about the Mate 60 Pro’s soft launch was the order fulfillment. The announcement went live on the webstore around 12pm, and orders were processed for an hour before selling out. Customers received their purchases several hours later. That’s world class, cutting edge logistics, and it is already what the Chinese consumer expect as norm.
China is writing the 21st century future.
Can you imagine a world where Southeaast Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Russia (yes, Russia!) enjoying the same as the Chinese recreate the mainland experience overseas?
The global south leapfrogging the first world, in delivered outcomes.
Makes for interesting times, don’t you think?
My First Reaction to Oliver Anthony | I want to go home | REACTION
Jim Haywood wrote the best answer to these stupid questions I have come across on Quora:
OK, I’ll bite…
In the UK, I’ve never heard it called “free” by anyone except Americans looking for a straw man argument. In the UK we normally just call it “the hospital”, “the doctor”, “the clinic”, “the ambulance”. The exception is “the dentist”, which has a standard charge if you’re registered with the NHS. AND…
BEFORE YOU START YOUR NEXT STRAWMAN PROJECT… the state of people’s teeth is better in the UK than the US.
A personal experience.
Last year, I spent three weeks in hospital for major surgery. I wasn’t well enough for the operation at first and I was pumped full of antibiotics, vitamins and three fuck-off-size bags of amino acids and other nutrients (its called TPN). My biggest fear was the drip stand falling and crushing me, (like suffocating under a cow’s udder!). I took a photo.
The extra nipple is for visitors.
I’m joking, of course; there were no visitors during the covid lockdown.
I had the operation, and some days recovering, at the end of which (the evening before I was due to be discharged), I tested positive for covid (you remember that funny little bug), so had to stay longer.
I had about £2.60 in my pocket. I went home with £2.00 because, one day, I went for a walk in my hospital slippers and bought a Twix at a vending machine.
(The food, btw, was good, and already paid-for, of course, since you asked. Not Michelin starred, but wholesome, tasty, familiar, comfort-food. It was the same as served in the canteen for visitors and staff and cooked on the premises.)
When finally home, I was looked after by “district” nurses visiting me at home to change dressings, and specialist related to the particular procedure I had. This was daily at first, tapering off as I needed less support.
At home, then, I got a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in the lung, probably as a consequence of covid combined with the op.), I was reticent to go back to hospital (as you might expect), so the GP came out to me, at about 9pm, just to check me over and make sure I went to hospital (a PE can be life-theatening). I was admitted back into hospital via A&E (Emergency Room) for a day of monitoring.
More drugs. Slow recovery over the last year, with regular checkups and blood tests.
Money?
Now, I’m not a rich man, and I have a mortgage, and bills to pay like everyone else.
Not once did I worry about medical bills. Not once. Because there weren’t any. No forms to fill in, other than a simple consent for the operation, no “co-pays” (as I’ve learned you call them), no payments for diagnostic imaging – x-rays, ultrasound scans, and no insurance man checking whether I could have the treatment or the meds (WTF??).
Being that sick is a shitty experience whatever country you live in. But, by God, I was very grateful for the Nation Health Service.
No, it’s not free. We all pay for it based on our ability to pay. If you’re rich, you pay more; if you’re poor you pay less. It’s funded directly from general taxation and comes out of my monthly salary before I see my pay in the bank. (BTW, the tax system is massively more efficient than in the US, too. I haven’t had to complete an annual tax return for 20 years, for example.)
I post my experience, here, not because it was exceptional – it wasn’t – but because it was ORDINARY and EXPECTED.
Oh yeah, “socialised” medicine:
So when I need medical treatment, it’s already paid for, fairly (we’re not bloody savages), by every tax payer in the country.
Just to head off a few other straw men:
If you haven’t paid your taxes, you still get medical treatment, because the doctors don’t care about your tax: it’s none of their business. And we’re not bloody savages.
If you’re terminally ill, you still get treatment. We’re not bloody savages.
There are no such thing as “death panels”, an invention of liars in the US media. We’re not bloody savages.
And the only time you see a shop till is in the cafe in the reception foyer (and that’s staffed by volunteers) or the staff canteen.
What it really costs you, Americans.
Not only do you, in the US, pay more (about double) for a similar quality of service, some of you pay with your lives.
Being scared of medical bills, people put up with pain, put off worries, and sometimes die, unable to afford the most basic medication. Insulin, for example. You don’t pay for insulin in the UK.
How else do you pay? Drug addiction, as “doctors”, cajoled and incentivised by big pharma, look for a quick, affordable (to the patient) fix, and end up hooking the patients onto addictive drugs.
On average, your life expectancy is two years shorter than in the UK. Now, some people might say “ Well, those are two years of pain and decrepitude at the end of my life, so no great loss!” No. They are two years of healthy life that you haven’t had. And all that’s left to you then is some horrible religious drug-addled fatalism as you watch your life and your savings bleed away to be sucked up by big pharma and the bloated, useless “insurance” companies. This is a one-way flow, notice. Once that money is gone from your family it’s gone for good.
Free-rider “problem”? There’s plenty of free riders – you’re already paying for the health plans of all those insurance salesmen, actuaries, marketeers, administrators…
End of rant. Now the really sad part:
You know, I’m sure you’ve noticed a certain sneering from some respondents on Quora towards the USA. Not Americans, I hasten to add: we tend to like Americans. You might put all that negativity down to “hate” (which seems to mean something different to Yanks, but never mind). I tell you though, it’s not hate, it’s not envy, it’s not spite or helpless rage or snobbishness. It’s something much more damning:
Disappointment.
A footnote about prescription charges.
In the UK, there are prescription charges. But you don’t pay if you’re a child or pregnant or over 60 or suffering from one of a number of long-term conditions or on state benefits, or receiving disability allowance, or unemployed, or living in Wales or Scotland (which have slightly different arrangements).
If you do pay, it’s a standard change of £9:30 per prescription, but you can buy a “prepayment certificate” for £112 per year, if that’s better value.
When I collect a prescription, I’m asked “Do you pay for your prescriptions?” I used to answer “Yes”, and pay, or “No, I have a ‘cert’. Now, they rarely even ask, because I look my age, 60. Not once, have I been asked to prove my age or show a certificate. Why? Because its too much bother – if I needed to cheat, I wouldn’t have to because I would get it free anyway (in most cases)!
BTW, if medicines are dispensed in hospital, there is never a prescription charge.
Anything else?
Yes. One more thing that screws American patients: your litigious culture: if something goes wrong you can be awarded punitive damages. Suing a hospital is cheap and the rewards can be very high. This incentivises ultra-precautionary medicine so you go to a doctor (on your sooper-dooper insurance policy) with a simple strep throat. The Doc writes you up for a mountain of almost certainly completely unnecessary tests to de-risk himself (not for your benefit). He has an army of lawyers on stand-by in his own indemnity insurance, which has to be paid for. So his charge are higher, so insurance premiums are higher, and ultimately, the individual pays. The costs are so high, everyone is looking for an opportunity to screw someone else.
In the UK, the system, even today, works more on trust: patients trust the doctors to advise them and diagnose them correctly, and trust that there are check and balances in place that will identify bad doctors and disqualify them. Suing a doctor is still possible, but damages are only to reimburse the failed patient, not to punish the failing medic.
You’re are all paying to keep the ambulance chasers chasing ambulances.
Finally, let’s go back to your question:
Why do some call universal healthcare free when it isn’t since people pay for it through their taxes?
No, matey. It’s not free despite being paid for through our taxes, it’s free because it’s paid for though our taxes:-
Free at the point of use.
Free from the threat of bankruptcy.
Free from co-pays and desperate attemps to claw back money through lawyers (and their fees).
Free from the fear of lawsuits.
Free from drug companies’ profiteering from your illness.
Free from t.v. adverts for life-saving drugs (ask your doctor for what???).
Free to leave your crappy, toxic, wage-slavery dead-end job, yet still receive treatment for your “pre-existing” condition (as opposed to non-existing conditions, presumably).
Free not to have to choose between your home and living out of pain.
Free to hold your newborn baby in hospital (you’ve GOT to be joking!).
Free from Go Fund Me campaigns for your kids’ cancer treatment.
Free from the selfish, vindictive, judgemental, spiteful attitude that Human Being X doesn’t deserve to live because they didn’t buy enough insurance.
Put all that together, folks: what a weird and twisted SICK system you have (accidentally, perhaps) invented! Some of you think it’s normal, even to the point of QUESTIONING another, better system. If you’re happy with it, you’re just as weird and twisted. But probably not sick. Yet.
U.S Lose $1.7 Trillion USD in Trade, After Tariff On China
Welcome back to Innovative Check! Dive deep into the intricacies of the U.S.-China trade dynamics and uncover how tariffs are impacting American manufacturers. As companies like MISCO feel the strain, what does the future hold for U.S. domestic production?
To little to late, the horse has bolted, China have the ability to make their own now, there is no going back. The USA have lost their little chip war, NEVER start a fight you can’t finish, you’ll end up with a bloody nose. The US never seem to learn, block them from the ISS, no problems, China just make their own, block the chip supply? No problems China just make their own, try and block technology? Won’t work, China will end up with better than yours, when are they going to wake up, that it’s better to work with them than against them? If they start a war with China, they might end up with a lot more than just a bloody nose,
I am planning to study Mandarin Chinese, yet I am overwhelmed by what to do, and what online resources there are available, can you please assist?
If you are serious, move to China and immerse yourself in the environment which will force you to learn Putonghua. If you are not serious about learning Putonghua, don’t bother, because the time investment is worth it.
My second son was a toddler and we were on the way to meet friends at a soft play centre. i always stopped off on the way at a local garage and got a large coffee. There was a short zebra crossing from the parking area to the shop and a young girl in a convertible parked across it. Son was walking holding my hand and I said
“Did you have to block the crossing”
“Too bad you fat cow” she flounced off into the shop.
Coffee in cup holder I watched her pull away between a lorry and the bollards at the shop front … and scrape the side of her pale blue car along the side of the lorry. I almost wet myself laughing so hard and loud enough that she heard me. The driver of the lorry who had watched this with amusement looked across at me and said
“No Chinese can say it?” where have you been? Definitely not China.
I worked with uni students in Guangzhou who major in several European languages including English. They translate English to Mandarin articles for me in a few hours, and here we are, speaking English and Mandarin in a Zhongshan cafe.
My China nephew about to graduate from engineering course from Guizhou university listens to old Beatles songs, he likes the group, and we talked in Chinese and English.
Huawei naming of their latest phone is for the international market. In Kuala Lumpur Huawei has a skyscraper HQ and their mobile phones are popular among Malaysians.
The world does not exist only for English speaking people.
In tiny Malaysia, a former British colony, you’d be surprised how many people eat, live, and breathe Mandarin only, they don’t need the English language.
Kasandras Beware – China’s Economy Will Not Hit A Wall
The economist and columnist of the New York Times Paul Krugman wrote about China hitting the wall:
China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall, and the only question now is just how bad the crash will be. … Wages are rising; finally, ordinary Chinese are starting to share in the fruits of growth. But it also means that the Chinese economy is suddenly faced with the need for drastic “rebalancing” — the jargon phrase of the moment. Investment is now running into sharply diminishing returns and is going to drop drastically no matter what the government does; consumer spending must rise dramatically to take its place. The question is whether this can happen fast enough to avoid a nasty slump.
That was written in 2013 when China’s GDP at purchase power parity reached $16.3 trillion. The number has since more than doubled to a projected $33 trillion in 2023. (In the same time span U.S. GDP(ppp) grew from $17 to $26 trillion.) But that hasn’t influenced Krugman’s conclusions. Two week ago he wrote another column that paints the same gloomy picture and prescribes the same false medicine:
Since the late 2000s, however, China seems to have lost a lot of its dynamism. … … China clearly can’t sustain anything like the high growth rates of the past. … At a fundamental level, China is suffering from the paradox of thrift, which says that an economy can suffer if consumers try to save too much. If businesses aren’t willing to borrow and then invest all the money consumers are trying to save, the result is an economic downturn. Such a downturn may well reduce the amount businesses are willing to invest, so an attempt to save more can actually reduce investment. … The obvious answer is to boost consumer spending. Get state-owned enterprises to share more of their profits with workers. Strengthen the safety net. And in the short run, the government could just give people money — sending out checks, the way America has done.
How is giving checks (btw: no Chinese or European citizen uses those antique instruments) to people who are saving instead of consuming supposed to increase their consumption? I would presume that it would rather increase their savings. Giving more income to people who like to save to increase consumption is like pushing on a string.
David Fishman, an economist who lives in China and speaks Mandarin, had an interesting chat with a taxi driver. He concludes:
1. Even after buying a property, long-term considerations still drive Yang to save money, most prominently his daughter and parents. 2. Yang and his wife give up consumption in pursuit of their long-term goals, even working an extra job, to put away extra cash for those goals. 3. He associates loose/free consumption habits with youth and a lack of responsibility. His consumption today is strategic and intentional. 4. He is unperturbed by the prospect of real estate losing value, since he bought his house to live in, and doesn’t intend to resell it.
Now, macro econ punditry is *not* my lane.
But if I hear a pundit talking about Chinese consumers, and how they will/won’t behave in response to some government policy, I will always wonder what their mental model of this generic Chinese consumer’s behavior looks like.
To be credible, that consumer behavior model should probably look like Yang, willing to work an extra job & skip consumption, not out of today’s financial necessity, but in preparation of being a good filial son, and so his 3-year old daughter can take dance lessons someday.
And that is Krugman’s problem with diagnosing China’s economy. People work hard in China. And they like to save instead of consuming all their income. They retire pretty early but live long (though that retirement age is likely to rise). So having a bit of money on the side will make for a nicer living in later years:
The official retirement age for men is 60. Women in managerial positions have a retirement age of 55, while blue-collar female workers can retire at 50.
Chinese people are simply not Americans. But Krugman’s economic models presume that they are and he isn’t willing or capable of looking beyond those.
Still he was onto something when he opened his column with this:
The narrative about China has changed with stunning speed, from unstoppable juggernaut to pitiful, helpless giant.
It is indeed a fact that the narrative about China’s economy has changed way more than China’s economic numbers. But Krugman fails to ask why.
First, the most salient preoccupations of Western commentators reflect the skewed distribution of foreign-owned capital within the Chinese economy. … The second feature relates to the financial industry’s reliance on the art of political-economic storytelling to sell investment options.
But it is probably more a political instrument to support the general U.S. war against China.
Newsweek recently published a rather laughable story which asked if Shanghai (25 million permanent inhabitants) had turned into a ‘ghost town’.
The Global Times editors see political motives behind such ‘bad China’ narratives:
If only Newsweek is doing this, then it is an isolated case, indicating the media outlet’s problematic professional ethics and the negative impact it caused is not significant. However, starting from March or April this year, not only Newsweek but also other US and Western media outlets have been selectively using some specific data from a certain point or in a certain field to generalize, and even fabricate information to undermine, the Chinese economy. This is a coordinated and large-scale campaign, with consistent steps, intense actions, and extensive content, which is rare in recent years. Can we say that this is a coincidence?
The ‘bad China’ narrative is an economic phenomenon but is used for political reasons:
In the field of economics, there is a term called narrative economics, which uses storytelling to influence judgments, even at the cost of creating false information, to undermine the morale and confidence of the target and attempt to deter foreign investment, thereby having a substantial impact on the economy. The US has openly regarded China as its biggest competitor and even treats China as an imaginary enemy in many practical aspects. We cannot expect it to engage in fair competition with China. In order to win this “competition” initiated by itself, the US often resorts to any possible means. This perspective can explain the phenomenon in which the US is badmouthing the Chinese economy in a collective manner and can also roughly predict the US’ future actions toward China, indicating that it aligns with the basic facts.
War propaganda falls apart when a war is lost. Economic propaganda falls apart when the new numbers come in. Krugman’s doom and gloom propaganda from 2013 was defeated by China’s growth. His 2023 propaganda is likely to have the same fate.
Posted by b on September 12, 2023 at 16:39 UTC | Permalink
EXPLOSIVE! New details in the JFK assassination & RFK, JR responds
EXPLOSIVE! New details in the JFK assassination, and now RFK, JR. is responding. On Saturday, 88-year-old former secret service agent Paul Landis gave an exclusive interview with The New York Times where he shared he shared his revelations regarding what happened November 22, 1963. And it turns out he’s the one that picked up the magic bullet from the back of the President’s limo. This completely upends the story around the magic bullet and undermines The Warren Commission.
I’ll tell you a story from my Marines career. Not marine Corp, Royal Marines. I was responsible for intel and let’s just say I was on detachment to some of the better Royal Marines. We had some young gawky junior officer fresh out of training and looking to stamp his authority on us. So one day he decided to make me do 20 I took the piss and did a few extra got back up and stood to attention. A few hours later I got called to the bosses office.
Conversation as follows.
Hayworth did he reprimand you?
Yes sir
Why?
I was laughing at him behind his back
CO to hotshot,
You might want to remember that this guy is the one who’s going to be getting the right intel to your unit, basically when he’s on operations he is the guy making the decisions
Officer Hotshot. Why, I’m in charge.
CO to hotshot, not without fucking intel you’re not. Now get the fuck out of my base and get a transfer. If you think stamping authority around here is going to get you any favors then you are useless to me and my men. There is no rank around here, not even me. That’s the SBS way. We’re all experts at our jobs and I don’t need a fucking junior officer upsetting my teams. I still love that CO.
My Stepdaughter passed away at 22 due to complications from her Type 1 Diabetes. She had massive medical bills. We had insurance, but it only covered parts. So, let’s start by being harassed by a debt collector calling about someone that had passed away.
When the bills started coming I called all the companies. 99% only asked me to send a copy of the death certificate. But, this one company, well, they were total slime balls. The odd part was this was on a bill that was actually paid by the insurance in full. So, on the first call from them I sent them copies of the paid in full notices, and a copy of the death certificate.
A year went by, and I got a call from them again on the same bill. I told them about their error, even sent a copy of the registered mail signed copy. Week later, another call. This time I was hot. Gave them an ear full. A month later, same thing. This time, the asshat actually said they don’t believe she is dead. Wanted to know how to reach her so they can sue her for the money. I gave them the address to the cemetery. A month went by, another call. Same thing: we don’t believe you, etc. So, I said, Do what you got to do.
And believe it or not, they actually sued her. I went to the office of the lawyer, with my lawyer, and a counterclaim on behalf of the estate. The lawyer wanted to drop everything right then. But, we took it to court. We made them play the recording of the agent telling me that they refused to believe she was dead. The Judge dropped the hammer on them. We won a $30,000 donation in her name to the American diabetes Association.
However, back in he 1960s I was one of a group of about 20 new graduates taken on by a large multinational. We were in an enormous site and were all expected to trek across it in order to clock in every morning. We quickly took it in turns for one of us to go and clock in for us all.
One day, one of my colleagues had just finished clocking in for us when he was apprehended by a portly manager for this illegal practice. “Do you know who I am, demanded this august presence?”
“No” my friend replied and listened to the fellow describe his important position in the company. When he had finished, my friend asked him if he knew who my friend was.
“No” replied the manager.
“Thank God!” said my friend and took to his heels. An investigation followed but we were able to hide the miscreant
Shortly after, we decided to go on strike and all refused to clock in. The company relented after we agreed to sign an attendance sheet. The local union rep found about this and made a fuss about it as it was a privilege normally extended to more senior staff than new graduates. The result was we were all promoted to a position where we were ‘legally’ allowed to sign in which carried a pay rise with it.
I don’t know what this proves except that perhaps it pays not to accept being messed about with.
Testimonial: “They Moved a Biological Man into My Dorm Room!”
The #WalkAway Campaign is a true grassroots movement, founded by former liberal, Brandon Straka, dedicated to providing a place to share #WalkAway testimonials and personal journeys to freedom.
I worked at a state park for a few years. The primary sources of income for the park are day-use fees and the seven campgrounds. The main two campgrounds and day-use areas are developed, very nice with running water, showers, and are only accessible through a manned gate. The other five undeveloped campgrounds and day-use areas are self-pay on the honor system, but since that unfortunately means most people don’t pay, one of my main duties was going around and collecting fees.
More often than not, most people were “just about to go pay.” Sometimes they’d been in the park for days, but were inevitably “just about to go pay.” What timing.
One day I stopped by a campsite where I was immediately confronted by a diminutive and very angry camper. He immediately started accusing me of harassment, then started listing an exhaustive series of offenses I had committed against him and his family, even though I’d been there for about a total of 45 seconds. Recognizing that he had a few too many with lunch, I put on a big smile and assured him I was just there to collect the campground fees. He told me to look in his truck, he had his self-pay permit attached to the windshield.
He wasn’t wrong, it was there. The problem is that the window tag is attached to an envelope. You put your money in the envelope, write down your license plate number, and put it in the locked collection box. There’s even a matching number on both in case you didn’t write your license plate number on it. The tag was on his window, but the envelope was still attached.
I calmly explained this to him, and asked for the $8 fee. He swore at me, called me names, threatened me. I asked him if there was someone else I could talk to. That really set him off. He started screaming at me, hitting his own truck, and threatening to call the cops and sue me. I tried my best to keep him calm, then decided to give him some cool down time. I left and started going to the other camp sites, planning on returning on my way out and maybe even catch someone more sober and reasonable.
However, a few minutes later I received a call on my radio. A camper had called 911 to report that a ranger was harassing and threatening them. They wanted me to go talk to him and see what was going on.
This is a unique form of irony.
Seeing the conflict of interests and not wanting to escalate the situation, I asked if a county deputy was really available. One was, and he was there within minutes. I met them both back at the campsite where I found the man yelling at the deputy. I calmly explained that if he just wanted to pay his $8 we would leave and he could enjoy the rest of the night.
Long story short, he spent the night in jail and received over $100 in fines.
TRAVEL FROM GHANA TO KENYA WITH ME | MY SURPRISING FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NAIROBI
My wife quite possibly saved our lives. We were on our last vacation, a two-week road trip through some western states. At her insistence I booked two nights on the Las Vegas strip. (I love playing poker but I can’t stand Las Vegas. I would have preferred an extra night in Laughlin or at an Indian casino). The moment we arrived, she was on edge. I did all right, and even cashed in a small sit-and-go Hold-Em tournament.
When I got back to the room, she said we are leaving first thing in the morning. We had reserved a nice room on the strip for Thursday and Friday nights, and this was still Thursday. We had already toured the renovations going on “Downtown” and planned to spend Friday on the strip. There was some huge music festival going on Friday night we wanted to check out. Nope. WE. ARE. LEAVING.
Yes, Dear. Some things shall not be questioned. Change some reservations, whatever. Reminder to self: I don’t even like Vegas. Her idea to go there, and her idea to LEAVE. RIGHT. NOW. Yes, Dear.
We had just settled in to a Motel 6 in Bakersfield CA when Stephen Paddock opened fire at that music festival on the Vegas strip.
Didn’t give the judge a laugh but gave others in the court room one. My older cousin was a senior in high school and her social problems class was on a field trip to the local court. We lived in a small county, so cases ranged from traffic tickets to drug offenses to child support cases before one judge.
This was before DNA testing. A 17 yo mother was on the stand testifying that she had only been with one guy and he denied that he was the father. The judge called the one she named as the father and he admitted he had had sex with her, but so had his two friends. The judge believed the mother. He called each of the guy’s friends and they testified that they had each had sex with her and they were winking at each other as if they were fooling everyone. The teen mother was upset but was quiet. The judge looked at the three friends and ruled that each would pay the full amount of child support and he would see them in a month and maybe by then they would have figured out which one was the father before he ruled if all three would pay back child support.
Bet the three friends had an interesting conversation outside the parking lot
Bobby Asks Tony To Give Him Better Jobs – The Sopranos HD
The evolution of Bobby’s character was one of my favorite details from The Sopranos. From a shy, bumbling guy Tony ridiculed and dismissed into Tony’s most trusted soldier.
Yes, because I was the manager when this incident occurred.
For all of an hour and a half or so, I had to fill in as a temp for the Domino’s store I worked at.
Why my manager picked me, a kid who had just turned 18, to be her fill-in is beyond me, but I guess she trusted me more than I thought she did.
Apparently, she had a doctor’s appointment to attend to and the assistant manager was unable to clock in early, so it was up to me to hold down the fort.
Even under unusual circumstances, I was determined to perform well in my new role, even if it was only temporary.
I did perfectly fine for the first hour, as business was going well as usual.
That was, until some kid wearing a Civil Air Patrol (CAP) blues uniform walked in and told me that he had somehow ‘earned’ some free cookie brownies.
The uniform looked similar to Air Force blues, but without the ribbons, the lapels, and the rank.
And how did the kid supposedly earn free brownies?
According to him, he was walking down the street when one of the delivery drivers pulled up next to him and told him he could have some free brownies solely because he was wearing the uniform and the driver wanted to thank him for his “service to the community.”
I knew that was bullshit immediately because I personally knew all the drivers on shift, and none of them would ever hand out free brownies to anyone, no matter who it was.
And they definitely weren’t going to pull up to some kid and tell him to walk to the store for some free brownies.
That sounds really stupid, doesn’t it?
Anyway, I told the kid he had to pay for whatever he wanted or he wasn’t getting anything.
With that, the kid left. Or so I thought.
A couple of minutes later, his mom walked in and demanded that I give her son his free brownies because of his service to the community or whatever.
There was no way in hell I was going to be a pushover for some entitled boy scout and his even more entitled Karen of a mother.
I told her that I wasn’t going to just give anything out for free and that they would have to pay for what they order, or else they had to leave the store.
The lady didn’t seem very pleased with that, so she told me to ‘get’ my manager so that she could further ‘negotiate’ or really just demand.
I told her no because I was the manager at the time, and I then told her to leave or else I would have to call the cops and whoever else I saw fit.
That scared away the mom and her kid, so they left the store, and I told them to have a nice day.
I was shocked to see that two people could have such an irrational sense of entitlement, and it still bothers me that people like them are out there.
TSMC has a large number of resignations;6,000 Tsinghua scientists defect to Huawei
TSMC has a large number of resignations; 6,000 Tsinghua scientists defect to Huawei; Ren Zhengfei personally receives Chinese students.
16. My province, New-Brunswick, is completely bilingual . You can get served in English or French. Everything has to be bilingual as well, including road signs, menus, food labels, etc…
A few years ago, my wife heard what sounded like an animal scratching around in our attic. I figured a squirrel must have made its way inside. The attic access is a little 3 foot by 4 foot opening in the ceiling of one of the closets. It’s a pain to get up there, but I know even a single squirrel can cause a lot of damage so I got the ladder and a flashlight with Intention of trying to chase it out the vent up there.
i climbed up through the opening and turned the flashlight on to see what was happening and I saw about 50 pairs of bat eyes reflecting back at me. I turned the flashlight off, slowly climbed back down the ladder pulling the door cover closed behind me.
My wife, anxiously awaiting my return asked if I had gotten rid of it already. I just said nope and that I wasn’t going back up there.
it ended up being a whole ordeal to get rid of them. They are a protected species, so you can’t have them exterminated. You have the house sealed off to prevent the bats from getting, but they leave a hatch the bats can get out through. Once they all leave in the evening to eat, you are good. Only problem was, it was their mating season so we were told if we sealed the house now, when the mothers left to eat, they would not be able to return to care for their babies, so we had to wait two months until the babies were old enough to go feed on their own.
it was a long two months hearing them moving around up there. Fortunately, homeowners insurance did pay for the removal and cleanup afterwards.
I’ll never forget all of those eyes staring at me though. Still gives me chills.
Buckle Up: This White House MISTAKE Will Hurt Americans
The European Union’s leader has proposed the idea of a Global Digital ID, which would allow governments worldwide to monitor their citizens. While it’s framed as “keeping track,” it raises concerns about potential surveillance and control. The plan involves countries contributing funds to establish this system, overseen by the United Nations. Critics liken it to dystopian scenarios, like the “Mark of the Beast” from religious texts, as it could enable extensive tracking, restricting access to basic necessities for those with dissenting opinions or unvaccinated individuals.
My mate Graham, almost 70 years old. He came out of his house one day and 3 young guys are lounging against his BMW car parked in the street. “Come on guys, off the car, it’s mine”.
Reply was, “ huh, don’t have to, we can do as we want!”
“Oh, so it’s OK for everyone to do what they want? Regardless of the consequences?” “ Really?”. The guy said “Yes!”
Graham hit him with a left hook that sent the guy flying and bleeding into the road. He turned to the others and said, “Hey, this is great, being able to do whatever I want, with no consequences!” They ran for it and the other one picked himself up off the road and followed them.
The moral of the story: don’t fuck with an Ex British Para and ex French Foreign Legionaire, even if he is almost 70!
Oliver Anthony Slams High Ticket Prices, Cancels Show
I just like this guy more and more as I see how he deals with his success. In a world of so many bad leaders and people who are driven by money alone, it’s so refreshing seeing someone who won’t bend his morals to greed.
When he backed down an abusive teacher without saying a single word.
I was in second grade, and my teacher was haranguing me while I waited for my father to pick me up at the office. He walked in, saw me sitting there, bloody and clothes torn, and simply looked at her. She started, then began to shrilly list my supposed faults. Silence, and the “Dad stare”. She started spouting justifications. More silence and one eyebrow raised. She burst into tears and bolted from the room…
US/EU pressure UAE in effort to pick apart BRICS
This just further shows how desperate the US and collective West are getting, their military industrial complex along with the USD’s hegemony are in decline and they know it.
It is stuff like this that kind of annoys and amuses me because it shows that people that are commenting don’t even have a basic idea of how a cell phone works.
SK Hynix is a manufacturer of DRAM and flash memory chips. DRAM is basically a commodity market, and it would have likely been impossible for SK Hynix to prevent Huawei from using its DRAM even it it wanted to. The thing about DRAM is that is it basically interchangeable with other DRAM and flash memory. So unlike other chips which have to be custom designed, Huawei can replace those with local chips if it wanted to.
One thing that kind of really makes my blood boil is that the US seems intent on preventing China from manufacturing top of the line cell phones. Okay, if the US wanted to restrict China from getting atom bomb secrets or manufacturing better missiles, I can sort of deal with that.
But we are talking about a consumer cell phone, and if China can’t manufacture better cell phones then I don’t know what the US expects China to do.
This is hard to watch…
That chick wouldn’t be so bad looking if she didn’t turn herself into a clownish monster.
Absolutely. There was this kid (literally, he was 17) who was pretty much the model recruit. He never complained; did what he was told; helped the rest of us out; and was physically in great shape.
He’d been in competitive martial arts for years. Not YMCA level, but “has to travel to Japan for belt tests,” skilled. (He never, ever bragged about it.)
The only time I can remember him getting yelled at was when we were in the sand pit learning basic unarmed self defense. (The super cheesy kind that makes you think you’re in a World War II training film. I think that they have dramatically improved that portion of the training now.)
The Private was decidedly and obviously half-assing it. Not arrogantly, more like bored out of his skull.
One of the drill sergeants came over and was doing his motivation screaming thing and asked him, “You think you don’t need this? Are you too good for this?” and other variations on the theme.
Pvt Yarberry replied, again, matter-of-factly and not boastfully, that no, he did not actually need that training.
It went about how you’re imagining it.
The only thing that saved him was that he had been such a model recruit. So the drill sergeant eventually says, “Show me.”
Mind you, this was not an angry fight. They assumed ready stances and this recruit did a series of moves that were very fast and almost gentle? Honestly, I can’t really describe what he did because it was so fast. The drill sergeant was basically laid onto the ground in a control position where he could not do anything about it. Nobody tried to hit anybody, but it was clear that the 17 year-old kid could put this 30 something year-old experienced soldier in the pretty muc…
German deindustrialization accelerates
“I spent a lot of time in Germany. I cannot believe that the Germans I knew would follow the Ukrainian mission over the cliff like lemmings.”
Doom and Gloom
On August 24th, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) announced partial suspension of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines due to low semiconductor demand. Similar challenges are affecting South Korean semiconductor factories due to the loss of a crucial customer, China. South Korean Chip Factories Announce Shutdown of Lithography Machines Due to Lack of Chinese Orders!
This nightmare will hit South Korea in two steps.
Loss of China market as its chip manufacturers enhance technology and ramp up capacity.
Reduction of global prices as China manufacturers enter the international market in 2024 and that would affect the profit of the South Korea chip companies.
The nightmare for South Korean chip companies is only starting. It is too late to reverse the situation.
Huawei is capable of self-reliance, and the US plan to sanction Huawei has failed, but they will not resign themselves to failure, and there will be more madness in the future. ake trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again . . . till their doom. that is the logic of the American imperialism over in dealing with the rival companys, and they will never go against this logic.
Over the weekend, the United States and South Korea agreed to a five-year deal to increase the military payments, subject to legislative approval in both capitals. Under the agreement, South Korea will pay $1 billion this year, 13.9 percent more than its annual payments in 2019 and 2020, officials said on Wednesday.
IMO there is little chance of a rapprochement between China and SK until the American Pie and Yankee Doodle singer is gone. His hardline towards China will cost not only his job but has affected the future of many South Korea.
What a jerk SK has elected for the Blue House? Now they understand the price they have to pay for Yankee Doodle democracy as per USA.
I Left USA and Moved To Thailand. Why I’ll NEVER Go Back.
As a korean-american who just came back to the US after 3 months stay in Bangkok, I couldn’t agree more with what you said. My quality of life escalated significantly when I was in Thailand. I miss Thailand so much haha.
I’m a truck driver. One day, when I was waiting in line to load at a coffee warehouse, the driver behind me who was an owner-operator asked if he could load before me because he was in a hurry to get to his delivery on time. So I let him pass in front. He then told me that he’d just bought another truck and asked me if I would drive it. He offered me much more money than my current employer, so I accepted. That was 15 years ago. He now has a fleet of 50 semi-trailer trucks and I’m still working for him.
They need the Chinese market to have the revenues to do research and stay relevant.
If they lose the Chinese market they will end up as laggers in technology rather than leaders.
Micron is already projected to lose 50% revenues. And YMTC hasn’t even started production with their second much larger fab yet. That is due to come online next year.
So Micron can expect to lose the entire Chinese market.
Micron will also lose the world market outside of the US, EU, Japan, lapdogs, etc. As those Chinese chips are going to be going into Chinese products shipper worldwide.
Same for Nvidia, Intel, etc. SMIC is building 4 more fabs. As they come online and start making chips, they will displace US, EU, and Japanese chip makers. And we are talking about all types of chips. Everything from power chips to FPGAs to GPUs to CPUs to DRAM to ASICs for everything.
As BCG’s (Boston Consulting Group) paper said. Western companies would lose their leadership position. They thought it would happen in 30 years…I laughed when I read that. Clearly they didn’t understand Chinese progress in tech.
He who controls the market controls the industry.
Hi-Rez – Rich Men North Of Richmond (Rap Remix) – Reaction
During the G20, Xi Jingping spent his time meeting Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela and setting up a Oil Deal to assure the energy security of his nation
He later toured the provinces of China to supervise the Agricultural Areas and talk to the people about Health Insurance and renewed improvements in Agrarian financing
In short he was doing what a Leader should be doing
Visiting his people and discussing their problems and finding solutions
While people like Sunak , Ursula, Scholz and Biden and Macron paraded around pompously, blissfully ignoring the problems their people face
Xi Jingping is doing what’s best for China and the Chinese people
He sent Li Qiang to Delhi as a representative believing that it was enough, having lost any real respect for the alliance and feeling the alliance to be a lackey group for the G7
As for PM Modi stealing the limelight
Barely 24 hours later Bidens speech in Vietnam included
I met with the Indian PM, Nare..Nare.. Modi and they didn’t allow a Q & A, those Indians. I had a good talk on Human Rights concerns and the importance of a Civil society and raised several pertinent questions
Meaning Modi has been TOLD to respect human rights and follow a Civil Society
Biden doesn’t tell this to Britain or Japan does he?
Trudeau openly said
Actions of a few don’t represent Canada. Canada respects freedom of speech and peaceful protests and believes it fosters progress
Any idea what he is referring to?
The Farmers protests of course. A Protest that forced Modi to finally back track his farm laws.
Now what has India gained from the Summit?
It’s over now
The AU are happy but that’s it. They go back home now and they need GRAIN and RAILWAYS and JOBS and TRADE
India can’t give them any of these
US can’t give them any of these except Bradleys and Howitzers and sermons on Democracy
Only China and Russia can give them all of these
300,000 Tonnes Grain Cargo from Russia is worth 500 G20 Summits
$ 16 Billion waiver of interest for 3 years from China and a new Hydro power plant is worth 500 G20 Summits
The AU had their Pindi Chole, Lal Maas etc and now they are gone
They have trouble, they will call Putin and Xi
They won’t call Modi or even remember him unless they meet him again in Rio in 2024
Same for Saudi Arabia
MBS is on a State Visit
He will persuade India to buy Saudi Oil and ask for investment into Refining and Petrochemicals
India will obviously delay and drag and eventually say no
India has inked 3500 MOUs in the past 4 years or so and only 19 have managed to gain ground and proceed to operations
MBS needs Russia for his OPEC Solidarity and China to modernize Saudi Arabia and even maybe to build a nuclear power plant
Once he leaves India, he forgets Modi until he meets him in Kazan in 2024 or Rio in 2024
LEVERAGE!!!!
That’s what China holds and Russia and even the US
No G20 summit is needed to enforce that
India holds near zero leverage today
A Thousand G20 summits and Pindi Chole and Laser Shows and Five Star pandering can’t advance Indias leverage by 1%
How the U.S. is preparing for conflict in Asia: Hynes
The U.S, is building power by creating a dense network of military alliances among Asian countries, says Phill Hynes, a top geopolitical analyst based in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, here’s the answer to the puzzle of why the media tells Australians that an invasion is imminent, but their submarines won’t be ready until the 2040s.
Mississippi Delta Tamales
Ingredients
Filling
6 to 8 pounds boneless meat (pork shoulder, chuck roast or chicken)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup chili powder
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Wrappers
Corn husks
Corn Meal Dough
8 cups yellow corn meal or masa mix (available in most grocery stores)
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 2/3 cups lard or vegetable shortening
6 to 8 cups warm meat broth (from cooking the meat)
Instructions
Filling: Cut meat into large chunks and place in a large, heavy pot. Cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until meat is very tender, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Remove meat and reserve cooking liquid.
When meat is cool enough to handle, remove and discard any skin and large chunks of fat. Shred or dice meat into small pieces. There should be about 14 to 16 cups of meat.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Stir in chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder and cumin. Add meat and stir to coat with oil and spices. Cook, stirring often, until meat is thoroughly heated, 7 to 10 minutes. Set aside.
Wrappers: While meat is cooking, soak husks in a large bowl of very warm water, until softened and pliable, about 2 hours. Gently separate husks into single leaves, trying not to tear them. Wash off any dust and discard any corn silks. Keep any shucks that split to the side, since two small pieces can be overlapped and used as one.
Corn Meal Dough: Stir corn meal, baking powder, salt and lard together in a large bowl until well blended. Gradually stir in enough warm meat broth to make soft, spongy dough the consistency of thick mashed potatoes. The dough should be quite moist, but not wet. Cover with a damp cloth.
To assemble the tamales, remove a corn husk from water and pat it dry. Lay husk on a work surface. Spread about 1/4 cup of the dough in an even layer across the wide end of husk to within 1 inch of edges. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of meat mixture in a line down the center of dough. Roll husk so that dough surrounds filling and forms a cylinder or package. Fold bottom under to close. Place tamales in a single layer on a baking sheet. Repeat until all dough and filling is used.
Stand tamales upright, closed side down, in a large pot. Place enough tamales in the pot so that they do not fall over or unroll. Carefully fill pot with enough water to come just to the top of the tamales, trying not to pour water directly into the tamales. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until dough is firm and pulls away from the husk easily and cleanly, about 1 hour.
If you prefer to steam tamales, stand tamales upright, closed side down, in a large steamer basket. Cover with a damp towel or additional husks. Steam tamales over simmering water until dough is firm and pulls away from the husk easily and cleanly, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.
Serve tamales warm, in their husks. Remove husks to eat.
Yield: 7 to 8 dozen
American cities are collapsing and democrats are in PANIC mode
Should entire families be deported to solve the migrant crisis? That is what Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy promised to do if elected. This would bring about a Fourteenth Amendment question.
Ramaswamy says that there are “legally contested questions under the 14th Amendment.” This comes as progressive politicians are showing real signs of fear over illegal immigration.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams says that the city is facing a “financial tsunami” because of it and predicted that the rapid influx of immigrants will destroy the city that he knows and loves. What is the solution besides burdening the already-burdened U.S. taxpayer?
An apartment complex in the city of Kramatorsk Ukraine was said to be cursed.
In 1980, an 18-year-old woman living in apartment 85 suddenly died. Two years later, the girl’s 16-year-old brother died, followed by their mother. They had all died of Leukaemia, but doctors couldn’t find the root cause of it.
Then in 1989, another family took up residence in apartment 85. A father and his two sons had been living there less then a year when both sons fell ill. Rumour began to spread around the city that the apartment was cursed when it turned out the two boys also had leukaemia.
With the apartments history the father knew something other than a curse was the problem. When one of his two sick sons dies he pushed to have to apartment inspected.
In the late 70s workers lost a radiation level gauge in the Karanksy Quarry located in the city. Workers spent a week looking for it, but it never turned up. No more thought was given to the level gauge, and the rocks from the quarry were then used in the construction of apartment 85.
When inspectors came out to check for high levels of radiation they found it radiating from a wall along side one of the kid’s beds. They knocked the wall and found a capsule of Caesium-137 that had broken out of the level gauge. By a stroke of poor bad luck for two families the capsule ended up becoming a part of their apartment. 17 other residents living in the apartment block received large doses of radiation.
Bernini’s “The Abduction of Proserpina” is a mesmerizing sculpture that captures the dramatic moment from Roman mythology when Pluto, the god of the underworld, seizes Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres, to make her his queen. Completed in 1622, this Baroque masterpiece portrays the intense emotions of the characters: Pluto’s powerful grasp and Proserpina’s anguish. The work showcases Bernini’s skill in sculpting marble to convey a sense of motion and realism, making it a celebrated piece in art history and a symbol of Baroque sculpture’s dynamism and emotional depth.
It currently resides in the Borghese Gallery in Rome.
This year, the Chinese economy has been growing more slowly than expected because of the ongoing real estate crisis, and trade decoupling with the G7 countries led by the US.
But the launch of the Huawei Mate 60 Pro offers a bright spot for Chinese spending. Up until US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s China trip, it looked like most Chinese were going to stop spending until things became clearer for the economy. Most Chinese had treated their purchased homes as a major asset and because real estate prices were deflating, they cut back on their spending.
No more.
The US’s demands for Huawei to stop spending on research and development have hit a very nationalist raw nerve among the Chinese. (Huawei spends about US$22B on R&D annually.) Many feel that this is an insult not just to Huawei, but to China, the nation. How do they push back? By buying the Huawei Mate 60 Pro, which sells at 6999 yuan each. Some estimates are that Huawei may sell 35–50M units by year-end.
The Mate 60 Pro is first in a line of tech products developed according to Chinese instead of western standards. While Chinese are careful about their spending, many feel that now is the time to stand up and support Chinese tech companies by buying their products, just as the tech companies are struggling hard for their survival. Some Chinese will do this even though their home values are declining.
This means that it will likewise be a very hard time for foreign tech companies in China such as Apple. Apple has tried very hard to steer clear of the US-China tech dispute and up until now, it has succeeded. At the end of the day though, it is a US tech company which will side with the US government in a crisis.
The friend and enemy lines are being drawn more clearly.
This also means that as the US tries to build new supply chains outside China, in India and Vietnam, they cannot count on support from Chinese suppliers helping to make the switch. The management of some of these suppliers will decide that supporting the Chinese home team is more important than making money.
Some remarkable stories are coming out about the development of the Huawei Mate 60 Pro. Many Chinese component suppliers came together voluntarily, forming cooperative teams across companies which normally were competing against each other. Engineers spent all-nighters in their competitors’ offices developing and testing equipment. Many gave up going home. Some Taiwanese companies in the PRC also joined in. They did this because they felt that the Chinese tech industry was in a life-and-death struggle to survive, and they needed to come up with new standards, components and products which were completely free of western patent claims. This was not normal business, and they needed to fight and survive and set aside the normal profit motive for the time being.
Just to cite one example, they were able to create a 5G wireless modem which went around Qualcomm’s very broad patent claims. Apple has spent the past six years trying to do this, and even buying a business unit from Intel, but so far has failed.
The team around Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro did it in about a year and a half.
Some day, this would make a great movie story.
Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North of Richmond🔥 | WAKE UP AMERICAN
When my daughter was 4 we went into a store. There was a man there that was physically handicapped. His legs were skinny and twisted and he was walking with crutches.
My daughter walked up to him (very confidently) and asked “what’s wrong with your legs?” I wanted to crawl under a rock!!
This man was absolutely AMAZING with her! He looked down at her, smiled and said “God didn’t give me good legs like you have so he gave me these (indicating his crutches).” That was enough to satisfy her curiosity. He looked at me and smiled and said that I had a beautiful child.
He was pleased that she asked instead of being afraid of him because he was different.
I was truly embarrassed when she asked him her question but so amazed at his gracious answer.
This is what really-really AMAZED me
Raimondo was in China where she had hoped that China will return to buying Boeing jets
Given what they had done to Huawei, why would she even think that China would buy Boeing aircrafts
Boeing have forecasted that China would need 8,485 new passenger planes by 2041 and, traditionally Boeing had received half of the Chinese market
but no longer, other than a few immaterial amounts, China has essentially stopped purchasing Boeing aircrafts
this will now NOT change especially since Huawei had broken the American chip blockade
over one million American aerospace jobs (including related American supply chains) will be/was lost
On a side note, of the industrialized countries that I have travelled in, the United States have one of the poorest telecommunication infrastructure. Because it has locked out Chinese companies, the United States pay a heavier price primarily from non-American/non-Chinese suppliers for a poorer telecommunication product. I won’t discuss what will happen to American semiconductor industry. So Americans are paying what was done to Huawei in MANY ways.
The Americans are SILLY-fied people who are unable to learn and pivot to a better place.
My daughter started talking quite early and was always very curious. Around the time she turned 2 she loved showing off her communication skills by naming things around her. “”Look mommy an apple! Do you like apples? I like apples too!”
It was very cute and she was usually quite loud which garnered much attention and lots of compliments.
On one fine day while driving home from picking up my teenage son from school, he was 13 at the time, she began identifying things around her.. cars, people, buses. Then I heard“”what’s that mommy?” I looked over and saw a dump truck so I responded “”that’s a truck sweetheart.”
Little one can’t pronounce the “t” sound and says ever so innocently “oh… fuck!”
Teenage son loses his mind with laughter which is all the little one needed to know she was on to something. Next thing we hear my 2 year old dropping F-bombs left and right from the back seat.
Wish the story ended there. Couple of weeks and lots of t-phonics practice sessions later, we are in the front yard of my brothers house, when lo and behold a trash truck is driving by. In front of about 15 family members and 5 other kids my sweet little toddler looks at the truck and says very loudly, you guessed it, “FUCK!”
No one was able to hold in their laughter much to my terrible embarrassment.
That eventually some people will be left to pick up the pieces.
Every battle has a clean up just like any other mess. Someone has to make the phone calls to let family know their son or daughter has died.
Someone has to remove the body from the battlefield. It is very common to see soldiers’ bodies with photos of their loved ones, like this Italian soldier in WWII with a picture of his baby in his hand.
The last thing he did was look at his child before he bled out.
These are the very real sacrifices people make. I grew up on military bases and have been to many military funerals. Families never truly move on from the death of a young loved one like this.
There are often inner conflicting feelings about encouraging their son to join the military (even amongst the most patriotic families). These things are all normal.
War is a terrible thing and anyone who tries to glamorize it as some video game has never truly endured it.
Merkules – Oliver Anthony ”Rich Men North Of Richmond” Remix
Few months ago I was visiting Colorado. While leaving for the airport to go back home, someone hit my rented Tesla from behind. The usual process happened where cops was called, complaint was filed, numbers exchanged, etc.
After this incident, I dropped by at a near-by pizza place with my son. I was tired and somewhat stressed about this accident. Although it wasn’t my car or my fault with the accident but I still felt bad for the person who owned this car. I had a great trip but the last few hours of my trip was something. My son and I walked into the pizza place. The manager asked, “How was your day?” I responded saying, “good” but my son said, “No it wasn’t good. Someone hit our car so my mom is feeling bad.”
We ordered and ate our pizza. I asked the waiter for the bill and he said the manager took care of it ($19). He said, he can sense the stress on my face and wanted me to go home peacefully. In addition, there were two other waiters who constantly checked on us while we were eating to see if we wanted anything else. One of the waiter also entertained my son while I had to take care of some phone calls. In addition, while talking to the waiter, I also learned that the business was suffering during Covid but they’re trying to rise up again slowly. I was so touched by their kindness and willingness to pay for my pizza even though their business was not in the best condition financially. I offered to pay my bill numerous times but the staff wouldn’t let me. So I left a $50 bill with the manager and asked him to split the tip between the three waiters. In addition, I also took the manager’s card and sent him a bottle of wine from my state for their kindness.
This was a small encounter but I’ll never forget this kindness. There are very few people in this world who will think about others even when they have their own problems to worry about. May God bless such people. I hope their business thrives.
Wow, so many upvotes. Thank you for reading this answer. I didn’t expect such a nice a response :).
Update:
Here is picture of the manager, Jonathon. I randomly dropped by Priti’s pizza in Denver and captured a picture of this kind soul 🙂
US: No bread for you China,
China: No flour for you US.
Well, I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, but I made the big leap. I went and got a Botox treatment.
Before:
After:
I cannot believe that is me in the mirror!
LOL
Personally, I don’t think it did anything. But everyone else ohhs and ahhs about it. WTF? They say I look twenty years younger. What?
Do I look like I’m 14 years old?
The procedure was simple. They put this icy cold (it was stored in the refrigerator) gel on my face, and then covered it up with clear plastic wrap. Then after about 40 minutes, I laid down and had the procedure.
ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch.
(Only kidding.)
About 50 or so little tiny pin-pricks that I could hardly feel.
And that was that. All the skin on my face relaxed, and those troublesome crevices and gullies disappeared! Who would have thought?
The effect lasts for about six months and then I’ll need to do it again. Don’t you know.
I don’t know what the Hell I was afraid of. It was “nothing”. Really. Not a big deal at all.
Now, if only I could do something about my hair… or lack of it. LOL.
Sigh.
…
The amount of money you pay, vs the look that you are trying to achieve can be either very important or trivial. If it is very important to you, then well… yeah pay that money. If it isn’t, then NOPE… buy a case of beer instead.
It’s all about priorities.
I do not know if I am going to continue with the six month Botox treatments. They cost money, and I am not seeing any real significant changes or improvements in my appearance.
So I probably will not…
…
By the way, a 18 year old girl started to flirt with me today, so….
My family owned and drove nothing but Mitsubishi vehicles for about ten years. Three cars and a (small) truck, all purchased new.
One of the cars died four days after the warranty expired.
Four.
Days.
I don’t mean it developed mechanical problems. I mean the engine locked up solid. Like a brick.
Like all of our vehicles, this one had been well maintained. All scheduled maintenance performed on time, regular oil changes, tire rotations, fuel injector cleanings, the works.
I wrote a long, detailed letter to Mitsubishi Motors, explaining about the car. I made it clear that we were faithful customers, and that we knew the warranty was technically expired, but… four days? Seriously? The car had less than 50,000 miles on the odometer, and it had been immaculately maintained.
I asked if Mitsubishi could do anything.
They responded about three months later with a one-sentence letter. Something to this effect…
After careful investigation, we have determined that that your vehicle’s warranty was expired when the failure occurred.
That pissed me off.
Careful investigation?
I told them in the first paragraph that the warranty was expired. I mentioned it about six times in my letter, along with exact dates, mileage readings, and all the details, including photostatic copies of maintenance records.
Honestly, Mitsubishi could have sent me a $300 voucher toward an engine replacement and kept my business.
Instead, they lost a customer for life.
More than one customer, actually.
My daughter (grown now) won’t even look at a Mitsubishi product. Neither will my (now) ex-wife. And – before I eventually calmed down – I showed their rejection letter to a LOT of people.
I got more than a few calls from people who knew that I’d been driving Mitsubishis for years, wanting to know what kept me coming back. They got an earful.
I’ve probably bought eight vehicles in the years since then, so I know that crappy letter cost them eight car sales. I imagine at least a few car shoppers decided against Mitsubishi after seeing that letter.
Someone once told me that a satisfied customer tells six to ten people about their positive experiences, but an unsatisfied customer tells fifty to a hundred. I’ve told more than a hundred.
Dice potatoes to 1/2 inch. Add to salted water and bring to a boil. Turn off heat, sit for 10 minutes, strain and set aside.
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Add bacon fat to skillet over medium-high heat. Sear potatoes until golden, about 5 minutes.
Add onions, garlic, thyme and oregano; sear until onions are transparent. Stir in cabbage and corned beef. Season with pepper.
Gently crack eggs on top of the hash and place skillet in the oven.
Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on desired egg doneness.
Oliver Anthony’s Emotional Speech About the Future of America
Oliver Anthony fought back tears as shared his thoughts and opinions on the current state of the United States of America and its future. Oliver Anthony also gave a very candid response to his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” being used as a political tool with both Conservatives and the left.
Yes, I met a really nice guy that was serving two life sentences. It was really hard for me to wrap my head around the idea had so much time, so I asked him about it. The guy was a Vietnam War vet. He was a tunnel-rat, meaning that sometimes he had to belly-crawl into holes to clear them with just the use of his boot-knife. He got very efficient at it during his tour. Meanwhile, his tour was almost up and he was looking forward to coming home. However, he kept hearing stories about his sister being in an abusive relationship. He explained that normally he didn’t involve himself in the details of other people’s relationships but this was his sister that he was very protective of and he just didn’t know how much he could tolerate knowing that she was in an abusive relationship after he’d spent years killing people just because they were the enemy. So he sent her a letter to break off that relationship, in hopes he would never meet the guy that was abusing his sister.
Eventually, he did return to the United States. He caught a cab from the airport to drive him home. But as they entered the neighborhood the police had everything sealed off because of some crime scene investigation. He didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes but he did explain that he was just returning home from Vietnam and only wanted to get home which was only a block away. So they asked for his address and he gave it only to be met by a detective requesting his company down at the station. So he reiterated that he literally just returned from Vietnam and didn’t know anything about what was going on, but the police insisted.
So he goes down to the station to be informed that his sister and mother were killed by his sister’s boyfriend. Apparently, the guy wasn’t so keen about breaking off the relationship. The police had the guy, it was pretty cut and dry, he was in custody, and the police only asked him to let them do their job without him interfering.
Well, turns out that the boyfriend bonded out, and this Vietnam vet had friends that knew where this guy hung out. So this guy goes down to a bar the boyfriend frequented and had him pointed out. He approached the guy at the pool table and started chatting the guy up. He explained that he just got back from Vietnam and that he was a tunnel rat there. He pulled out his combat knife to explain what it was like belly crawling through tunnels with that particular knife because his .45 would have alarmed the enemy. He told stories of spiders the size of basketballs rushing at him that he had to kill without giving away his position. But the guy he was talking to just wanted to know if he wanted to bet on the pool game.
So he told the guy (his sister’s abusive boyfriend that killed both his sister and his mother), that he had a bet for him. He told him that he was going to take that very same knife he used in Vietnam to skin him alive and that he was willing to bet nobody in the bar would intervene. And so he did. And he didn’t stop cutting up that guy (in front of everyone) until the police arrived and asked him to.
When he went to court, the judge wasn’t too happy about his vigilante justice and convicted him for murder, but when he was asked if he’d like to say anything before sentencing he asked for the name of the magistrate officer that gave his sister and mother’s murderer bail.
Oh SH*T, The Fuse Has Been Lit!
The economy is on its last legs and the Fed is about to push it off a cliff. Powell’s conviction to crash the economy is alive and well, he wants higher unemployment to destroy inflation. Here’s why interest rates will stay higher for longer & how it could collapse this leveraged economy.
So I sat with his attorney and mine….one time….and listed out everything I had bought for our daughter, divided it in half and that’s what his money paid for.
Then I showed my lease and renters insurance and water bill and cable bill and light bill, you get the gist.
Half of all them are for her.
Divided hers in half and started adding up his responsibilities.
It turned out I was short $300 a month of his responsibility.
It took him a minute to look at the breakdown and I stood and leaned over the table and started pointed and numbers and adding them again on my calculator and then handed him the calculator if he wanted to add it himself since he was looking at a major spreadsheet (I do accounting) and asked if he understood.
It took a few minutes for it to sink it but he got it. About 6 months later he asked me to see the chart again and I showed him and he handed me an extra $300.
He said to keep him up and what the bills are and if I need more to let him know. He always paid for her school supplies and new clothes and shoes for school.
Once it was all in black and white and he saw I wasn’t screwing him over like all his friends said then he put his love for his little girl ahead of everything else. He was a crappy husband but a wonderful father.
How I see the US after living in Europe for 5 years
What is America like after experiencing life in Europe? BIG. Consumerism. Gun violence. The homeless. The police. “What do you do for work?” This is how I see the US after living in the Netherlands for 5 years. Sometimes it takes leaving a place for one to truly understand the pros and cons of a place. There are things I love and dislike about the US. Hope you enjoy this short movie!
In 1981, a young Japanese engineer named Kikuo Ibe broke the mechanical watch his father had given him as a gift. Ibe accidentally dropped the watch on the way to work and it broke into pieces on the floor. At the same time, he began to observe some construction workers around his office who were using jackhammers, and he noticed that they never wore watches because of the vibration. After that, he got the idea to create a sturdy watch that couldn’t be destroyed.
When Ibe later got a job at Casio Computer Co., Ltd. , he developed the rugged digital watch called the G-Shock. The G-Shock was designed as a watch that would have triple resistance 10, meaning it would have a battery life of 10 years, water resistance of 10 bar and could survive a drop of 10 meters. As most watches on the market were as slim as possible, it was not an immediate success, only attracting construction workers and police officers. But it later became a style icon when the skateboarding craze hit the world, prompting young people to look for a tough watch to match their baggy clothes. Subsequently G-Shock became very popular among the general public. On September 1, 2017, Casio celebrated its 100 million shipment of G-Shocks worldwide.
Rock Music Producer Reacts to Rich Men North of Richmond by Oliver Anthony Reaction Video
I was living in Arizona and working a good paying job, living in what I thought was a good sized house when a young British man, probably 17, knocked on my door selling books.
Like seriously, who sells books door to door anymore right? And this dude had the coolest accent, and how many British people do you honestly come across in southern Arizona. So what the hell, I invited him in for a soda, and bought some books.
But here’s the thing. Got to chatting with the guy, he was here on some exchange program for the summer, had to live with some American family, only had $3 to spend on breakfast each day (he ate at Denny’s) and had to sell books all day for the company who sponsored the travel.
Slave labor I thought. He had stained dirty clothes that didn’t fit him, and was riding a bike. I felt so bad, I took him to my closet and started going through all my clothes.
I said here, you can have this, and that. If you are going to be selling books door to door in this neighborhood, you ought to look your best.
He smiled humbly, and said friend, you really don’t have to do this. I have lots of clothes back home, and my family…
Nonsense I said. Here’s a nice button up shirt, and some slacks. What size shoe do you wear?
Sir, please, you really don’t have to..
Long story short, we became pals, added him to the Facebook, sent him off on his little bike with a pile of clothes, and kind of forgot about him for awhile.
Sometime later, I noticed a post he made. He was all dressed up in a Tux, attending some royal party in England. Turns out his family was pretty important, and he was super rich.
Probably had a house the size of mine just for his horses.
So the most astounding thing I ever said to a British person visiting America, who happened to be some kind of British Royal person, was “Hey, have some of my clothes friend, and a drink!”
Chinese President Xi Jinping defined all the major decisions embedded in the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa as “historic”. That may be seen as an understatement.
It will take time for the Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright President Lukashenko), not to mention the stunned collective West, to fully grasp the enormity of the new strategic stakes.
President Putin, for his part, described the negotiations on BRICS expansion as quite difficult. By now a relatively accurate picture is emerging of what really went down on that table in Johannesburg.
India wanted 3 new members. China wanted as many as 10. A compromise was finally reached, with 6 members: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina and Ethiopia.
So from now on it’s BRICS 11. And that’s just the beginning. Starting with the rotating Russian presidency of BRICS on January 1, 2024, more partners will be progressively included, and most certainly a new round of full members will be announced at the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in October next year.
So we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40. The G7, for all practical purposes, is sliding towards oblivion.
Bur first things first. At that fateful table in Johannesburg, Russia supported Egypt. China went all out for Persian Gulf magic: Iran, UAE and the Saudis. Of course: Iran-China are already deep into a strategic partnership, and Riyadh is already accepting payment for energy in yuan.
Brazil and China supported Argentina, Brazil’s troubled neighbor, running the risk of having its economy fully dollarized, and also a key commodity provider to Beijing. South Africa supported Ethiopia. India, for a series of very complex reasons, was not exactly comfortable with 3 Arab/Muslim members (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt). Russia assuaged New Delhi’s fears.
All of the above respects geographic principles and imprints the notion of BRICS representing the Global South. But it goes way beyond that, blending cunning strategy and no-nonsense realpolitik.
That was stressed by New Development Bank (NDB) president Dilma Rousseff in her report to the South African summit hosts – even as Brazilian President Lula once again emphasized the importance of setting up a work group to discuss a BRICS currency.
Lavrov understood how New Delhi is absolutely terrified of secondary sanctions by the US, in case its BRICS role gets too ambitious. Prime Minister Modi is essentially hedging between BRICS and the completely artificial imperial obsession embedded in the terminology “Indo-Pacific” – which masks renewed containment of China. The Straussian neo-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy are already furious with India buying loads of discounted Russian oil.
New Delhi’s support for a new BRICS currency would be interpreted in Washington as all-out trade war – and sanctions dementia would follow. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s MbS doesn’t care: he’s a top energy producer, not consumer like India, and one of his priorities is to fully court his top energy client, Beijing, and pave the way for the petroyuan.
It Takes Just a Single Strategic Move
Now let’s get into the strategic stakes. For all practical purposes, in Eurasian terms, BRICS 11 is now on the way to lord over the Arctic Sea Route; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); BRI’s East West Corridors; the Persian Gulf; the Red Sea; and the Suez Canal.
That blends several overland corridors with several nodes of the Maritime Silk Roads. Nearly total integration in the Heartland and the Rimland. All with just a single strategic move in the geopolitical/geoeconomic chessboard.
Much more than an increase of BRICS 11 collective GDP to 36% of the world’s total (already larger than the G7), with the group now encompassing 47% of the world’s population, the top geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough is how BRICS 11 is about to literally break the bank on the energy and commodities market fronts.
By incorporating Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, BRICS 11 instantly shines on as an oil and gas powerhouse. BRICS 11 now controls 39% of global oil exports; 45.9% of proven reserves; and at least 47.6% of all oil produced globally, according to InfoTEK.
With BRICS 11 possibly including Venezuela, Algeria and Kazakhstan as new members as early as in 2024, it may control as much as 90% of all oil and gas traded globally.
Inevitable corollary: operations settled in local currencies bypassing the US dollar. And inevitable conclusion: petrodollar in a coma. The Empire of Chaos and Plunder will lose its free lunch menu: control of global oil prices and means to enforce “diplomacy” via a tsunami of unilateral sanctions.
Already in the horizon, direct BRICS 11-OPEC+ symbiosis is inevitable. OPEC+ is effectively run by Russia and Saudi Arabia.
A ground-shaking geoeconomic reorientation is at hand, involving everything from routes plied by global supply chains and new BRICS roads to the progressive interconnection of BRI, the Saudi Vision 2030 and massive port expansion in the UAE.
By choosing Ethiopia, BRICS expands its African reach on mining, minerals and metals. Ethiopia is rich in gold, platinum, tantalum, copper, niobium and offers vast potential in oil and natural gas exploration. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, incidentally, are also involved in mining.
This all spells out fast, progressive integration of North Africa and West Asia.
How Diplomacy Goes a Long Way
The BRICS 11 Shock of the New, in the energy sphere, is a sharp historical counterpoint to the 1973 oil shock, after which Riyadh started wallowing in petrodollars. Now Saudi Arabia under MbS is operating a tectonic shift, in the process of becoming strategically aligned with Russia-China-India-Iran.
Diplomatic coup does not even begin to describe it. This is the second stage of the Russian-initiated and Chinese-finalized rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, recently sealed in Beijing. The Russia-China strategic leadership, working patiently in synch, never lost sight of the ball.
Now compare it with collective West’s “strategies”, such as the G7-imposed oil price cap. Essentially the G7 “coalition of the willing” self-imposed a price cap on Russian crude imported by sea. The result is that they had to start buying way more oil products from Global South nations which ignored the price cap and duly increased their purchase of Russian crude.
Guess who are the top two: BRICS members China and India.
After wallowing in several stages of denial, the collective West may – or may not – realize it’s a fool’s dream to attempt to “de-couple” the West-ruled part of the global economy from China, whatever is spewed out by Washington.
BRICS 11 now shows, graphically, how the “Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe” is more non-aligned with the West than anytime in recent history.
By the way, the president of the G77, Cuban leader Diaz-Canel, was at the BRICS summit representing the de-facto new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 actually incorporates no less than 134 nations. Most are African. Xi Jinping in Johannesburg met in person with the leaders of most of them.
The collective West, in panic, regards all of the above as “dangerous”. So the last refuge is, predictably, rhetorical: “de-coupling”, “de-risking”, and similar idiocies.
Yet that may also get practically dangerous. As in the first ever trilateral summit in Camp David on August 18 between the Empire and two Asian vassals, Japan and South Korea. That may be interpreted as the first move towards a military-political Asian NATO even more toxic than Quad or AUKUS, obsessed to simultaneously contain China, Russia and the DPRK.
The Collective Outstripping of the Global North
The UN lists 152 nations in the world as “developing countries”. BRICS 11 is aiming at them – as they outstrip the Global North on everything from population growth to overall contribution to global GDP growth measured by PPP.
In the past 10 years since the announcement of BRI first in Astana and then in Jakarta, Chinese financial institutions have lent nearly $1 trillion for infrastructure connectivity projects across the Global South. The upcoming BRI forum in Beijing will signal a renewed drive. That’s the BRI-BRICS symbiosis.
In the G20 last year, China was the first nation to lobby for the inclusion of the 55-member African Union (AU). That may happen at the G20 summit next month in New Delhi; in that case, Global South representation will be close to parity with the Global North.
Claims that Beijing was organizing a malign conspiracy to turn BRICS into a weapon against the G7 are infantile. Realpolitik – and geoeconomic indicators – are dictating the terms, configuring the Shock of the New: the G7’s irreversible irrelevance with the rise of BRICS 11.
Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond REACTION
Ethiopia was the only major African kingdom not be colonized by the Europeans, except for an Italian occupation in the 1930s.
It has a significant middle-sized population of 120M.
Ethiopia has a government which is dedicated to the modernization of Ethiopia led by Abi Ahmed.
Abi Ahmed was educated in China and is fluent in Putonghua, and there are other Chinese-educated members of government who are adapting lessons from China’s modernization to fit into the Ethiopian model of development. China has been involved in various infrastructure development projects in the country.
The country also has cordial relations with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa.
The US and G7 have overlooked Ethiopia for a long time, and have considered it to be unimportant.
Beef and Gravy over Potatoes
Ingredients
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
1/3 cup water
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 envelope brown gravy mix
1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
Place potatoes and water in a microwave-safe dish. Cover and microwave on HIGH for 8 to 10 minutes or until tender.
Meanwhile, in large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Stir in garlic powder and onion powder.
Prepare gravy mix according to package directions.
Place potatoes in a mixing bowl; add milk, butter, salt and pepper. Beat on medium speed until smooth.
Do you recognize this famous street hawker occasionally featured in international media in discussions related to global economic dynamics?
He is Sirivat Voravetvuthikun—Mr. Sandwich of Thailand.
Previously a high-flyer multi-millionaire businessman, Sirivat went bankrupt by impacts of the infamous Asian financial crisis of the late 1990’s. The crisis not only took away all his fortunes but also left him in debts of millions of dollars.
But all this mishap could not smash him to simply become a poor and rot. Srivat took himself to the ground to kick off a restart, afresh.
His wife would make sandwiches from night till dawn and he would go out to the street to sell them starting early in the morning.
Soon he became a media-feature, a subject of the critics and many raised their eyebrows at the sight of a multi-millionaire selling sandwich on street.
But nothing could hold him back. Srivat stirred himself through.
Then, as he kept on doing what he was doing, the populace started to re-discover Srivat Voravetvuthikun. The dignity, courage and honesty that Srivat was trying to uphold: he was not trying to cheat or steal someone else’s money. Nor was he trying to escape from his lenders. Nor did he choose to live a disgraceful life of a fallen runner. Instead, he was trying to re-establish himself, to stand again on his own feet, pay off his debts and live with his head held high in the society.
People now started buying his sandwiches.
Sirivat’s sales started growing, then soaring. At the height of his popularity, he earned a loving nickname: Mr. Sandwich.
Soon Mr. Sandwich became a brand—one of its kind and ever, as Srivat started settling with his sandwich/coffee shops nationwide.
Mr. Sirivat Voravetvuthikun once again became a millionaire. This time a more renowned one, and well-respected.
To answer the question— unless born with silver spoon in the mouth, a genuinely rich person does anything he/she needs to stay on. I’ve learned about this great man, and I also know about quite a few other rich men. They work hard no less than the mediocrity, even harder than the average people. They don’t care how much it takes, what the critics talk on the face or behind. They only keep their promise to themselves: live in affluence with dignity.
He Died & Was Shown The Future of USA Democracy – Ken Leth’s NDE
Ken Leth shares his Near Death Experience (NDE) that he had when he was 8 years old when he was shown the future and a civil war. This is his testimony
The Company I worked for made over $9B in 2004 on the revenue of $36 billion. That was a lot of money for a company to make back then. And a 25% profit margin is just sweet.
One fine day, in 2004, the leadership decided they needed to be more nimble. More efficient. The solution? Supplies were no longer available on each floor, you had to walk down to the ground floor to get them.
So you’re in the middle of something and realize you need a notepad and a pen.
You walk to the elevator, push a button, wait for it, enter, push the G button, wait, exit the elevator, walk to the supply room, get a pen and notebook, walk back to the elevator, push a button, wait, enter the elevator, push the desired floor button, exit, walk back to your desk.
For a company that paid its software developers well over $100k! This came at a time when tech companies started giving free lunches to keep their employees productive. The waste of time alone meant the change was a net negative.
Who the heck thought it was a good idea to save pennies by removing supplies from each floor from a company that made 25% profit (over $9B / year at that time)?
I know of several people who quit the company over this. Not because this specific thing was painful for them, but because it signaled the company was in a downward spiral. They went to other companies (often competitors) where they were more valued.
In coming years The Company was going to prove those quitters right by losing a lot of market share in key upcoming markets, from the browser to mobile devices.
The photo above is by Cole Carini. He is 23 years old and is from Virginia, USA.
On June 2, 2020 (yes, a few days ago), he walked into a local medical centre with serious injuries to his body… and a missing hand! When local authorities asked about the reason for these extreme injuries, he lied to them saying he had received them because of an accident he had with a lawn mower. Due to the severity of the injuries, the FBI became involved in the case.
But the FBI soon discovered that he was creating a bombshell for an alleged attack on a group of women he described as “Cheerleaders.” During the making of the bomb, he somehow ended up exploding the bomb and blew off his entire hand, causing very extreme injuries to his body.
For me, this is an example of instant karma, though perhaps not so much in everyday life. He was definitely making the bomb to hurt others, but he ended up almost killing himself. I’m sure now he wishes he wasn’t even able to make a bomb!
First Time Hearing | Oliver Anthony – I WANT TO GO HOME | Reaction Video
When he was six years old, my son came excitedly out of the garden and threw a stone he had found in my hand. He told me he found a Stone Age tool. I put it down to a vivid imagination, but to appease him I told him we could ask the head of the local historical society for an opinion.
We did that a few months later, and the man’s eyes popped out of their sockets. He was also a delegate to the state archeology office and said he needed to send the stone to the museum in Stuttgart for a professional opinion. He was sure it WAS a primitive tool.
As it turned out, the stone was a flat tool used to poke holes in leather to sew pieces of leather together. It dated back to the end of the Stone Age. How my six year old recognized I had no idea.
LIBERAL REACTS Oliver Anthony I Want To Go Home & I’ve Got to Get Sober REACTION
Preach it brother!
“Information Designed To Show …”
Yesterday CNN published another Russiagate like nonsense story:
Russian intelligence is operating a systematic program to launder pro-Kremlin propaganda through private relationships between Russian operatives and unwitting US and western targets, according to newly declassified US intelligence.
One of the craziest things happening in our world today is how westerners are being trained to overlook the massive amounts of western propaganda they’re inundated with day in and day out and focus instead on “Russian propaganda”, which has no meaningful existence in the west. In 2017 before RT was shut down in the UK, it accounted for 0.04 percent of the UK’s total TV audience. A New York University study published earlier this year found that the supposed Russian Twitter influence campaign ahead of the 2016 election which dominated headlines for years had had “no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior”. An earlier study found that suspected Russian accounts showing up in Facebook’s news feed during that time amounted to “approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content.” A study by Adelaide University found that despite headline after headline warning us about a massive wave of Russian bots manipulating online discourse after the invasion of Ukraine began last year, the overwhelming majority of fake accounts they examined (more than 90 percent) were pro-Ukraine accounts.
Contrast this microscopic smattering of influence with the fact that westerners are continually getting their news reporting from western propaganda outlets which openly publish CIA press releases disguised as news on a regular basis. These people are absolutely telling us the truth when they say we’re under constant bombardment by propaganda and influence operations — they’re just lying about who’s really doing it to us.
CNN was not the only outlet that plugged the stupid CIA press release. The New York Times had it too and its report is a bit more revealing:
Reading through the stupid disinformation stuff one stumbles over this sentence:
[T]he information released by the United States on Friday is designed to show how much deeper Russian influence operations are than those efforts to sow dissent on the internet.
That is quite revealing. The information contained in the CIA release was ‘designed’ or construed to create a certain propaganda narrative. It wasn’t just information that could be found or observed by a reporter but a curated collection of items put together to create a certain effect.
Think about that for a minute and you will recognize that most of the ‘news’ one reads is made like this.
Someone asserts that there is a need for to create a certain effect. A narrative is thought up that could lead to it. The some bits of facts or rumors are collected, sorted, filtered and then written up until the constructed narrative is thought to be likely to create the desired effect. This is then the declassified product and fed to the media which are willing to distribute such stuff.
The current very long Spiegel story about the U.S. attack on the Nord Stream pipelines is a nice example for such a ‘product’:
German politicians are too coward to call out the U.S. for the attack and to discuss the necessary consequences. They need a different narrative.
When an attempt was made to declare that ‘Russia did it’ the public did not fall for it. Blaming Ukraine is a convenient out. It can later be forgiven because, they will say, Ukraine did what it thought was necessary and only did it because Russia was attacking it.
That is the desired effect of the story. The information in the Spiegel piece was carefully ‘designed’ to create the appropriate narrative.
That the Spiegel needed 19 named authors to put it out says something about the complexity of such a process. It is still disinformation but on a large scale.
Posted by b on August 26, 2023 at 15:53 UTC | Permalink
Yes. I test drove a demo car. It had been driven by one of their salesmen for year. We agreed on a price. I had everything set up and I was ready to sign.
I looked at the contract and saw $250 tacked on to the price. I asked what it was for. They told me that it was for the pinstriping, floor mats and hubcaps. All things that were part of the car while it was being driven around by the sales person and when I test drove it.
I told them I expected to purchase the car for the price they quoted me as it was shown to me. They offered to remove the pinstriping, floor mats and hubcaps. I said no and once again told them that I was ready to sign for the price I agreed to in the condition the car was in when they gave me the price.
The manager refused to budge and so did I. I walked out. The salesman seemed surprised: I told him I would not pay the extra $250 they tried to slip in on the contract.
The sad part for them is, if they had quoted me the higher price to begin with when we made the deal, I would have purchased the car. It was the fact that they added it at the last minute to the contract they handed me to sign.
Heartbreaking! Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home / Reaction Video !
In 1964, two entrepreneurs paid a marketing company to help them come up with a name for their service, which would also be the company name.
They started with Analytical Technology. Then, quite, unfortunately, condensed it into AnalTech. They’ve had the name now for more than 50 years.
They provide services for forensic science and pharmaceutical development. Per their own words, they’ve always faced challenges with people on the internet using juvenile humor about their name (guilty). Additionally, spam filters on other company websites have caused them problems.
JohndoeATanaltech.com never seems to be able to reach anyone’s inbox. They’ve considered other names but seem married to the one they have.
In 2017, a truck lost control and went off the road, not only mowing down the Analtech sign but also plummeting into the actual building:
Adding on to this, and I’m not joking with you — locals reported that a bizarre smell began coming out of the Analtech building after the impact.
You can’t make this stuff up.
MM Commentary
There are a lot of “fringe” and conspiracies out in Internet land.
My favorite (head scratcher) has to do with the strange coincidence that all of the roofs on the homes of the ultra-wealthy were painted this brilliant blue. And everything that was not scorched were blue. Like mailboxes, plastic refuse bins and things like that.
Really odd.
And the really strange thing is what the ultra rich did to their homes a few years earlier…
I watched a video on you-tube that shows how a laser can destroy everything except the color blue. WTF!
DEW being used on …
Maui Fires, DEWs & The Secret Of The Color Blue!
Maui Fires, DEWs & The Secret Of The Color Blue!
So…
Here you have this super strange fire.
And the strange way that the United States government is hiding everything and policing the area… People! This is not how FEMA handles fire devastated regions.
Gov’t Installs BLACK FENCING Encircling Lahaina!
This is damn odd.
In a recent video that went viral online, a Hawaii resident documents the miles of black fencing that has gone up around Lahaina in Maui as well as other burn zones from the recent wildfires. Getting necessary supplies to the fire’s victims has been rather slow, but all this fencing went up in record time. So what’s going on?
Plus, you add on the facts that this prime section of real estate has been in the process of being bought up by very wealthy interests, with the lowly commoners in the town of Lahaina in the way.
I must admit that I enjoy a cold left over pizza in the morning. It goes good with black coffee. It doesn’t matter what kind of pizza, or how much, or what the toppings are. You can reheat it or not. Personally, I guess I am strange, I prefer the cold pizza in the morning. Who figures, eh?
It’s an American thing.
Pizza is an American food, and one of the things that I love, but cannot eat too much of. It tends to make my body rotund, and you guys know that I am in the process of losing weight.
…
I am at 85Kg today.
Last week I was at 90Kg, and (if you recall) my BMI listed me as obese. I said “NO!”, and then lost 5Kg in one week!
I also noticed that I became weak at noon and needed a nap, and afterwards I really needed to urinate. I noticed that my urine became very thick and deep in color.
My waist shrank.
But you know, the rest of my body is still bony as ever. LOL.
…
What I did was change my diet to “slight”.
Breakfast = 1/2 cup of black coffee.
Lunch = One small chicken burger or Baozi.
Dinner = Tiny dinner. Vegetables with meat and small portion of rice.
No snacks.
Today, we are going to sponsor another meal with friends. The excuse is a shared birthday. We rented a room and we will be drinking a case of Shiraz, and 5 liters of Guoji wine. (37% alcohol).
I’m sure to gain some weight. But I will not glutton out, We will enjoy fine seafood, BBQ chicken and other tasty morsels and sign and dance until midnight, and then take my daughter to bed.
Then I will return back to my (now normal) routine.
…
My affirmations agree with my new lifestyle.
I’m one week into my latest campaign and the transformations are stunning. I am actually witnessing the slides manifest in real time. Not since my Majestic days have I experienced such “easy” changing.
…
My daughter has really taken to boxing, and loves to spar with me. So I get on my knees and allow her to punch me relentlessly. It’s a father’s duty, don’t you know.
She also loves Hip-Hop. Ah. She’s a natural.
And sports; she loves basketball. And she can dribble like there is no tomorrow!
Not too bad for a four-year old. LOL.
…
While she understand my English, she has preferred to speak in Chinese. But lately, she has been speaking to me in English, and it makes me very happy. Still, it’s baby-English and she speaks it like it’s Chinese, but still, it makes me glad.
I’m a proud father.
…
The world continues to turn.
The “news” has hit the stratosphere and now orbits the earth in some kind of lime-loop. And we all move on with our lives one way or the other.
The editors and their owners are absolutely clueless.
…
Typhoon hit yesterday. Today is a steady medium rain with small squall gusts. Much flooding. Some debris on the ground, and some trivial damage. Most of the trees are intact and remain rooted in place.
We took a ride out to check out the damage. Trees are down. Flooding everywhere. Many shops closed. Leaves galore. Some damage to face scanners, cameras, and traffic lights. The thermal scanners are mostly intact, though.
We drove in circles looking for a snack place that served coffee and hybrid / fusion food. Only one open was good, but the dishes served were too big. We wanted a light snack, not a banquet. Sheech!
We swam the car home, dusted off the branches and leaves and ordered home-delivery. I ordered some Zha Jiang Mian for myself and a cup of coffee, the rest got some pigs feet, Chinese spinach and some rice. Ok. Fair enough.
Zha Jiang Mian is very much like American spaghetti. Only the sauce is very thick with lots or ground pork, and thickened with bean paste. You can eat it spicy if you want. Often it is served with these toothpick thin slices of cucumber, which you stir into the noodles.
Its one of my favorites.
I just cannot believe the Chinese expats being happy in the USA and not being able to enjoy such delicious Chinese food on demand. You have to make it at home. Sheech! What a pain!
This is what Cleverly thought he can do in China in one day:
He thinks the U.K. is a peer to China and for the sake of the British people and the world, he wants China to work with the U.K. on climate change, prevent nuclear proliferation, and matter relating to AI and other technologies.
It’s humiliating if you think so much of yourself and China politely listens to you and quickly send you off home without discussing any of these.
What Cleverly can’t admit to is that the U.K. needs economic assistance and densely believes that the U.K. can get it from China while barking ever so loudly as a U.S. lapdog.
LOL.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
China doesn’t care if the U.K. is ignoring China.
It’s just that China is simply ignoring the U.K.
LOL!
(Burst of laughing loudly and rolling on the floor.)
Cleverly hasn’t realized it yet that the U.K. is irrelevant to most of the world.
The African nations are rich in natural resources, but are weak in infrastructure development, especially transport infrastructure. China is now the world’s leading manufacturing nation, and it needs raw materials and natural resources to keep Chinese factories busy. For this reason, it makes sense for Chinese construction companies to improve the transport infrastructure of the African nations;
The quality of government and governance in the African nations has been gradually improving, and the African farmers and miners of today are destined to become the African consumers of tomorrow. It makes sense for China and Chinese companies to improve their standard of living so that these Africans will eventually buy the output of Chinese manufacturers, instead of only supplying raw materials to Chinese manufacturers;
Because the African economies will become more important, it makes perfect sense for China to build goodwill with future African political leaders and business leaders and entrepreneurs. If they attend Chinese schools, learn Chinese, and understand Chinese culture, they will become future ambassadors for China in their home countries, and will be well disposed to building bridges between their government, society and Chinese official and business interests. These societies are also likely to have significant local Chinese populations which will serve as bridges between China and their new African home countries. Because China’s relationship with Africa has never been tainted by a history of brutality, racism and slavery, Chinese and Africans are able to deal with each other equally, and are not burdened with negative historical stereotypes based on racism and discrimination. This racism, discrimination and condescending attitude are something which western societies have great difficulty escaping from, which hinders the development of relations with the African nations and societies. For Africans, this mutual respect with China and Chinese based on pursuing their individual interests, and seeking shared interests when possible, is a breath of fresh air.
Chinese manufacturers have the know-how many African nations need to move up the value chain. Some of the lower value-added manufacturers, such as textile manufacturers, may move some of their operations to African nations since the Chinese government no longer sees China as being leaders in these areas, and is encouraging high-tech manufacturing development, especially with the Made in China 2025 plan. So far, most Chinese textile makers have been moving to Vietnam, Thailand and SE Asia, but it is likely that some will move their operations to African nations. This will help Africans to get their first step into manufacturing. In contrast, during the colonial period, the British, French and Germans never allowed manufacturing in Africa, instead preferring to keep Africans poor and underdeveloped. China and the Chinese have no such agenda.
To sum up, China is not giving away free money.
China is investing in the African consumer of the future, and sees them as important future Chinese partners.
China Exposed the US Call to Ban Anti Satellite Missile Tests; Fake Arm Control!
Chinese laser technology and rail-gun are more advanced than the U.S.’ ones, while Russia has the most advanced hypersonic missiles. The U.S. lags behind in those fields. That’s why, the latter tries to prevent these cutting edge technologies from destroying Western satellites in case of conflicts. The Americans also aim at slow down the progress of the Russian and China space industries. When Russia and China hadn’t such technologies, the U.S. didn’t offer peaceful use of space, because of Russia and China lagged behind American military and space technologies. It’s too late !
The “government” is simply fucking with us…
You’ve got to be kidding me…
Beef Curry
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
3 pounds beef round steak, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup raisins
2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup diced onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 (14 ounce) can beef broth
2 apples, unpeeled, cored and finely chopped
Fluffy rice
Instructions
Dry beef well with a paper towel.
Mix flour and curry powder.
Coat meat cubes with flour mixture.
Place meat in slow cooker.
Add garlic, raisins, sliced apples, onion, salt and pepper.
Pour in broth and stir to blend.
Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours or on HIGH for 4 to 5 hours until meat is tender.
Before serving, stir in additional curry powder to taste (up to 1 tablespoon) and chopped apples.
Kangaroos! They are a lot bigger than what I’d imagined. These days what with YouTube one can get a good idea about their size, but when I went to Australia I had no idea. I also imagined them to be, you know, out in the bush or somewhere out there away from civilization, but no, I get up in the morning and look out the window and there a pretty big dog outside. Then it stands up and is about 8 feet tall, well maybe not 8 feet, but hella big. My brain sort of short circuits for a second until I realize I’m looking at a kangaroo! Big and in the suburbs of a large city!
I burst out of the room yelling that there’s a giant kangaroo in the back yard! My friend, er… mate says, “Yup, he’s probably eating the dog’s food”. He doesn’t even bother to look. Later we go out the front door and there’s a couple more just standing there. I’m slack jawed and he just walks past them, gets in the car, and off we go. Kangaroos!
Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home And Rich Men North Of Richmond (Reaction)
I have been asked to tell the following story many times, and it became so famous that I was even asked to record it for NPR.
I worked for a high-tech company when high-tech was just starting to make an impact on the world. This was before the internet, even before everyone had PCs. We had one IBM PC for the entire department and it was a thrill to use it. I say this just to give an impression of how things have changed since then.
Our company made high speed modems, but the fastest anyone could do in those days was 9600bps, and you paid 10,000 dollars a piece for each modem — and you needed at least two of them, one for each end. We had invented a mechanism that would double that rate to 19,200bps, which was like lightning at the time. The benefits were immediately apparent and every major company wanted them, damn the cost. Unfortunately, the techniques we were using were in their infancy and had lots of bugs. Even though we were selling them like ice cream on a hot day, they didn’t really work as advertised.
A huge oil company bought a massive amount of product. Their plan was to link all of their gas stations across the US to their central site and have the managers report daily sales to the home office. This previously had been done by mail or phone and was slow and inefficient. With a modem system they could know what their revenues were to the penny overnight, or even several times during the day. They did some cursory testing on the devices and rolled them out. But they didn’t work.
Our engineers worked day and night to fix the issues but it turned out to be intractable. There were grave concerns that we might never solve the problem. Our salesman for the company was a brave and confident expert with years of experience but he was becoming increasingly despondent. The customer was agitated and angry and threatening to return the product. This would have been a huge setback, possibly a death blow to the company. They were by far our biggest customer and by far the biggest sale we had ever achieved. And the salesman would not get his commission.
I was the manager of the business unit, newly promoted into the role at the age of 26. I thought I was something special, and to be honest if not modest, I was a world-wide expert on these technologies and frequently flown around the world to solve problems. But what I didn’t know was that behind the scenes the senior managers of this customer were now DEMANDING a reckoning with our company. Our management knew it was the end if we did not have a solution, and we had no solution.
The salesman set up a meeting with the Senior Vice President of this oil company, a man who probably had the power to overthrow third world countries or have people killed. Suddenly, the President of our company had pressing business in Europe. So did every other executive down the line until, casting about, they looked at me. I was to be the sacrificial lamb they would send to the slaughter. I was told to go “make nice” with the customer to buy more time. I was unaware of the political issues behind the scene. If I failed, I would be unceremoniously fired as a token of good faith. The salesman knew it. I did not.
Thinking this was going to be yet another triumphant visit, and with a swelled head, I went out, bought a new suit and briefcase and flew from Boston to the West Coast. I didn’t even have anything to put in the briefcase except a pad and pencil since I wasn’t given any progress report, possible solutions or any token that might mollify them. Management was so certain of disaster that they thought it best I go completely in the dark.
I was picked up by our salesman in his new Jaguar , along with our field engineer, both of whom knew the gravity of our situation and how dire things were. I was cheerful and humming in the car as I took in the sights. I was surprised by their gloomy silence until we got to the customer’s campus. I had never seen anything like it before. Oil money can buy anything, and this building was modern and massive, the lobby was an art museum with original paintings by the Masters.
We didn’t even have to wait. As soon as we announced ourselves we were shown to a conference room. This is when I really got scared. The room was huge with an impossibly long conference table surrounded by the most expensive leather chairs money could buy. There were tuxedoed waiters with white gloves bringing crystal glasses for the pitchers of water. There was a stenographer with a real steno machine to take the minutes. The room was already filled with executives and lawyers speaking to each other in low voices and grim expressions. I knew then that I was doomed.
Finally the door opened and the SVP came in. A hush fell over the room. Here was a man that everyone in that room feared and respected. You could feel the power and electricity coming from him as he strode in. He sat directly opposite me. I blinked stupidly as the sweat rolled down my sides. Next to me our salesman was gripping his Mont Blanc pen like a drowning sailor clutches at a piece of driftwood. On my right the SE sat stoically. No matter what happened, he would be safe — unless the company went broke because of this debacle.
The SVP opened the meeting as if it were a legal proceeding, reading a summary of the problem and all the actions taken to date, emphasizing our failure to solve it. As he got into it he became angrier and angrier. He started pounding the table and he got red as he spoke of how much time and money had been wasted and spoke of “fraud” and “malfeasance” and “misrepresentation”. All of this vitriol was directed at me. He was further insulted that our company had the nerve to send me, of all people, not even a VP. Finally he pointed at me and said in a harsh voice, “If you can’t fix this problem today, right now, around town your name isn’t going to be worth squat!”
And then he sat back in his chair. I can still hear the leather creaking. There wasn’t another sound in the room. Every eye was on me now, and what I would say next. I had nothing. I didn’t even have anything in my briefcase to fumble with for time.
And then, without even thinking, I said, “Around town it was well known that when they got home at night their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives”
I couldn’t believe my own ears. I couldn’t believe I had just said that. To my left, our salesman looked at me in horror and tried to pull himself away from me in his chair. The SE had his mouth open. So did all the important lawyers in their suits and suspenders. Even the stenographer looked up from her machine at me. I was well and truly fucked. The SVP wound up to scream at me and I flinched.
Then he stopped.
“Wait a minute,” he said, “I know that line…” “Yes,” I whispered, “It’s from Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album.” He said, “I knew that. You like Pink Floyd?” “Yes,” I said, “It’s my favorite group.” “Mine too,” he said, suddenly smiling and getting up, “I saw the ‘Wall’ concert in LA in 1980. It was fantastic! I even caught one of Gilmour’s guitar picks. I have it framed in my office with the ticket stubs. Come on, I’ll show you!”
And he got up and walked over to the door. I numbly followed. My ears were ringing and I knew I stunk of sweat and fear. The people in the room were dumbstruck. Everyone had their mouths open or were looking at us in absolute amazement. No one said a word.
As we left the room, the SVP smiled and said to the room, “Oh, we’ll give them a few more weeks,” and he waved them off and we went down the hall. The rest of the visit passed in a blur.
The salesman was pounding the wheel and laughing out loud on the trip back to the airport. “We gotta get you a great big steak,” he said, “You know, you can only get away with that once in your career.” The SE didn’t say a thing except, “I like Pink Floyd too.”
When I got back to the office I was the hero of the hour.
The salesman had called and related the story to everyone he could reach, and I was called into a meeting to recount the adventure. Everyone was laughing and slapping me on the back. It felt good to be the hero for once: tomorrow I would once again be the goat, I was sure. Over the next few weeks we had a dramatic breakthrough in Engineering and the problem was solved, the situation resolved, the customer saved. They went on to buy many thousands more modems.
In 2005, in outskirts of Istanbul Turkey, 1500 sheep were grazing in the field. It was early in the day when all the sheep were relaxing in the field eating there breakfast. The shepherd’s were watching the sheep graze, when they noticed one lone sheep break of from the herd and wander off on it’s own.
This didn’t seem out of the ordinary as sheep tend to wander. They watched as the sheep made it’s way to a cliff edge, but before they even realised what was happening the sheep jumped to it’s death. This was obviously devasting for the shepherd’s watching, and they were definitely not preprepared for what happened next.
Suddenly another sheep left the herd and made it’s way to cliff before following the first sheep to it’s doom. This caused another to follow and jump to it’s death causing a domino effect of suicidal sheep.
The Shepherds tried in vain to stop the sheep from jumping, but it was like they were determined to follow their brothers into the unknown. The sheep began piling up at the bottom of the cliff, but as the sheep piled up in a mass of blood, guts and wool they began to cushion the rest of the sheep as they hit the ground.
The whole herd, 1500 in total had jumped, but only 450 perished with the rest being cushioned by the first of the doomed sheep.
THIS IS THE WORLDS ANTHEM! FOR THE PEOPLE! (Reaction) | Oliver Anthony-Rich Men North of Richmond
Absolutely incredible! Oliver Anthony shines light on those hiding in the shadows. Those D’s wanting to C everything we do, while trying to cover up and hide everything they do. THIS is the voice we need!
Many years ago my ex husband and I had our own pottery business.
We sold a lot to members of the British Aristocracy (for some reason it seemed to appeal to them).
We only ever realised who they were when they paid by cheque (credit cards weren’t really a big thing at the time).
We had cheques signed by The Marquis of Bath, The Marchioness of Tavistock, Marquis of Salisbury, Earl Spencer amongst many others.
They were the nicest, most down to earth people that you could wish to meet. All of them were very casually dressed and you would never know that they were aristocracy.
My current husband 🤣 was on guard duty at Windsor Castle during the Falklands conflict. Very early one morning our beautiful late Queen Elizabeth passed him on the way to the stables, no bodyguards or companions. She stopped to talk to him, asking where he was from, about his family. She had no particular need to do so, nothing to prove to anyone.
These people screamed class, without making any sound.
China does not see relationships as being transactional the way the US has;
Russia deserves respect as a sovereign nation which makes its own choices, and if China sold out Russia, it knows that Russia would never trust China again.
It understands that the US always views relationships as transactional, and that it would turn against China when expedient.
Tucker: “We Have Proof Obama was Having Sex With Men, Smoking Crack…”
There is a bunch of pictures of Obama with “a brother”, only before he had the sex change. That’s right. “Michelle is a trans man”.
After a long-running buildup pinpointed by immense expectations all across the Global South, Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (as coined by Belarus President Lukashenko), the BRICS summit in South Africa, on its first day, revealed a “lost in translation” incident that should be taken as a serious warning.
The BRICS Business Forum feed on South African network SABC turned into a BRICS linguistic Babel. The voice of all the translators, simultaneously, was clashing on the feed. Explanations vary from the desire to forge a new Esperanto (not likely); plain incompetence from the sound engineering team; the isolation of the translators in a separate cabin, not warned to turn off their mikes; or last but not least, NSA interference, messing up with the translators’ mic frequencies.
Whatever happened metastasized into a serious impediment for a South African – and international – audience, online, to understand what was being discussed. Even though “lost in translation” would not nullify the BRICS’s ambitious agenda for change, it certainly will be played up to the max by the usual Divide and Rule suspects to boost their already in effect all-round Hybrid War against BRICS.
The Shakespearean de-dollarization drama
Whatever the final concrete results of these potentially game-changing days in Johannesburg – I analyzed the key themes here
– the basic facts are immutable.
China and Russia, as the main drivers, are bent on expanding towards BRICS+ to resist imperial bullying, diplomatic and otherwise; build alternatives to SWIFT; promote economic self-reliance among members and autonomy from the sanctions dementia (which will only increase); and eventually forge an alliance against imperial military threats – with the possibility of BRICS+ merging in the future with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The China factor is arguably the key vector in all these complex, intertwined processes. It’s no wonder that President Xi, in his only second state visit abroad in 2023 (after Russia), will convene a special meeting in Johannesburg with dozens of African heads of state.
by the BRICS summit, with “interest surpassing the G7”. There’s extensive debate on the whole Empire-defying agenda – from de-dollarization to heightened influence in the energy market – and on the China-India divide, with New Delhi often pointed out as a hostile agent inside BRICS.
Sherpas, off the record, as well as diplomats from the current BRICS five (soon to expand) have been extra-cautious to frame the whole debate not on de-dollarization – still a distant prospect – but on alternative trade/payment systems in local currencies.
Yet in his address by videoconference – saluted like a rock star – President Putin was adamant: the de-dollarization process inside BRICS is irreversible.
Yet it’s internal contradictions that stand out when it comes to BRICS+. New Delhi has been extremely cautious – even as sherpas let it be known that the main rules for admission have been agreed upon.
The proverbial Divide and Rule spoilers have been spinning that Beijing wants BRICS+ to be a competitor to the G7. That’s nonsense. Chinese geopolitics is way more sophisticated – and would never present partners with an iron imperative. Beijing wants to solidify its de facto role of geoeconomics leader of the Global South by seducing the maximum number of partners, not intimidating them.
Thus the importance of the China-Africa meeting. South Africa was the first African nation to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Beijing and Pretoria are celebrating 25 years of diplomatic relations. Xi and Ramaphosa will be talking overall African economic integration, in detail, with all those heads of state.
What does India really want?
China’s vision for BRICS+ and especially for Africa is intrinsically linked to BRI, which after all is Beijing’s overarching foreign policy concept for the next few decades.
India, for its part, has other ideas when it comes to configuring itself as a leader of the Global South. Earlier this year, New Delhi hosted a Voice of the Global South Summit, attended by over 100 nations. That might have conformed a sort of informal, multilateral alliance with diverse values but focusing largely on the same aims promoted by BRICS.
If China rolls with BRI, India rolls with a sort of – complementary – counterpart: the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), where it’s one of the main actors alongside Russia and Iran. So here we have a top BRICS member and a putative BRICS+ member: India is very much keen on Iran’s accession.
All of that in fact points towards integration of BRICS, BRI, INSTC and also SCO (Russia, China, India and Iran are all members). Once again, the devil will be in the “lost in translation” details. There’s no categorical imperative stating Chinese and Indian priorities may not converge.
The RICs (Russia, China,India) have also noted that the overwhelming majority of Global South/Global Majority nations did not support – nor adhered to – the collective West wet dream of strategically suppressing Russia. Even though Russia is now the fifth-largest economy in the world by PPP (over $5 trillion) – ahead of imperial European vassals – the Global South’s perception of Moscow is as “one of our own”.
All that adds extra power to the new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) – which has to be courted full-time by the RICs. Global North late “initiatives” such as the American Build Back Better World
Even as China is bound to solidify its prime Global South role especially in Africa after the summit, India counts on a boost as well in its self-designed role as a North-South power. That may be seen as a hedging-your-bets sort of game, as the New Delhi establishment prides itself to be intertwined with the Global North when it comes to strategic goals (Quad? Really?) while remaining a Global South actor.
Well, sooner or later something’s got to give. The Empire tailored its bogus “Indo-Pacific” terminology and strategy specifically to ensnare India. No one across Asia-Pacific has ever referred to the region in terms of “Indo-Pacific”. Yet, in one go, the Empire gets rid of China, the South China Sea and even Southeast Asia to accommodate in a catchy slogan what it regards as a geopolitical neo-colony at best and battering ram against China.
It seems that New Delhi is developing a trend: never live up to its potential when it comes to exercising sovereignty to defy the Hegemon.
Undermining BRICS+ from the inside
Russia’s reach is way more ambitious – ranging from the post-Soviet space across the Heartland to the real Asia-Pacific, West Asia and, much like China, also Africa. All of these players rely on Russian energy, food, chemical fertilisers and a host of commodities. As far as all of them are concerned, there will be no “decoupling” or “de-risking” when it comes to trading with Russia.
In his videoconference address to BRICS, Putin absolutely killed it on the connectivity front – expanding on the INSTC and the Northern Sea Route. Same when it comes to providing free grain to the poorer African nations. He also destroyed the “so-called” grain deal: Moscow would consider coming back, but only if its legitimate demands are met.
In contrast to fast expanding Russian soft power, how could Beijing expand its own – which may be severely lacking in several areas? Setting up Confucius Institutes is not enough; ideally the Chinese should start promoting a string of Global South think tanks, from West Asia to Africa and Latin America, to analyze the ever mounting geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges to the multipolar road.
For the moment, Beijing will turbo-charge institutional forms of South-South interactions, such as the Belt and Road Forum (the next one is in October); the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation; and the China-CELAC forum with Latin American and the Caribbean.
But then again, inside BRICS, it all comes back to China-India. 2023 might become a turning point in their bilateral relations. New Delhi organized the latest SCO summit (unfortunately only online; rumors about internal dissent were never fully disproven). And will preside over the next G20 summit.
And then there’s the toxic external factor: the already ongoing imperial Hybrid War against the BRICS. The usual suspects will go no holds barred to pit Beijing against New Delhi, especially after everything they threw against Moscow miserably failed.
This multi-faceted Hybrid War has been designed to undermine BRICS+ from the inside, especially weaker nodes Brazil and South Africa, and including already mega-sanctioned Iran if it becomes a member. The Empire will go no holds barred to not lose key pivots to Latin American and African hegemony.
As a whole, the RICs – and perhaps soon RIICs – should concentrate their attention on Africa. That doesn’t mean that a host of African nations should be allowed to join BRICS+ literally tomorrow; the question is to be able to help them in several crucial fields as the process of breaking from imperial/neocolonial control is now irreversible.
The Empire never sleeps – at least those who really run the show: Crash Test Dummies impersonating Presidents is another matter. With Taiwan false flag dreams fast waning, all bets are off that the Empire might set up its next big war psyop in Africa.
WHO THE F**K IS THIS GUY?!? Reacting To Oliver Anthony “Rich Men North Of Richmond”
Hungary has vetoed the European Union’s intent to give more money to Ukraine until such time as Ukraine accounts for the 50-70 Billion EUROS already given!
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said today “Of course I won’t give-=in to pressure. Until we get a detailed, clear account of what the approximately 50-70 billion EUROS spent on Ukraine, was spent on, and until the OTP Bank is removed from the list of so-called International Sponsors of the War, there can be no question of making a decision about additional funds to finance armaments, or _anything_ related to Ukraine.”
European Union Chief, Borrell, was literally in tears (pictured below) over the situation.
Borrell had tried to allocate more “Peace Funds” to Zelensky in Ukraine, but had to publicly admit he could not release the next tranche of funds to Kiev “because Hungary said no.”
With European money now halted for Ukraine, it is only a matter of time before the Ukrainians completely collapse.
Another Betrayal Saudi Arabia Dumps US, Backs Up China In The US China Rivalry!
Russia Announces “SARMAT” ICBM’s Now on Combat Duty”
Russia’s Sarmat strategic missile system has been put on combat duty, Yuri Borisov, the head of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said on Friday.
“The Sarmat strategic complex has been put on combat duty,” Borisov said during an educational event.
Russia tested the nuclear-capable Sarmat missile throughout 2022. Last December, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will maintain combat readiness and improve the country’s nuclear triad, which he called the main guarantor of its sovereignty.
The Sarmat system is meant to replace RS-20 Voevoda missile systems. The new missile is capable of striking targets at long ranges using various flight trajectories and is guaranteed to overcome any existing and prospective anti-missile defense systems.
Having the longest range of target engagement, Sarmat is also expected to reinforce the combat capabilities of the Russian strategic nuclear forces. The first test launch of the Sarmat missile was carried out on April 20.
SPECIFICS
The RS-28 Sarmat is a three-stage, liquid-fueled ICBM equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs).
The operational range of RS-28 Sarmat is up to 18,000 km allows it to target almost any location on Earth.
The missile can be armed with 10-15 warheads or a combination of warheads and countermeasures, including dummy warheads to confuse enemy missile defenses.
Additionally, the Sarmat can carry up to two dozen Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles, making it an even more formidable weapon.
Each warhead of the RS-28 Sarmat is estimated to have an explosive power of up to 500 kilotons, equivalent to leveling a major metropolitan area.
The destructive potential of the Sarmat is unparalleled, and it serves as a potent deterrent against any aggression directed towards Russia.
RESPONSE TO U.S. “PROMPT GLOBAL STRIKE”
Russia points out that the Sarmat missile system is Russia’s response to the Prompt Global Strike (PGS) concept developed by Pentagon planners.
PGS proposes preemptive conventional massed cruise missile strikes to disarm an adversary and eliminate its leadership.
This concept, unveiled after the US withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, prompted Moscow to develop advanced weapons, including hypersonic missiles and glide vehicles, and ultimately, the Sarmat.
THIS SONG GOT ME EMOTIONAL! Oliver Anothny-Rich Men North of Richmond | Reaction *SONG OF THE YEAR*
Cheetahs seem ferocious, they’re natural predators; carnivores. They typically stalk their prey, charge towards it, trip it up and bite its throat to suffocate it, you know, to make it nice for the eating.
They’re the fastest land animal, too.
Cheetahs are “instinctively shy” – they’re nervous and shy animals by nature
So, when they’re kept in zoos, their anxiety keeps them from socialising with each other, and most importantly, from procreating. This puts them at a high risk of becoming extinct. (Risk of extinction is why they’re in zoos in the first place – to help get their numbers up.)
For years zoos have been pairing cheetahs with their very own support dogs.
These doggos are raised from very young ages alongside the cheetahs. They live companionably; the cheetahs take their social cues from the dogs, because dogs are very sociable animals by nature.
Cheetahs are so sensitive by nature that almost all of those who are held in captivity suffer from anxiety-related conditions, but dogs make it better, just by being their friends.
“We Have Never Seen Anything Like This” | Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture. Victor discusses current political and social events and ideas, and current and past cultural trends.
Beef Ragout with Grilled Bread
This dish can be made in a slow cooker or the stovetop. Canola oil is used to make both the ragout and grilled bread because of its neutral flavor and heat tolerance. The ragout is served with bread to soak up the hearty and flavorful broth, but it can be served with pasta or polenta instead.
12 slices whole grain Italian bread, sliced on bias, about 1-inch thick each
1 tablespoon canola oil 15 mL
Instructions
In large, nonstick skillet, brown each side of beef roast in canola oil. Place roast in slow cooker.*
Add onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and red wine. Cook on LOW heat for 8 to 9 hours (or on HIGH heat for 4 to 5 hours) until beef is tender and has an internal temperature of 145 degrees F (65 degrees C).
When beef is cooked, shred with a fork.
To prepare grilled bread: Brush bread with canola oil and grill for 1 to 2 minutes on each side, until toasted.
To serve, top ragout with parsley. Serve with grilled bread.
Notes
* If preparing on stovetop, use a large pot (8-quart) and bring ragout ingredients, except parsley, to boil and simmer covered for at least 30 minutes.
In the US, if you go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get your driver’s license, the same thing happens, and US security services and intelligence agencies can access your photos and data.
The same thing happens when you apply for your passport.
Get over it.
Rescue a dying kitten that the owner abandoned it front my clinic the kitten only breathing
Today, while driving, I saw an accident on the road.
A “garbage granny” (one of those old ladies that are in their 90s or so that collect garbage for coins) was “hit” by a truck in the middle of a busy intersection. Now, you all must know that these folk have a reputation of driving and waking in busy highways with the intention of getting hit, and then being awarded free medical care, and financial reimbursement.
Now, this particular granny looked fine. But she just sat there in the road next to her pile of garbage with this expression… “I’m waiting. Come get me and give me my money”.
Meaning; “Everyone knows what is going on, and why I meander in the middle of six lanes of traffic. This driver was the fool that hit me. He will now fund my life, and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it.”
Ah. I shit you not.
China.
Love it, or hate it. But it is 100% unique, that’s fer sure.
The mother left her 1-year-old child in an abandoned house, but after 10 years she returns there and discovers something that makes her cry
Residents of the Russian city of Yaroslavl will never forget an incident that took place more than 10 years ago.
However, it started when a neighbor heard a baby, crying in a nearby house. He didn’t think much about it and continued with the things he had to do that day. But the next day, the baby kept crying.
No neighbor didn’t see anyone in the house where the crying came from, and the lights were never on, not even in the evening.
But at that point, the neighbors started to worry and called the police.
They came and when they entered the house, it was completely empty inside. Those who had lived there had taken everything and disappeared. The only thing they had left behind was their own child!
The one-year-old girl was found on the dirty floor and it was clear she had been there for several days.
An investigation showed that the girl’s name was Liza Verbitskaya, and her parents seemed to have entered the ground, no one could find them.
Liza was taken to hospital, where she recovered in a few days. In the same hospital was a woman, Inna Nika, who was taking care of her sick son, her mother was sitting at his head day and night, but one day she heard a scream from the next room and went to see what it was all about.
She saw Liza and her motherly instincts asked her to protect and take care of her. From that day on, Inna visited Liza daily and brought her clothes, toys, food.
One day, Inna visited the little one and noticed that she was no longer in her hospital room, then found out that she had been taken to an orphanage. She also went to the orphanage to see her, but then it was clear to her that she had to adopt her!
When the adoption documents were completed, Liza was two years old and still had problems with chewing and was traumatized, she could not stand the loud noises. While growing up, Liza had darker skin than her relatives, but now she is beautiful. She became a model and, thanks to her story and modeling career, she became known throughout Russia. People who laughed at the way she looked bit her tongue when they saw her win, as a teenager, more talent contests.
Now that she has become famous, her biological mother tried to contact her but was not allowed. Liza received the woman’s phone number, but she’s still wondering if she wants to meet the one who left her. Our respect goes to Inna, an adoptive mother who turned out to be the hero in the life of this abandoned child, but with such a special destiny!
Well seeing that they’ve built their own bank, for transactions without using the dollar, using concrete, bricks, steel and glass, that looks fairly concrete to me,
It’s certainly big enough for every member to have a representative office in the building, you can see even the building next door is connected. So it’s very big,certainly plenty of concrete,
First Time Reaction to Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home
In this video, TNT reacts to Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go HomeOliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home
What is actually happening in California is actually an interesting case study.
First, the state of California is enormous – close to 40 million people. Most of them are pretty urban, concentrated around the coastal cities (Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego), with a growing number of large and mid-sized suburban and exurban areas (especially spreading east and north of Los Angeles).
For the first time in its history as a state, California lost a US House seat in the 2020 census, and has actually seen a net-net decline in its population. Many of those leaving are middle class people who, despite the plentiful jobs here, find the cost of living too daunting. I live in San Francisco, where the median price of a house recently got close to two million dollars. And for that money, you are not going to get one of the picturesque Victorian homes overlooking Alamo Square. You are going to get (most likely) a 1300–1500 square foot house that was pretty cheaply constructed in the 1940s or 1950s with three small bedrooms and a bathroom, maybe a half bath.
If you have kids, then you are most likely going to have to choose between putting them in a poor to terrible public school or shelling our more for private school (we were lucky – our son scored high enough on the tests to be admitted to Lowell High School, a ‘magnet’ school which is among the best in the state).
It’s a city where a family of four with an annual income of $150,000 qualifies for low income housing. If they can get on the list.
People are not leaving California because of the liberal politics (we could of course argue the role that those politics play in the current situation) or the taxes. They are leaving because the cost to live here – including the ambient and rising crime – is not worth it.
Some (the largest share) are actually leaving the cities for other parts of California – Sacramento, the central valley, the deserts east of LA – where a family that is solidly middle class can still (sort of) afford a traditional, middle class life. Still more are going to Oregon or Washington or Texas. Recently, many more have moved to Florida, to the glee of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
(NB: One of the answers incredibly remarks that Californians are not going to move to “Cleveland or St Louis or other MAGA strongholds,” which of course is true. The comment is laughably wrong because, of course, few Californians are moving to the midwest, because they are moving to places that economically are growing; they are not moving due to politics. And Cleveland and Saint Louis are not “MAGA strongholds.”)
They are not taking “their jobs” with them, mind you. They are taking their tax dollars and the electoral power.
But here is the hidden truth:
this is not really “new.” In fact, for close to 30 years, net domestic migration in the state has been negative.
Net-net, there are more than a million more people who have left California for other states than the other way round. Most are going (as stated) to Texas or Arizona. The outflow of middle income Californians (and Californians with families) has been hidden for two decades by waves of foreign immigration. So despite the gap of (in some years) more than 100,000 people, the state continued to grow.
Due to COVID and other factors (the growing economies of Asia, for example), this is no longer the case.
Without foreign immigration, California is going to see a significant drop in population.
What does it all mean?
First, if trends continue, what we are going to see is growth in the top (many people moving to California are doing so chasing high-end jobs, like AI engineers or medical researchers) and at the bottom (a large number are also low and unskilled workers coming to take entry-level jobs). That is going to make California’s already terribly skewed wealth inequality even worse. There will be more wealthy enclaves that can afford private security, private schools, privately funded infrastructure. There will also be more crowded sub-standard housing, crowded, poorly-performing schools, and deteriorating public infrastructure.
It’s not really too much of an exaggeration to say that the economy in California more and more looks like a third-world country, with a few super wealthy people, a lot of poor people barely hanging on, and a small number of people in the middle who struggle to justify staying here.
With such wealth and capital inequalities, I strongly suspect that the social fabric here is going to fray. The wealthy, insulated from the problems of the poor, will carry on thinking that everything is fine. Crime – especially property crime like car break-ins and home robberies – will grow, but will not really affect the rich and powerful.
The “Hollywood elite” (and other super-wealthy) will be just fine.
The other truth is, life in California is very nice if you can afford it. The weather in the coastal cities is close to perfect. The geography – coastal mountains, beaches, redwood forests – is beautiful. The diversity of people gives us incredible choices in food and culture. The state is home to the UC system (the best public schools in the country) as well as Stanford and CalTech. The knowledge industry is driven out of Silicon Valley, and the entertainment capital of the world is in Southern California.
Originally Answered: What are things you shouldn't do in life?
Don’t abandon someone suddenly after giving them attention. It kills them.
Don’t waste your time by stalking your ex on fb or checking people’s ‘last seen’ on WhatsApp. If they want to talk to you, they will. If they don’t, they won’t, even in a hundred years.
Don’t compare yourself with anyone. You and the rest are so different, that when you realize it, a comparison won’t even be possible.
Don’t ignore your body and health.
Don’t miss out on important engagements – Birthdays, weddings, your child’s first performance, your dad’s retirement party, reunions – its these events that make the fondest memories.
Don’t take things personally. Even if you know its personal, don’t take it personally. Then you win.
Don’t be rude to your parents. Or siblings. When everyone else will run for cover, its your family that will stand with you as you drench in your storm.
Don’t force someone to be in your life. Let them go, if they want to.
Don’t find reasons to be unhappy. It doesn’t pay to be sad. It pays to be joyous.
Don’t underestimate the power of people. Network.
Don’t let anyone make you feel badly about yourself. Always know your good things and your flaws. Accept them. Correct them. Or don’t correct them. But don’t let anyone else capitalize on them.
My fiance suddenly stopped breathing, went into a coma and remained that way for 10 days; after numerous hospital tests we found out there was no blood flow to his brain. We removed his life support and donated his organs.
Since he was only 35 years old when he died, and a former DJ popular in the Chicago and Detroit areas, the funeral home was packed full of people for his wake. One of his childhood friends, we’ll call him “Jack,” was in need of a kidney transplant and VERY sick, and we were able to directly donate his kidney to Jack. Due to the organ donations, autopsy and other things that had to happen prior to the funeral, the wake was scheduled a week after my fiance passed away. During that week Jack received the transplant and was able to make it to the wake.
He stood in front of my fiance’s red casket and spoke of his health issues and how he had given up hope, believing he wouldn’t be around much longer. Now, my fiance had given him another chance at life and Jack would be able to watch his 4-year-old son grow up. Jack’s son was there too, and walked up to him and held his hand during the speech.
I was already an emotional wreck, but through my tears I glanced around long enough to see that there was not a single dry eye in the funeral home at that moment. Though I questioned how I would go on living without my best friend and my lover, Jack provided a ray of sunshine during the wake that day and reminded us all that my fiance would live on in all the people he helped save with his organs.
Awesome Beef Stroganoff
Ingredients
6 cups uncooked egg noodles
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 pounds beef sirloin steak, cut into thin strips
1 package onion or roasted garlic gravy mix for steak
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, quartered
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 (10 ounce) can beef broth
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (for garnish)
Instructions
Cook noodles according to package directions-keep warm.
In a large heavy bottom pot, heat the oil over medium high heat. Add meat and brown.
Sprinkle gravy mix over meat.
Add mushrooms; sauté for 5 minutes.
Stir in tomato paste and broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until thickened, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat, and stir in sour cream.
Top with parsley and serve over hot cooked noodles.
I remember my grandfather telling me the story of buying his first home, and how stressful it was. He was working as a teacher making $2,500 per year, and was trying to figure out how to budget so he could afford to make the payments on the $5,500 house he just bought.
If he had managed to get his hands on $50,000 back then, he probably would have thought he was set for life — a mere 5% return would have matched his annual salary, and he would never have to work another day.
Obviously that plan wouldn’t have worked out — what he made in a year back then is less than most people make in a month today.
Right now, $1 million is about equivalent to what $50,000 was in his day, where a 5% return would put you right at the median income. And, just like in his day, that won’t be enough for someone in their early 20’s to make it to retirement age. In another 50–60 years, one million dollars will be the median household income. Minimum wage will be $200k a year, and it still won’t be enough to support a family.
The only way $1 million will be enough to retire on is if you don’t plan on living that long.
If you think that’s impossible, just remember the story about a how a teacher from Massachusetts once mortgaged a $5,500 house on a $2,500 annual salary — a house that today would fetch about $950,000.
AMERICAN RAPPER REACTS TO -Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond
By “see around them,” I’m literally talking about the people I see here in Chicago. I’m not talking about global poverty or people I don’t literally see with my own eyes.
Compared to the majority of people in my city (Chicago), my family is doing very well for ourselves. Yet there are entire zip codes in this city where practically everyone lives in poverty.
My wealth and their poverty are unrelated. I didn’t steal my wealth from them. I’m not the one failing them. Their political leaders—none of whom I’ve ever supported or voted for—have been failing them for generations now. The concentrated poverty in parts of Chicago is the completely predictable result of political policies enacted by politicians who get almost universal support from those same areas.
There’s been a huge increase in the number of homeless people, beggars, and refugees in the parts of Chicago I travel through on a regular basis. I am actually about to run my Sunday morning errands, and I already know which intersections will have which beggars. I’m not exaggerating when I say that literally every single major intersection (where two two-lane roads meet) has at least one beggar now. Some of one at all four stops at the intersection.
Again, my relative wealth and their poverty are unrelated. The system has failed them. I am not the system.
One intersection near me has a man who begs on the street, while his wife and child sit nearby on the sidewalk. According to his sign, he is a refugee from Guatemala. Assuming he got here via the normal refugee channels, his family has been failed by the governments of at least three countries (Guatemala, Mexico, the USA), two states (Texas and Illinois), and now one city (Chicago). I did not fail this man and his family. Several dozen politicians did. My wealth, or lack of it, would not have changed anything for this man.
I give food to the homeless sometimes. I donate to my church’s food pantry on a regular basis. I never give cash directly to the homeless.
I also have A LOT of money taken from me via taxes which, in theory, should be used to help those in need. The problem is, of course, that, unlike when I give food to the homeless directly, the taxes which are taken from me go through the hands of politicians on its way to help the needy. Shockingly, very little of it ends up helping the needy.
And a lot of the “help” the needy get from the government is designed in such a way as to create dependence on that help. I’m not saying that’s intentional. I’m not saying it’s not intentional, either.
I’m just saying that when I see this:
But I also see scenes like this increasing all around Chicago:
And I think about how much the government takes from me in income, property, and sales taxes every year, I realize pretty quickly that I’m not the problem here. I should feel no shame for my lifestyle.
Taking all of my family’s wealth away wouldn’t help poorer people at all. In fact, it would likely make things worse for them, at least here in Chicago. Chicago needs all of the upper-middle class taxpayers it can get. The single worst thing that can happen to a city is for it to lose most of its wealthiest citizens.
Just ask the citizen of, say, Gary, Indiana, or Detroit how well that worked out for them, when anyone who could afford to leave town did so.
If the house was occupied illegally, the police will come and remove the occupants.
If the house rightfully belongs to a citizen and the citizen refuses to move, the City just builds the highway around the house.
This house went viral last year. The highway was located in Zhuhai in Guangdong province. It seems the government had offered the owner 8 million RMB (around 1.4 million USD) to move. The owner refused. Rumor had it the owner thought the government would give him 10 million. But the moving cost has actually exceeded the cost of the (section of the) highway itself. So the designers revised the design to build the highway around this house.
It seems that the owner had eventually moved out of this house to a government-provided location. But the highway was already built.
My First time hearing Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond
Chinese mainland suspends mango imports from Taiwan
The Chinese mainland has decided to suspend the entry of mangoes from Taiwan starting Monday, according to a mainland spokesperson.
In accordance with relevant laws, regulations and standards on the mainland, the decision by the General Administration of Customs was taken as a scientific and reasonable biosecurity precaution, said Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council on Monday.
The mainland had informed the Taiwan side of the decision, Zhu said, adding that Taiwan is urged to further improve its phytosanitary quarantine management system.
Since 2023, customs authorities on the mainland have detected Planococcus minor, a quarantine pest, in mangoes from Taiwan. This pest could pose a serious threat to agricultural production and ecological security on the mainland.
This is Cobalt-60, the most emissive radioactive isotope currently known. As far as I know, it’s also the only one with a label that says “Drop and Run.” It’s used to sterilize medical equipment and can quite easily sterilize you within just a minute or 2 if you held it in your hand.
There is a stand-up sketch by Ricky Gervais, in which he overhears two morbidly obese American women sitting in a plane. One of them is eating a bucket of KFC chicken, and tells the other:
“This is the best chicken I had all day.”
We just spent some time in the US, and on one of the last days, we grabbed a movie in a dine-in movie theatre in Las Vegas. (The Meg 2 — don’t ask.) When a waitress came to take our order, we asked for the smallest size of popcorn they had. She had a hard time understanding the question (“why order the smallest size ?”).
She kindly explained that they only had one size, and that was a bucket.
With the three of us, we managed to eat about a quarter of the bucket, but we saw other people finish an entire bucket on their own.
I think this is one of the main reasons of America’s obesity problem: Americans eat by the buckets. In many restaurants, the portions of the food are so grossly exaggerated that it is hardly a mystery why so many Americans are (morbidly) obese. Same for soda drinks and the like.
And besides that, American food is in general much less healthier than your average European or Asian food, due to less strict food regulations and the enormous amounts of added sugar in virtually everything.
Add to that the fact that Americans stopped walking altogether (so to speak), and that more and more, the obesity pandemic is embraced instead of fought. In the places I have lived in mainland Europe, I have never seen a morbidly obese person ride around in a trolley (such as in the picture), but you see them on a daily basis in the US.
Instead of actively losing some weight, such people simply step into a trolley because walking has become too hard. The woman in the image is twenty-three, by the way.
So there you have it: Buckets, Trolleys and Sugar.
The problem is BTS.
For the People! Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond- Reaction
China hopes to do so, China is trying to do so, but it’s no longer an easy task for China to do so now.
There is an old Chinese saying, 树欲静而风不止, which means “the trees may prefer calm but the wind will not subside”, or “the trees long for peace but the wind will never cease”.
Just like the picture I took in the Summer Palace in a windy day, if the wind is too strong, how could the tree stay calm? Just impossible.
The smear campaigns initiated by the US and followed by some other Westeren nations, are the wind, getting stronger recently as Joe Biden has indeed rallied them once again.
China is the tree. Its roots are still stable in the soil, its major branches are still steadfast, but it really can’t hold all its smaller branches and leaves still. And sometimes, it has to even sacrifice some of its smaller branches and leaves if the winds are way too strong and turn into storms.
But, as long as the roots and main branches are still healthy, strong and steadfast, new branches will sprout out next year!
My grandma passed in 2022, my father had passed in 2020. In her will she had it to where my 2 brothers and I inherited my dad’s 3rd. We were also to be included in any decisions on her property. My 2 uncles thought since they were co executors that everything was now theirs and they didn’t have to say anything to us. They gave away and took a lot of her belongings before I found out. I went to a lawyer and told him what was going on. I then called my uncles and told them they HAD to include us. They said “well, our lawyer says we don’t have to.” I called their lawyer and told him what they said. He immediately went and called them and said they were wrong. My 1 uncle gave his stepchildren first dibs over us and any of the actual grandchildren. The stepchildren who wanted NOTHING to do with my grandma or our family got first dibs. Then they tried to auction off my grandma’s house and 200 acres without telling us. I found out and called lawyers, everyone knew I wanted the house and 10 acres. They were trying to sell it behind my back. Grandma did not have any debt. So they were just being stupid. In the end, they were granted to sell 190 acres. We bought the house. 114 years of family history in this house. I have not heard an apology from any of them. Our trust in them was broken. At this time, they are not allowed at my house.
A man in China has been using a club as a nutcracker for 25 years, until he realised what it was actually used for. A man living in the Shaanxi Province in China was given a gift by a friend and for 25 years he didn’t know what it was.
The mans favourite treat was Wallnuts and the gift was perfect for cracking open the shells. He figured his friend know off his love for nuts so gifted him a club to crack them open, and for 25 years he used the club thinking that’s what it was intended for.
It wasn’t until he seen the nutcracker on a Government flyer identifying dangerous, prohibited explosives when he realised the club wasn’t in fact a nutcracker, but a Chinese type 67 hand grenade. The grenade which was a nicknamed the Potato masher, was invented by the German Army during World War 1.
The hand grenade had a explosive device at the top with a pulling string running through it to a cap at the bottom. Pulling the string lights the fuse before being thrown at the enemy, but in this case it was used as a nut cracker for a quarter of a century.
The Man Who Discovered a Lost Ancient City In His Basement
A man from Derinkuyu, in the Nevsehir province of Turkey was renovating his basement. Using only a sledgehammer, he broke through one of his walls; and felt cool air coming in from the other side. Inside he found a small room-sized cave. This area of Turkey has complex cave systems so he thought he accidentally stumbled into one. He didn’t. That first small room — was only the beginning.
I was 17 years old. I was driving drunk, with five other kids in my car. It was 1970. We had bought two cases of beer (illegally, of course) and it was pretty much all gone. It was about 1 AM.
We came to the main intersection in the small city nearest to where I lived. There wasn’t a single car in sight. Oddly, there was a cop in the intersection, presumably directing whatever traffic there was. Perhaps the stoplight was not working; I have no recollection.
I stopped at the light (working or not). At which point my friend Ralph, who was 15, leaned out the back seat window, yelled out “Fucking cop,” and threw an empty beer bottle at the policeman. It landed at his feet, where it smashed into pieces.
The policeman calmly walked over to our car, at which point Ralph started yelling “I didn’t do it,” which was rather obviously a lie. The policeman had me pull over. He told all of us to get out of the car. As he did this, one of the passengers, Denise, started explaining to him that she was from another planet. The cop ignored her. He told us to take all the beer bottles out of the car and place them on the hood of the car. When we ran out of room there, we put them on the roof. There were 46 empty bottles and one full one. Ralph asked if he could please drink the full one. The cop said no. Then he had us take them all to a nearby garbage can and dispose of them.
Then came the truly amazing part. He talked to us. For about five minutes. He explained that when he was our age, he also did stupid things. But he never drove drunk. He explained how dangerous that was. He did not tell us to swear we would never drive drunk. He simply told us that he was going to let us go. He did not even say how much trouble we could be in for underage drinking and drunk driving. He did not have to.
Finally he asked if there was anyone among us who was sober and had a driver’s license. My older brother did. He had us get back in the car, handed my brother the keys (which he had taken away when he first stopped us), and told my brother to take us home.
And that was all.
Even then, I realized the officer was an exceptional cop. He gave us a second chance when he could have ruined our lives. I never properly thanked him. So if, by some miracle, Officer Roger Strickland of the Freehold, New Jersey police force is still out there—thank you from the bottom of my heart. I think you would be proud of how my brother and I ended up (I have not seen any of the others in my car that night for over 50 years). All the best to one of the best.
Bacon-Wrapped Filet Steaks Topped with Roasted Garlic Butter
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
12 large garlic cloves, peeled
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
Kosher salt
3 1/2 teaspoons chopped chives
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
4 (6 to 7 ounce) filet steaks, about 1 inch thick
4 very thin slices of lean bacon
6 inch wooden skewers or toothpicks, soaked in water for 10 minutes and patted dry
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Place peeled garlic and olive oil in 1-cup, ovenproof ramekin, soufflé dish or custard cup. Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil and place in oven. Roast on center rack until garlic is golden and very tender and soft when pierced with knife, about 30 minutes (start checking cloves after 20 minutes and then every 5 minutes until done).
With slotted spoon, remove garlic from bowl and reserve oil. Place garlic, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the reserved oil, butter and 1/8 teaspoon salt in food processor or blender and process, pulsing machine on and off for 30 seconds or less until garlic is coarsely chopped and blended with butter and oil. Transfer garlic butter to small bowl and stir in 2 teaspoons of the chives. (Garlic butter can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature 30 minutes before ready to use.)
When ready to cook steaks, oil a grill rack and prepare grill.
In small bowl, stir together 1 teaspoon kosher salt, coarsely ground black pepper and thyme. Rub both sides of each filet with some of this seasoning. Then wrap each steak around its sides with 1 slice of bacon. Skewer bacon in place with wooden skewer or with 2 to 3 wooden picks.
Grill steaks until lightly charred on the outside and until bacon is cooked, about 5 minutes per side for medium-rare.
When done, remove steaks from fire and place on warm serving plate. Remove toothpicks.
Top each steak with 1 generous pat of roasted garlic butter and sprinkle with some of remaining chives. Butter will start to melt and season the steaks.
I am from India and recently visited China. In india we use to blame the population for all our problems. But China had no issues of it. Atleast not in its urban areas. The people there respected rules and have high value about their culture. They take care of their health and have a proper diet. I don’t know what you mean by uncivilized. But if there are uncivilized Chinese I am sure it’s because they are exposed to western culture and those who embraced west including Indians are certainly uncivilized.
OLIVER WHAT THE F**K!!!!! | First Time Reacting To Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond!
I put in an order for tools for work. The order was for myself and two coworkers. Hundreds of dollars worth of tools, including getting one of our newbies set up with good kit so he didn’t have to scrounge for tools like myself and the other senior tech.
Toolup split the order into two shipments, which is fine I guess. The first package arrive with one wire stripper and one screwdriver. For weeks the other shipment showed “in processing”. Finally I called asking where the hell my tools were. They had no idea. After several days of calls they figured out that six weeks prior the shipper had been unable to locate a fucking Air Force base and sent the order back. Toolup refunded the purchase, but made absolutely zero meaningful contact with me about it. I’d been deluged with promotional crap, but I double checked. The last contact I had about my order was “in processing”. This meant that I missed the purchase window and funding got pulled so I can’t reorder my tools for at least a year.
So in the end they literally tripled the amount of paperwork I had to do by forcing me to amend all my prior paperwork and also process the return credit, and I still don’t have my fucking tools because they utterly failed to do any sort of meaningful follow up communication.
Personally or professionally I’m never doing business with them again.
My ex boyfriend and I dated for three years through college. He had been abusive, emotionally, physically and sexually. We had broken up many times. We finally broke up for the final time when he punched me and the RA had found out and told the college officials. It was his last year of college. I was brought into the deans office. It was up to me if he should be kicked out of college. This was a private college and in the early 90’s.
I told them not to kick him out of college. I knew if I had, he would have killed me. He graduated. One morning I woke up to find that someone had broken into my house, and my earrings that he had given to me were gone. Nothing else was touched. Then the phone calls started. Mind you he had supposedly left town to move back with his parents until he left for grad school. “Hey, I liked that flowery dress you were wearing last night.” Yes, I was wearing a flowery dress the night before. Or .”I can see you wherever you are at all times of the day.” Or “ I am sorry to hear about your cat.” Wait, what?? Only to find out my cat at my parents house was missing. And never found.
I started dating someone else. Then it was, “please tell ____ that I know all about him, and I am watching.”. We found out from friends that he would be coming to the area to fly out of LAX to go to grad school at Harvard. By this time the police had been notified of everything that had happened, and they told me that bc he hadn’t harmed me physically, there was nothing I could do, but it would be a good time to get out of town for the weekend. This is how I met my new boyfriends family. I was in hiding. They lived in Northern California.
We came back to school. The phone calls stopped and then the letters started. The anger, was now put into writing. How dare I hide away from him .He went out and bought a gun and he was looking for away to use it, etc..
I started to work as a nanny that fall. One time as I was getting the kids ready for school on a Monday, the kids went outside to wait so I could walk them to school, I had to get something for the baby inside. I came outside and as we were all walking to school the little girl who was in the 4th grade said, oh your friend says hi. I was like what friend, who knows I work here. I said oh, did this person have a name, no, he just said a friend. I immediately went into that place of panic. I kept my cool, and I asked what he looked like, and yes it was him, he had found me.
Not a lot happened to me after that. I did find out that he had gotten kicked out of grad school for raping someone, and he had been fired from a few jobs. Karma?
Oliver Anthony Rich Men North of Richmond Reaction Video
Not only one time, but every time all of my children are over for a family get together. I don’t consider myself dumb, I graduated high school with honors, I have worked hard all of my life so far, was taught to use common sense by my parents and married a wonderful, smart, and hard-working lady, and we have four children. As they grew up and progressed through school, they have each chosen their own path.
Our oldest son is an I.T. computer “nurd” and works from his home running the I.T. help line for a division of Sony helping any embedded I.T. techs solve problems they cannot solve themselves.
Our oldest daughter just received her Doctorate in Nuro-psychology from Yale University and is proving to be an innovator in the field with her front-line work to advance innovations in Alzheimer’s research.
The youngest Son is a 2018 honors graduate from The United States Military Academy at West Point, Captain, and Company Commander, in the U.S. Army, Working on his master’s degree in military history.
Any our youngest daughter just graduated with honors with a degree in teaching drama and starts her first teaching position next week.
All four are extremely intelligent and found vastly different careers, and when they are together the conversations are so far above my head I can only sit there and smile.
I smile because I look around and think to myself “How in the world did I get so lucky?” And then I realize “it is all thanks to my wife, and God.”
A few months ago I was in the Liaoning province in northeastern China. We met the CEO of a smart city there who was offering us rent-free premises for 3 years, a low interest loan [2%] and cheap electricity if we choose to build our robots there.
Chinese governments really believe that industrialization is crucial to mass employment and need to woo not just large companies but SMEs too.
In contrast, Indian general public attitude towards industrialization is often poisonous. The bureaucrats are too slow to move, the politicians often careless and the common public think “industrialists” make a lot of profits, who just needs to be taxed high.
It is far harder to start a factory in India and the interest rates are substantially high. Land prices near major cities are through the roof and the infrastructure abysmal. Thus, industrialists are not able to fully tap into India’s lower wages.
Indians often moan about the low rate of innovation in India. We moan that very few things are made in India. To really make in India, the society has to put industrialization at the highest priority. It cannot be seen as lower priority compared to agriculture and other sectors.
WHAT IN SOULFUL PAIN IS THIS?! (ADHD Reaction) | OLIVER ANTHONY – RICH MEN NORTH OF RICHMOND
I loved him dearly, and he was a good cat. I will tell you that we had him for perhaps four years when he started having problems, and so we took him to the vet.
It turned out that he had Feline AIDS, and Feline FIV, and was very contagious. Our vet recommended that we put him down so as not to contaminate the rest of the cats in the neighborhood. So we resigned ourselves to keeping him in our home and isolated.
But over time, he started to behave aggressively and strangely. Like peeing over everything.
And he kept on breaking out of the house…
Eventually, we got him, and took him to the vet and “put him down”.
I was there, and from the moment the needle was inserted he knew what was going on; and he hated me for it. I could feel his spirit attacking me, clawing at me. Biting me, and hissing at me.
This went on for hours before it finally dissipated.
I hated it.
I hated everything from having to put him down, to the fact that he was sick, to the hate being directed towards me. It was a grim time.
Two days later, I had to fly out for a job interview.
While I was sitting on the flight, Scooby came to me (in spirit form, of course) and curled up in my lap. He forgave me. And was giving me love. He lay there in my lap for the three hour flight, and then disappeared.
I do miss that lanky old cat.
He was a good little guy.
…
Nothing lasts forever. I look forward to seeing him again “on the other side”.
Flying back from Mallorca on Jet2, the pilot said on the intercom:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re ready early and we’ve made it with plenty of time for our departure slot. The bad news is that unfortunately it seems the Spanish air traffic controllers have decided to walk out in solidarity with striking French controllers so we currently have a 2 hour wait. However, to ease the boredom, I’ll step out of the cockpit and you can all come up, sit in the pilot’s chair and be shown around by the first officer who’ll answer any questions you have”
The second I saw him come out of the cockpit I sprang out of my seat to get to the front of the inevitable queue and had a good chat with the FO while sitting in the seat. My impressions were that the cockpit of a 737–800 is a lot smaller than you’d think and that the seats are pretty difficult to move.
After 90 mins the pilot is on the intercom again:
“Folks, unfortunately we’ve been told we have another 2 hours, 45 minutes wait (huge groans from the cabin) Only joking, we’ve got to get going quickly so back to your seats and buckle up soon as you can! (cheers from cabin)”
The pilot landed pretty hard in Birmingham and 10 seconds after reducing reverse thrust was back on the intercom:
“I’ve just been informed that my landing was a bit on the hard side. I don’t know what the fuss is about, it seemed fine to me. But apologies to anyone with loose fillings”
Decades ago, I received a past-due notice for a loan payment to a bank I’d never done business with. Puzzled, I called the bank. After explaining my confusion three times, I finally was talking with someone who had sense enough to look into it instead of fobbing me off to someone else.
“Did you make a purchase from Such-and-such Music Store?” Indeed, I’d purchased a piano for my wife a month or so earlier. (Might’ve been nice if the salesman had mentioned they’d turn the loan over to a third party, but whatever.)
I then asked the bank worker how the *very first* communication I’d received from the bank could be a past-due notice.
“You should have received a payment coupon book,” she said. (As indicated, this was ages ago.)
“I’ve received nothing from you till this,” I replied.
And then, to my everlasting amazement, she said, “I know. The printing company we use had an equipment breakdown and the coupon books haven’t gone out for a while.”
That “I know” blew me away. The bank *knew* their customers weren’t being told when their payments would be due, and how much they would be—and, in cases such as mine, didn’t even know their loan had been sold to that bank—and instead of notifying people, they just sent out overdue notices.
With a late fee attached, of course.
So I told the nice lady that I’d be happy to make the payment, but I would not stand for a late charge.
Now it was her turn to be puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t late—*you* were!”
In the end, she had to have a VP call me later, and after I went over it all again, he agreed it was kinda dumb for them to send late notices to people who didn’t even know they had a loan with that bank, he waived the late fee.
That only took half of my day.
U.S And Europe in Trouble As China Rush Into Legacy Chips!
In 2007, Jennifer Strange entered a competition to win a “Wii. console.” The competition was run by local radio station in Rancho Cordova, in California, and was called “Hold Your Wee for a Wii.”
The challenge was a group of participants had to drink as much water as you can, and who ever could hold their wee the longest would win the Wii console.
Jennifer strange drank more than one and half gallons of water in just three hours, but still only managed to come second in the competition. One of Jennifer’s co-workers who was driving her home after the competition, said she started to complain about a sever headache, which became so bad she started crying.
A few hours after the competition Jennifer Strange was found dead in her room, with the cause of death ruled as “Acute Water Intoxication.”
Her parents sued the radio station and they were found liable for her death, and the parents were awarded 16 million dollars in compensation.
China Scientists Tease the US as They Found a Weak Spot in US “Undetectable Submarines”!
South Korea To Run “NUCLEAR ATTACK” Evacuation Drill August 23
The entire country of South Korea will stage a NUCLEAR ATTACK EVACUATION DRILL on August 23. Fifty-one Million (51,000,000) citizens are REQUIRED to participate to practice evacuating to shelters or underground safe spaces during the 20-minute exercise.
The drill, scheduled for 2:00 PM on Wednesday, August 23, will see many drivers required to pull over to the side of roads and the exits to subway stations closed with commuters required to remain inside, a statement from the South Korean Interior Ministry said.
“We expect to strengthen the response capacity of the nation through a practical drill reflecting the aspects of provocations of North Korea,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said in a news release this week.
The release said the 20-minute drill is part of a larger exercise to test the South Korean government’s response to potential threats including “advanced nuclear missile threats, cyber attacks, drone terrors, etc.”
The prime minister also called on South Koreans to take the drills seriously, something that hasn’t always been the case.
The Interior Ministry said 17,000 shelters would be open nationwide, and locations are searchable in popular Korean online apps.
The South Korean prime minister said the civil defense drill would be held in conjunction with large-scale US-South Korea military exercises that have drawn sharp criticism from Pyongyang in the past.
It will also come less than a week after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol travels to the United States for a trilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, where “the continued threat posed by” North Korea will be on the agenda, according to a White House statement.
Hal Turner Opinion
HMMMMM. Having a nuclear evacuation “drill” of 51 Million people into 17,000 shelters at THE SAME TIME as a large-scale US-South Korea military “exercise???????????”
Gee, it occurs to me that maybe that military “exercise” isn’t an “exercise” at all. What if they first-strike North Korea?
With 51 Million South Koreans already inside Shelters, and US-South Korean Troops already on-station and fully armed – seems to me it would be a perfect opportunity for the US to first-strike North Korea.
What better conditions would exist than the ones described above?
Easy Sloppy Joe Pot Pie
All the great taste of classic sloppy joes in an easy one-skillet pot pie. No one will miss the buns!
Prep: 5 min | Bake: 40 min | Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can original sloppy joe sauce
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup Original Bisquick® mix
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Cook beef and onion in ovenproof 10-inch skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain.
Stir in sloppy joe sauce.
Sprinkle with cheese.
Stir remaining ingredients until blended. Pour over beef mixture.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Notes
Special Touch: Before baking, sprinkle with a tablespoon of sesame seed.
Woman Dies And Is Shown The Year 2042 And Beyond | Near Death Experience | NDE
U.S. Sanctions Syrian ‘Moderate Rebels’ It Had Previously Armed
In 2013 the CIA was handing out TOW anti-tank missiles to ‘moderate rebel’ groups who were fighting the government in Syria. These groups were allegedly ‘vetted’ before they receive money and weapons. Unfortunately ‘vetting’ was something the CIA had never been good at.
Hamza Division (Forqat al-Hamza – فرقة الحمزة): An FSA-banner group composed of six substituent brigades that operate mostly in the environs of Inkhil, Daraa. The Hamza Division has received TOW ATGMs and it works under the supervision of the Daraa Military Council. They receives foreign support from Western and Arab state backers and are a member of the Southern Front coalition. The Southern Front has stated their commitment to a civil state, and have released a comprehensive political program in support of democratic reform. The Division came together with the Syria Revolutionaries Front and the 1st Artillery Regiment to create the 1st Army, which later disbanded. The Hamza Division continues using the 1st Army imagery alongside its own while the other former substituents do not. Social Media:YouTube;YouTube (older channel)
Do you remember when the #US spent $500 million to train/arm Al-Hamza Division?
Well the US-trained “Moderate rebels” are fighting – under a NATO flagged country (#Turkey) – the US-trained Kurdish YPG in the area occupied by the #US.
I’ll make it even easier: A few minutes ago, #US Prsdt @realDonaldTrump said the “PKK is far more dangerous than #ISIS (The Islamic State)”.
The US trained & armed Syrian Kurds proxies, the YPG, are the Syrian branch of the PKK that Trump considers far more dangerous than ISIS.
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating two Syria-based armed militias and three members of the groups’ leadership structures in connection with serious human rights abuses against those residing in the Afrin region of northern Syria. An auto sales company owned by the leader of one of the armed groups is also being designated. … The Hamza Division, another armed opposition group operating in northern Syria, has been involved in abductions, theft of property, and torture. The division also operates detention facilities in which it houses those it has abducted for extended periods of time. During their imprisonment, victims are held for ransom, often suffering sexual abuse at the hands of Hamza Division fighters.
The Suleiman Shah Brigade and the Hamza Division are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13894 for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged in, the commission of serious human rights abuses against the Syrian people. … Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr is the leader of the Hamza Division and its public face, appearing in numerous propaganda videos produced by the Hamza Division. While Abu Bakr has been commander, the Hamza Division has been accused of brutal repression of the local population, including kidnapping Kurdish women and severely abusing prisoners, at times leading to their death.
Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13894 for acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Hamza Division.
The AP report about the new sanctions does not mention any Pentagon or CIA support the groups had previously received.
One wonders how long it will take until the U.S. will sanction the fascists militia it has and is now arming and sponsoring in Ukraine.
Posted by b on August 18, 2023 at 15:36 UTC | Permalink
Well Ladies, Men Have Gotten The Message…Enjoy Your Cats!
Confessions of a 57-Year-Old Virgin
August 16, 2023
I’m a 57 year old man, about three years away from whatever the grandmaster of all the wizards are. I’ve never hugged a woman before (beside female relatives), never dated anyone before, no one at all. And then obviously that means that I never had my first kiss and I’m still a virgin.
Now, if I were to sit here and tell some random stranger on the street about my current life predicament, I would be laughed at until the end of time.
That brings me to my first point of advice. Ignore all of that crap. It’s worthless to feel like shit, for what? Because life didn’t come as anticipated. It can be harsh, but it’s not entirely over.
Which brings me to my second point of advice. Get out any way that you possibly can, I cannot stress this enough!
Up until the age of around 52, I never went out. I was a complete loner. One day, I decided enough was enough and I finally got off my ass and made something worth living for.
I began engraining myself into work dynamics and friendships. (By the way, get a job if you dont have one). I made it my personal goal to make friends any way that I could.
Eventually I had my first solid group of friends in roughly 45 years, yes you heard that number right.
The results? I currently do fantasy league with them once a week, as well as a cards night. Every couple of weeks we meet up at a bar, and I’m telling you it all came about from not giving up and striving to make something of my life.
Also, I keep up with hobbies such as working on used cars in my past time, so that’s another thing to keep in mind. I’m going to guess most people aren’t as old as me, maybe a majority are in their late teens to early 30s.
If you are in this range, even mid 30s, you still have a shot to not only make good friends like I did being the bum that I was, but also to get a date. Especially if you are a teen, that won’t be a problem in the slightest.
I’m saying this because doing what I’m doing at 57 is far more valuable during the younger years.
I know now that if I would’ve started this train of thought, I probably could’ve picked a date or two at least by now. That ship has sailed for me. Don’t worry though, I got over my self pity at 45 and my libido has dropped, so good friends, my dog, and beer, is what I make of life now.
Finally, good luck out there guys and ladies and don’t put yourself down. Strive to bring self-worth and meaning to your life!
BRICS Bank Just Dropped A Huge Bombshell | Stuns Everyone With This Move
What Is Self Discipline And How To Build More Of It
August 15, 2023
Self-discipline means that you do the things that you know are right or beneficial, even if they’re difficult. But what does that really mean? What does that actually look like?
People often associate self-discipline with diet and exercise, but it goes beyond that. Yes, staying active and eating clean in our current culture takes discipline, but being a self-disciplined person goes way beyond that.
When you build self-discipline, you’ll find it reaching into all areas of your life: your career, your relationships, your goals, your attitude, your self-talk, your mindset. Self-discipline becomes a part of who you are and impacts every single decision that you make each day. Disciplined people start to prioritize their future selves out of habit.
Discipline means having the ability to hold back those damaging words that you want to say during a disagreement. It’s being honest with yourself, looking at your weaknesses and assessing them so that you can improve. It’s sticking to commitments that you’ve made, both to other people and to yourself.
Self-discipline is a skill!
I cannot tell you the number of times that people have said things like, “I wish I could do what you do,” or “I wish I was as disciplined as you are,” to me, and it frustrates me every single time.
I know that it’s easy to tell ourselves that we aren’t capable of the things that other people accomplish. When we decide that we just aren’t capable of working out five times per week or starting a business or building a happy and stable relationship, we give ourselves an out.
By deciding that disciplined people are somehow different from you, you have what seems like a valid excuse for why you haven’t done all of those things that disciplined people do. You’ve convinced yourself that you just aren’t capable of it so it’s okay that you haven’t done it.
But that’s not true.
You are capable.
You are stronger than you realize.
And I know this because I know that self-discipline is a skill. I haven’t always been a disciplined person. I, too, have spent 14 hours a day sleeping, eaten whatever I felt like eating, procrastinated on my homework until the absolute last second, and gone months without getting any real physical activity.
Then, I decided to build self-discipline. And just like building any other skill, it took practice. I made mistakes, I faced setbacks, I struggled, and sometimes I fell off the wagon—in fact, I still do all of these things. Discipline is a skill that I am still building because—just like any other skill—there is always more to learn. You can always continue to improve.
You can become a disciplined person.
If you’re reading this blog, I’m sure there are a lot of things that you want to do, but you haven’t done them yet, and you likely aren’t working toward them consistently, or even at all.
You might want to start a business, go to school, improve your grades, get in better shape, learn to play an instrument, work on your mental health, write a book, etc. You have things in mind that you would like to do.
These things haven’t happened for one reason: lack of self-discipline.
Self-discipline is the skill that lets you build every other skill.
When you build self-discipline, you become the kind of person who does all of those things that you’ve always wanted to do.
A little later in this article, I’ll give you some advice on how to start building self-discipline, but for now, sit with everything I’ve just said. Start to consider that you are much more similar to me than you might realize. You are 100% capable of the things that you want to do and the only thing standing in your way is a lack of discipline. You can build that discipline.
How does self-discipline improve my life?
You already know that eating healthy, starting your homework early, going to bed on time, exercising regularly, managing your time, and meditating will improve your life. But as most people already know, doing all of these things, and doing them regularly, is difficult.
If you try to rely on motivation to do these things, you’re never going to do them because most of the time, most people don’t feel like doing these things.
You’d rather do what’s easy and enjoyable. You’d rather sleep in, eat fatty, sugary foods, and have a lazy, fun, easy life.
But that lazy, fun, easy life is only fun at first. Soon, you’ll start to face consequences. You’ll be tired all the time. You’ll see others reaching their goals and realize you haven’t accomplished anything in months. Your mental and physical health nose-dive.
What started out as fun and easy soon becomes miserable.
Those things that disciplined people do—exercising, planning, goal setting, thinking ahead—those things benefit your future self. And one day, you’re going to be your future self. The actions that you take now directly impact the life that you will get to live one day.
So how does self-discipline improve your life? Well, if you have the discipline now to save money, eat clean, exercise, work toward a career that you love, build healthy relationships, and create systems and routines that benefit you and your mental and physical health, one day, all of those things will pay off.
One day, you will be happy and healthy. You’ll be in a positive place living a life that you enjoy waking up to.
And I know this because I’ve done it. I’ve been putting in the work for long enough that I’m living and enjoying a life that I built intentionally. And I’m continuing to put in work that will improve my life so that it only goes up from here.
Self-discipline directly translates to living a life that you love. Self-discipline brings stable, long-term happiness.
Why is self-discipline important?
This is something that I’ve touched on before and is probably fairly apparent already from the previous section of this post. Self-discipline is important because motivation is fleeting and unreliable.
To get where you want to go, you need to complete a set of tasks, and either you want to do those tasks or you don’t. I doubt anybody would argue that those statements are untrue.
If you want to do those tasks, that’s motivation. In those moments, it’s easy to find the time and energy to do what needs to be done.
If you don’t want to do those tasks, and you’re trying to rely on motivation to get them done, the chance that those tasks will ever be completed is low. You likely know from experience that it’s hard to drum up motivation when you need it.
Discipline, on the other hand, is reliable. When you have self-discipline, it doesn’t matter if you want to put in the work. Disciplined people do what needs to be done regardless of how they’re feeling.
Many of us fall into the habit of doing what’s easy rather than doing what needs to be done. When you have discipline, you can do what needs to be done. When you can do what needs to be done, you reach your goals. If your goals are important to you, then self-discipline should be as well.
How to build self-discipline
Self-discipline is an odd beast to tackle. It’s simple, yet it’s not. And because it isn’t something that you can build outside of the context of your everyday life, becoming more disciplined inherently involves changing your life.
Begin by figuring out a direction. Start considering what actions that you currently do that you’d like to quit and what things that you don’t currently do that you’d like to do habitually.
Realize that building discipline is necessary to change your life and that the act of building discipline is what changes your life. The two things are inseparable. If you aren’t ready to change your life and don’t have a direction you want to go, you aren’t in a place to start becoming more disciplined.
Recommended Reading: The 5-4-3-2-1 Method for Setting and Getting to Your Goals
Self-discipline doesn’t look the same for everyone, and it doesn’t look the same day-to-day. What gets you moving one day might not work the next. Learn and grow with it so that you build an arsenal of strategies to use when you need them, and don’t beat yourself up if you have a bad day or five. It’s normal to struggle sometimes.
At its core, self-discipline means taking action.
Your aim throughout this process is to practice quickly making the decision that you know is right and then acting on that decision.
Rather than debating whether or not to go to the gym, then eventually deciding two hours later that it’s the right choice, then sitting on the couch for another 45 minutes before putting on your sneakers, discipline means deciding to go to the gym the moment it crosses your mind and then heading out the door.
That is your eventual goal. That is what you’re working toward. Some days, you’ll have no problem doing that. Other days, it will be a battle. The more you practice deciding quickly and taking prompt action, the better you’ll get at it. This is how you build discipline.
Let’s be clear: if you aren’t acting, you are not building discipline. Reading this blog post is a decent first step, but if your actions don’t change because of it, you have made exactly zero progress in the self-discipline department.
Practice taking action.
Practice doing small actions even when you don’t want to do them. This is probably the best way that I know of to build discipline. You don’t want to hang your coat up when you come home? Too bad. Do it. Don’t think about it, just do it.
You don’t want to do the dishes? Too bad. Do it. You don’t want to write that paper? Too bad. Get started.
I know that it sounds harsh, but when you start with small steps and work up to bigger tasks, it becomes easier to act despite your feelings. Practice ignoring your desire to avoid action.
Now, I’ll soften that blow a bit. Yes, “just do it” is the ideal. Acting quickly based on what you know is right is the aim, but that isn’t always possible. Sometimes it’s a bit of an internal battle, and that’s okay. There are some strategies that you can use to act when you don’t feel like it. After all, the goal is action. Getting there with a little help is better than not getting there at all.
START SMALL
I wish I could scream this from the rooftops. I wish I could scream it and scream it and scream it until my lungs give out.
The bigger the task is that you don’t want to do, the more you won’t want to do it. The smaller you can make it, the easier it will be to do.
Your goal is action. A smaller action than you intended is always better than no action at all. There is no shame in scaling back a bit so that you have an easier time getting moving. Doing one pushup is better than doing zero of the ten you intended to do. Washing three dishes is better than not cleaning the entire kitchen, even if that was your original goal.
On a broader scale, don’t attempt to overhaul your entire life overnight. I have a whole blog post about this. Focus your efforts on one area at a time. You’ll be much less likely to burn out, you’ll see faster results, and you’ll be much more successful in the long run.
Find Your Why
I’ve talked about this about 10,000 times before so just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll just link you to the post about it.
I do want to note, though, that it’s okay if your Why stems from wanting to leave a negative situation rather than wanting to reach a positive one. I often frame Whys in terms of positive things—the goals that you’ll reach, for example—without acknowledging that my first Why was that I wanted to improve a bad situation.
I was trying to build a better life after a rough break up, largely out of spite and a little sadness. Though I now focus my Whys on the good things that I will reach because of my actions, it is valid to build discipline that is motivated by a desire to leave a bad situation. In fact, wanting to leave a bad place in life is a pretty common reason for people to want to build self-discipline.
Practice calling yourself out on your excuses
Most of the “reasons” that we give for why we didn’t do something are invalid. On the surface, they may seem fine and they’re enough to placate our brains and prevent us from feeling guilty, but they don’t stand up to further inspection.
Start taking time to assess your excuses. Remind yourself that you really want to see results. You really want to start making progress. Does your excuse truly prevent you from doing what you need to do? Is there any way that you could create a backup plan?
Next time you find yourself making an excuse, write it down. Then write three reasons why you want to do the thing you’re trying to avoid and three things that you could do instead, even if you don’t accomplish your primary goal.
For example, if you decide you can’t go for a run because it’s raining, list three reasons why you want to exercise, and then create a list of three things that you could do instead of going for a run, like doing yoga or going for a run on a treadmill. You’ll train yourself to reconsider your excuses and realize that just because you can’t accomplish your original goal doesn’t mean you can’t many any progress at all.
Monitor your feelings
As I’ve said before, self-discipline means doing what needs to be done, even if you don’t feel like it. Most of the time, “I don’t feel like it,” and “I don’t want to,” are not valid reasons not to do something that needs to be done. Learn to shut them down.
But that isn’t to say that you should totally ignore your feelings. They’re there for a reason. Notice them—meditation can help—and respond appropriately. Often, we may not feel like doing something that’s good for us even though that thing will actually make us feel better. Self-discipline often means getting uncomfortable and knowing that the discomfort is worth it.
Self-discipline is a tricky beast. It gives you what you need to be consistent, which gets you to where you want to be. It takes practice and patience, but it will improve your life in the long run.
Discipline means being willing to choose long-term gains over immediate success. When you think long-term, the whole process starts to become easier and make more sense. Practice becoming friends with your future self, and before long, you’ll start seeing the results of your self-discipline paying off.
– Life By Grit
Europe Panic: China Cancel $100 Billion Car Order from Germany!
In today’s video, we explore the complex relationship between the European Union and China, focusing on Germany’s recently canceled $100 billion car order. How did we get here, and what does this mean for Europe’s future? Join us as we dive into the policies, decisions, and global economic trends that have shaped this unprecedented situation.
Interesting
Raining spiders, frogs, fish and … meat. Yes, meat.
What is Occam’s Razor?
August 15, 2023
Occam’s razor is often misstated as “the simplest answer is the correct one,” but it should more accurately be “the simplest answer is the best starting point to investigate.”
The idea is that the more different variables or assumptions have to add up to get to a solution, the more difficult it is to investigate, and the less likely it is to occur in general. “Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” is the classical way to state it.
So the classic example is: you hear hoofbeats outside, is it a horse or a zebra? Well unless you live in the African savannah, it’s very unlikely to be a zebra. We’d need more assumptions to get there – a zebra was imported to a local zoo, it escaped captivity, and now it’s running amok. Whereas a horse requires just one assumption – a horse is nearby. That doesn’t mean that it cannot be a zebra, it just means that you should start at “it’s probably a horse” and investigate from there.
I had a fun moment the other day, when I went to my kitchen and saw a jar of pickles left out on the counter. I knew it wasn’t me, which left two possibilities that my brain somehow jumped to:
A burglar broke in, stole several other items, and also ate a pickle. He left the jar out to taunt me.
My wife had a pickle and then forgot to put away the jar.
I could have totally checked my locks, made sure my valuables were still in the right place, etc. Instead I just yelled “Hey, did you leave this pickle jar out?” and got the simpler answer right away. Starting with the simpler solution (fewer assumptions than my burglar story) got me to the right answer efficiently.
Man Dies, Sees Future & Says Don’t Freak Out (Powerful NDE)
Gary Wimmer had an NDE (Near-Death Experience) and discovered what happens after death. He saw seven beings/angels, and after leaving his body was shown future events. Gary’s NDE (Near-Death Experience) showed him that there is life after death, and it was a life-altering experience that changed him forever.
Now this is something that I would buy
Gobble It Up Pot Pie
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
Filling
2 (15 ounce) cans mixed vegetables, drained
1 pound (2 cup) cooked turkey, shredded
1 (12 ounce) jar turkey gravy
Topping
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped celery
1 (6 ounce) package instant turkey stuffing mix
1 2/3 cups water
1/4 cup dried cranberries
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Filling: In large mixing bowl, combine vegetables, turkey and gravy; mix well.
Pour into a greased 2-quart casserole.
Topping: In skillet, melt butter.
Add onion and celery and cook until tender.
Add seasoning packet from stuffing mix and water. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat; stir in stuffing. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes.
Stir in dried cranberries.
Spread stuffing evenly over vegetable mixture.
Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, or until heated through.
Girl With Huge TaTa’s Gets HUMBLED For The First Time In Her Life!
“A small peep is natural, BUT a wide pussy is man-made” I laughed so hard at this statement it took me 12 minutes to gather myself enough to write it down
How to (actually) talk to kids
It’s not dissimilar from talking to other adults, but even the most well-meaning grown-ups can forget that.
Somehow, despite our best efforts, it still happens to even the most self-assured adult. You’re at a birthday party or a family dinner or a picnic in the park, and suddenly, you find yourself face to face with a kid. You introduce yourselves, there’s a slight pause, and then, even though you know better, you hear the boring question coming out of your mouth: “So how’s school?”
Why are adults so bad at talking to kids, considering each and every one of us used to be one? “We forget what it’s like to be a child,” says Tina Payne Bryson, a psychotherapist and co-author of The Whole-Brain Child. “It’s hard sometimes to relate to kids because the rhythm of our days is so different.” Our brains and habits have changed, and as adults, it can be tough to remember what it’s like to be a 10-year-old.
But that’s the key: Talking to and connecting with 10-year-olds now doesn’t require remembering what you were like at 10. Instead, it’s all about approaching them as people: individuals who have their own interests, insights, and personalities. If you’re curious, warm, and earnest, you can make a new friend — and leave your awkward adult persona behind.
Find a point of connection
Much like in an initial conversation with an adult stranger, it can be hard to know where to begin. But once you offer up an open-ended topic, a kid will often run with it. Icebreakers with a kid can be situational. If you’re at a barbecue, ask them what their favorite condiment is. Or they can be general: Did you see a funny animal video recently? “You just want to get the kid talking,” says Ben R., an 11-year-old who lives in Highland Ranch, Colorado. “You want to get to know them.” Ben recommends starting with a question about something that you enjoy. If you like video games, ask what games they like to play; if you’re a big reader, ask about their favorite recent book.
The framing is important. “Adults reach for whatever they can, and ask a yes or no question,” says Robyn Silverman, host of the podcast How to Talk to Kids About Anything. If a kid is wearing a baseball cap, asking whether they like baseball is not a good question — just like if you were wearing a baseball cap, that question wouldn’t encourage you to keep talking. Don’t despair: You can just tweak the format of a question to improve it. “Instead of ‘How’s school?’, you could ask, ‘If you were principal for the day, what’s one thing you’d absolutely change?’” suggests Silverman. “A more interesting question will elicit a response more than ‘fine.’”
That first conversational volley is all about finding a point of connection. It could be a shared interest, such as the card game Codenames, or a low-stakes disagreement, like whether dipping french fries in a milkshake is delicious or gross. “The great thing about asking questions is to find out what you have in common,” says Ben. “You’ll feel more relaxed then and can focus on connecting through that.”
Ask good follow-up questions
The next step in a good conversation with a kid? Pay attention. This is where many adults slip up. Instead of actually listening to what a kid has to say and asking a relevant follow-up question, they jump in with a long story about themselves — or, worse, offer up a weird non sequitur. Recently, Ben was waiting in line for a waterslide when the adult behind him asked what grade he was in. After he answered, the stranger, who had not previously met the fifth-grader, replied by saying that he grew up so fast. “I thought to myself, is this how adults are? They just ask simple questions, half-pay attention to the conversation, and get distracted by something else?” Ben says. “I felt like he could have just realized that I could talk the same way everybody else could, but he made it really awkward for the rest of the conversation.”
Asking a good follow-up question is all about active listening, which requires humility. A kid is a person with their own interests and expertise, and you can learn from them, just like you learn from a conversation with another adult. “Kids are egocentric in nature, and they love to talk about what they love,” says Morgan Eldridge, a clinical psychologist who recommends framing a child as the expert on what they care about. “If you don’t know anything about Pokémon cards, ask them to tell you about it.”
More key aspects of active listening are body language and tone. If you’re talking to a younger kid, physically get down on their level so that you’re not looming over them. For kids and adults alike, face them, put away your phone, make eye contact, and smile. No need to speak in a different voice, though. “There are multiple occasions where adults have talked to me with a childish tone,” says Ben. “We’re more sophisticated than they think.”
When you’re fostering a comfortable conversational environment for a kid, you should also think about safety. There’s an inherent power imbalance between an adult and a kid, especially when you don’t know each other well, and as the adult, you’re responsible for making sure that your relationship and conversation stay appropriate. “Kids need to feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure,” says Bryson. “When you smile and have relaxed posture, it sends signals of safety and connection.”
Let their enthusiasm lead
Once the conversation is moving, step back. “When talking to kids, adults make the mistake that they need to talk a lot,” says Silverman. “But people [not just children!] actually love it when you listen.” Instead, ask questions and let the kid direct the flow; they’ll naturally lead the conversation toward what interests them most.
In many cases, this means going in a speculative, silly direction, which can be tricky for grown-ups. “Adults are more logical and solution-driven,” says Bryson. “We’ve forgotten what it’s like to play.” To rediscover your playful side, you can always ask an open-ended question, or even a goofy one: If you were going to open a restaurant that only serves three dishes, what would they be? What celebrity has the coolest style of all time? Would you rather have to fight 50 mosquito-sized alligators or one alligator-sized mosquito?
No matter what, don’t dismiss their enthusiasm. If a kid loves basketball but you don’t care about sports, ask them to tell you about their favorite player of all time. If they just learned a ton about bugs in a science unit, don’t try to show off how much you know — encourage them to share instead. “There’s a power imbalance, and it seems to give adults permission to belittle,” says Silverman.
If you do make a faux pas, like talking over them or getting distracted, own up to it, apologize, and redirect. You can always say, “I just spaced out, I’m sorry. What were you saying about summer camp?” Just pick the conversation back up afterward.
Be yourself (even if that means being shy)
Kids have different temperaments and personalities, just like adults do. They don’t expect everyone to be outgoing and loud. In fact, not every kid will want you to be. “Just like different friends appeal to different people, different kinds of adults will appeal to different kids,” says Bryson. “The boisterous adult doesn’t appeal to some kids, and the quiet adult doesn’t appeal to others.” Just come as you are, since kids can tell whether you’re being authentic or not. “It’s really about showing up as yourself in the moment,” Bryson says.
If you are on the quieter side, don’t worry. Kids know what it’s like to feel anxious in a conversation, too. “Sometimes you just get nervous, and that’s okay,” says Fiona A., an 8-year-old who lives in Salinas, California. “Or sometimes you need a little bit of alone time. Just be you.”
Ben suggests a trick that he uses when he feels awkward or unsure about what to talk about: When you get stuck and start to feel self-conscious, ask a question. “Even if you don’t pay attention, it diverts the conversation away from yourself,” he says. “You learn more about them, and also you don’t have to talk as much.”
Sometimes, you’ll notice that a kid seems anxious to be talking to an adult. In that case, make sure you’re projecting a warm, friendly, safe environment. Being vulnerable can help them feel more comfortable, too. “A lot of adults are authority figures, and sharing something embarrassing can make us more accessible,” says Bryson. When she’s talking to a quiet kid, she often shares a story about when the class rat bit her in first grade at the school Christmas party; her listeners are always on the edge of their seats, ready to share their own best animal story afterward. You can be vulnerable about feeling awkward, too: If you share that you often feel shy at parties, then it normalizes the kid feeling shy.
And if they’d rather be quiet, it’s also fine to share a companionable silence. “If we ask a question or two and they don’t expand, it just means they don’t want to be asked a question right now,” says Bryson. If they’re not uncomfortable with quiet, then you shouldn’t be, either.
Refer back to your shared interests
Once you’ve had a friendly conversation with a kid and found some common ground, you can start to develop an ongoing relationship with them. Just like with a new adult friend, it’s important to remember details about them and refer back to them in future conversations. Did they tell you about joining the soccer team? Ask how the season is going. Did you bond over your love of superhero movies? Ask them what they thought of the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. If you know in advance that you’re going to see a kid who you’ve already spent time with, you could send them something that you can then talk about in person. Bryson recently hosted a friend and their 13-year-old son; in anticipation of his visit, she sent him some funny dog videos on Instagram. That offers an easy way to break the ice and connect in person again.
No matter the age gap, making conversation and becoming friends always happens much the same way: capitalizing on shared interests, asking good questions, and paying attention. And once you’re friends, conversation is easy. “After I get to know an adult, it’s easy to talk to her,” says Fiona. “It’s more complex to build friendship with an adult, but once you do, it’s like they’re a kid just like you.”
He Did It Again!
At a recent speaking engagement, President Biden attempted to tout his success at getting a bipartisan infrastructure bill through Congress. At least that’s what one would assume, even though what actually came out of the President’s mouth sounded more like “bipah infraloction.” This is, of course, just the latest verbal stumble from Biden, and you know there are plenty more to come. Jimmy and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss not only this difficult phrase for Biden, but also his similar inability recently to say a series of Asian names.
The Hardest Pill To Swallow About Self-Improvement
August 16, 2023
One tendency I’ve noticed about a lot of us who are into self-development is that we are incredibly hungry for information.
Some of us may have had neglectful parents or an upbringing that was very scarce, we may have not gotten the encouragement for self-betterment, we have no one around us who are striving for the best — so we want to consume and process all the information, methods, tips, and tricks we can.
I think that’s great because being deeply desirous to change yourself is better than being apathetic and lethargic.
Unfortunately, this over-consumption of information can become gluttony. Gluttony then leads to lethargy, which then leads to sloth and not doing anything with this information.
More books! More articles! More podcasts! More lectures! More, more, more! I need to know the secrets of the universe before I end up starting my business, before I apply for that job, before I take that trip, before I ask out that girl.
We need to be perfect and then, then we’ll act. One day. One day.
But one day never comes. Neither does perfection.
The real truth about self-development, the real pain is the application. It’s in the messy interactions between imperfect human beings.
You’ve read what’s in that book about dating. Now, go out on a Friday night and apply it.
You’ve read how to start a business. Now, start your own.
A lot of people are dreaming with their heads up in the clouds, thinking they’re moving the needle when they’re just reading a book or an article online.
How many people are out there actively trying, failing, getting knocked down on their ass, and trying again? Very few.
Most people read about a diet in a book, try it for 2 months, then relapse into their old eating habits.
Many people say “I’m gonna meditate for 20 minutes a day” but they “can’t find the time…because Netflix”.
Then people wonder why 2021 is 2020 is 2019 is 2018. Repeating a fucking Groundhog Day existence for 30 years.
Then you’ll be 68 years old and realize that you just twiddled your thumbs in your ivory tower while your life passed you by.
Because the real pain of self-development is exertion, it’s doing it when you don’t want to do it, it’s progressively getting better and actively cutting out areas where you don’t need to be doing things.
What methods work? They all work. There are some that are more “optimal” than others, but they will all work – if applied. If you read a self-help book starting from ground zero (like you know nothing about this stuff), you will be a better person on page 258 than you were at page 1. I guarantee it. So it’s not about “choosing the right methods”. It’s about application.
There are people who think self-development and self-help is a joke. These people have never even walked into a book store and yet they’re laughing all the way to the bank or living the life that we want to live!
I can pretty much guarantee that if you took one book like Deep Work or Psycho-Cybernetics and applied everything in there to the T, your life would dramatically alter.
You wouldn’t need to be browsing Inc. magazine for the newest hacks. You wouldn’t need to go on Entrepreneur and say you’re “hustling”.
We need to stay focused, guys. We need to build a core set of practices and not stray from the narrow road of improvement.
We need to throw ourselves into the task with everything we have and not look around for another hack or tactic to help us when we have an arsenal of 1,000 inside our head.
You won’t know all the answers. You can’t know all the answers before you take action. You need to act before you are ready.
You will NEVER be ready.
You can’t solve the puzzle without taking action to assemble the pieces.
Get going and the pieces will start to fall in place. Then the puzzle starts to solve itself.
Voynich Manuscript Decoded | The Mysterious Book Finally Solved?
For 600 years the Voynich Manuscript has stumped scholars, cryptographers, physicists, and computer scientists. Now, a researcher in Germany has claimed to have finally decoded the most mysterious book in the world.
Bad, just bad.
New and improved BRICS to emerge in South Africa. Morocco wants to join
I was terminated without notice only to be offered my job back for significant less than I was making. I declined and filed an unpaid wage claim costing them over $12,000 in damages due to me.
Worked for a Co. that terminated me at end of day on a Monday without notice or reasoning other than, “It just wasn’t working out;” but was promised to be paid the rest of the week as a courtesy severance for the inconvenience. Wanted to stay professional, so I complied and thanked them for opportunity. I was allowed some time to pack up my things and head out.
I handled all payroll and AR/AP but wasn’t presented final check upon termination and even offered to do it before I left but was told it would be mailed to me. Fast forward 6 days and I receive a text message from former employer urging me to return their call as soon as possible.
I called the next day and was offered my job back for $10,000 less per year than I originally was hired for and was told a few duties would be taken off my work load. It was insulting and I asked to think about it but asked about my final check prior to ending call and they asked me to go pick it up from office. I was out of town for a few days so made arrangements to pick up the following week (now 14 days after term).
I arrive and was presented with a check. I open it and say that it’s incorrect. They apologize and agree to have an amended one in mail next day. I offered to wait but they had an “interview coming shortly.”
I waited 7 more days before filing a wage claim for the final check. I end up receiving a final check for the one day of that week a few days after but didn’t include my vacation time / PTO, the severance, or penalty for late payment.
After 8 months, we were granted a hearing where they were ordered to pay me for 30 full days salary as penalty, all vacation and PTO, adjusted benefits, and severance as promised.
Employer called me an extortionist, and Labor Board representative interrupted their tirade to say “No, that’s the law. You should be happy he didn’t sue you for retaliation, well, he still can. So maybe you should lay off the insults and direct that energy to educating yourself and finding counsel.”
It was vindicating.
Hey! Look at what “president” Biden is doing…
Nearly ALL of America FEELS This | Oliver Anthony “Rich Men North of Richmond” | Just Jen Reacts
The voting in the USA was rigged. No doubt about it.'
And not only at the last election, it has most likely gone on for two or three elections before that.
There is only one cure. Paper votes, hand counting and representatives for all interested parties as observers.
And it would be nice if you had a working judicial system as well.
I cannot see how this is not going to end in bloodshed.
It is just a matter of time, before people revolt.
In a way I'm surprised it has not already happened.
Posted by: g wiltek | Aug 15 2023 16:07 utc | 4
When I was in training for my MAJ role at NAS China Lake, I had my first experiences with world-line travel. It wasn’t until later that I start to notice that my journeys would “stick”. I would find myself on a new world-line with new things, and old things that never existed.
One of the things that I miss is the breakfasts with beans. In this present world-line it is with potatoes. Of course, to youse guys, it’s always been that way.
One of the things that seem to be forever changed for me is the soft-drink Razzmatazz. It never existed on this world line. But back in the day, prior to me joining the Navy, it was THE soda that you all would drink. And while there were coke and Pepsi drinks, I always loved my icy-cold Razzmatazz.
My favorite was a malted cherry soda that they made. It had a kind of cherry-butterscotch like feel to it. There was also a birch beer & vanilla, and a malted root beer. Sigh. But none of it exists on this world-line.
France fears that the interim military-led government is willing to explore a deal whereby they’ll agree to keep Russia/Wagner at bay and retain the US’ bases in their country in exchange for Washington ensuring that ECOWAS doesn’t invade like it threatened to do. In that event, the full fury of the Nigerien people would be directed against France, which could either go it alone in trying to forcibly reverse last month’s coup in vain or chalk up the strategic loss and withdraw.
Le Figaro cited an unnamed diplomatic source over the weekend who alleged that the US backstabbed France during Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s trip to Niger. The piece is paywalled but was summarized here
. France reportedly fears that the US might tacitly recognize Niger’s interim military-led government in exchange for being allowed to retain its bases. Should that happen, then the US would proactively replace France’s security role in the Sahel before Russia/Wagner has a chance to.
This concern is predicated on rational calculations. From the US’ strategic perspective, the anti-French sentiment that’s sweeping the Sahel will inevitably result in ousting that country’s military from this part of Africa, which could lead to a security void that would likely be filled by Russia/Wagner. Even if France resorts to force for clinging to its last regional bastion in Niger, whether directly and/or via Nigerian-led
ECOWAS, then it’ll only exacerbate the hatred that locals feel for their former colonizer.
A swift victory is doomed to be pyrrhic since another round of anti-French unrest would follow sooner or later to complete the decolonization process that the prior one couldn’t, while the outbreak of a larger regional war risks Russia accelerating its envisaged replacement of France’s security role in the Sahel. Both outcomes are contrary to America’s long-term interests, though some policymakers might find their potential short-term benefits to be alluring.
It’s in this context that Nuland visited the Nigerien capital last week to “push for a negotiated solution” according to what she informed the press during a special briefing after her meetings there. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin reacted to this development by boasting that “the US has recognized a government that it did not recognize yesterday just to avoid meeting the Wagner PMC in the country.” While some might have dismissed his remarks as trolling, they actually convey a stark truth.
Nuland’s trip was likely driven by her government’s desire to determine post-coup Niger’s intended relations with Russia/Wagner. She made contradictory statements about this during her briefing that were analyzed here , but the point is that this was probably the real reason behind her visit. If she assessed that no clear commitment had yet been made to solicit that group’s services, then it would be possible to make progress on the vague “negotiated solution” that she claimed to have in mind.
Judging by Le Figaro’s report, France fears that the interim military-led government is willing to explore a deal whereby they’ll agree to keep Russia/Wagner at bay and retain the US’ bases in their country in exchange for Washington ensuring that ECOWAS doesn’t invade like it threatened to do. In that event, the full fury of the Nigerien people would be directed against France, which could either go it alone in trying to forcibly reverse last month’s coup in vain or chalk up the strategic loss and withdraw.
The US already backstabbed France a few years back by stealing its nuclear submarine deal with Australia via the surprise unveiling of AUKUS so the precedent exists for it to backstab that country again in the Sahel by stealing its “sphere of influence” there through these means. In this particular case, American policymakers might have concluded that France’s military ouster from the region is inevitable so it’s better to proactively replace it with their own forces than risk Russia/Wagner filling the void.
To that end, it makes sense to opportunistically exploit the latest events in pursuit of a pragmatic deal with Niger’s interim military-led government despite being at France’s expense. There’s no guarantee that it’ll succeed, but it’s strategicallysound from the perspective of the US’ New Cold War interests in Africa. America could present itself as a peacemaker that averted the wider war that France wanted to spark all while stopping the spread of Russian military-strategic influence on the EU’s Sahelian doorstep.
The aforesaid reframing of Nuland’s trip in light of Le Figaro’s report compellingly explains France’s alleged fears of her country’s real intentions in wanting to diplomatically resolve the West African Crisis. The ulterior motive behind its latest “push for a negotiated solution” is to proactively replace France’s security role in the Sahel before Russia/Wagner has a chance to. In this way, the US could mitigate the strategic damage from the Nigerien Coup and arguably benefit from it to an extent.
the GIRLS REACT to *Terminator (1984)* THIS IS TERRIFYING!! (First Time Watching) Sci-fi Movies
Since the Second World War most Britons have unquestioningly accepted the premise that Britain should continue to rank as a first order world Power while, on the other, insisting that living standards should continue rising and social services be protected from taxes to finance foreign policy commitments. The question is not whether Britain can continue to think and behave as a Great Power, but whether it can afford to. – F. S. Northedge, 1970.
The good news is that there will be no war.
The rather sad news is that America can’t afford one.
1980s neoconservative policies – downsize government and privatize everything – have left the US a second-tier power, uncompetitive economically, industrially, scientifically and even militarily, as this STEM ranking suggests:
Why we fail
There are at least seven reasons why the US failed in Ukraine. Says Correlli Barnett, “The power of a nation-state by no means consists only in its armed forces, but also in its economic and technological resources; in the dexterity, foresight and resolution with which its foreign policy is conducted; in the efficiency of its social and political organization. It consists most of all in the nation itself: the people; their skills, energy, ambition, discipline, initiative; their beliefs, myths and illusions. And it consists, further, in the way all these factors are related to one another. Moreover, national power has to be considered not only in itself, in its absolute extent, but relative to the state’s foreign or imperial obligations; it has to be considered relative to the power of other states”. Let’s break that down.
The Power of Other States
Armed forces. No serious military scholar imagines the US Army could challenge the Russian Army in Europe, nor the PLA in Asia – after being humiliated in Korea in 1951. Next year the PLAN will have 400 new warships armed with hypersonic missiles – which the US Navy’s 293 older boats neither possess nor can defend against.
Economic and technological resources. Russia’s economy is the world’s fourth largest, its military sector is 800% more productive than America’s, its military technology is a generation ahead, and its generalship is the world’s best. China’s productive economy is 300% bigger and leads the US in almost all sciences and technologies.
The dexterity, foresight and resolution with which its foreign policy is conducted. Ninety percent of the world’s people do business and sympathize with Russia or China, and their leaders are rock stars wherever they go. Ten percent of the world’s people support America, whose leader is pitied, even insulted to his face.
The efficiency of its social and political organization. 80% of Russians support their government’s policies and 96% of Chinese support theirs. Barely 34% of Americans trust their government or support its policies.
Skills, energy, ambition, discipline, initiative, beliefs, myths and illusions of the people. China’s and Russia’s recoveries reflect their people’s resilience, skills, energy, ambition, discipline, initiative and collective self-belief. The US has yet to recover from the GFC, struggles to staff a chip fab, and hasn’t given its workers a raise since 1974.
Foreign or imperial obligations. Ukraine, on the heels of the Afghanistan imbroglio, suggests that the US is incapable of sustaining its obligations towards its allies. Its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear pact suggests that it is incapable of making agreements.
National power relative to the power of other states. If America wants to match Russia or China militarily, Washington must double real defense spendingthrough 2034just to match the 2023 capabilities of either, not both, of them.
America is overextended abroad, overinflated at home and its State competence is deteriorating in almost every way – from governance to justice to military to infant mortality – while it ignores its decline.
Next Stop: Failed State?
A failed state’s institutions are feeble and flawed. Often, the executive barely functions while the legislature, judiciary, bureaucracy, and armed forces have lost their capacity and professional independence. A failed state suffers from crumbling infrastructure, faltering utility supplies, educational and health facilities, and deteriorating human-development indicators like infant mortality and literacy. Failed states create an environment of flourishing corruption and negative growth rates, where honest economic activity cannot flourish. Encyclopedia Britannica.
Even before Covid, there were more hungry children, drug addicts, suicides and executions, illiterate, incarcerated, poor, homeless people in America than in China. How long can post-Covid America, riven by factionalism and distrust, weakened by disease, and dying younger each year, compete with dozens of initiatives like this?
The only real barrier to China’s bid to capture Eurasia’s vast Middle Space was the US occupation of Afghanistan. The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, TAPI, joining Central Asia’s gas fields to South Asia, was announced in 2018 but progress through the critical Afghan sector was slowed by the war. Since then, the scheme has been revived, opening the way for Chinese investment that could complete its capture of Central Asia. Alfred McCoy
Did you know this was exactly the same stuff published in the Soviet papers and East German papers and Czech papers and Polish papers in the 1970s?
That the US Economy was exaggerated and 60% smaller that it really was
Man , this is bad
Back then in the 1960s to 1990s, Americans won by Competition, Ability and Achievement
Back then the Soviets claimed victories in paper by publishing lies, lies and more lies and used brute force and twisting of data to claim a superior system (US)was collapsing all the time
Today the opposite is happening
US and the West are Soviet Russia and East Germany today
They hate competition, They hate tolerance in any area other than Transgenders and Homosexuals, They are losing ability by the millisecond
They claim victories by publishing lie after lie, most of which are bizzare and illogical and use the same brute force to claim a superior system is collapsing.
Meanwhile China is becoming exactly what the US was in the 1960s – 1990s
Critically truthful, Exploring Solutions openly, Admitting Problems openly, Keeping Victories as subtle as possible, Fostering Competition in every sphere, Tolerant of every race and religion provided they identify as Chinese first, Focus on Ability and Merit only.
Russia too is following the same road now
The Democracies are collapsing due to their fatal flaws
The Meritocracies and carefully planned one party systems are flourishing
So this Chinas Economy is 60% smaller is basically History going around in Propaganda and Lies
A Testament to the theory that eventually all Democracies decline into a Mediocracy
You Won’t Believe What China Have Done | American CEO’s Protest !
A tiny microchip smaller than a fingernail is at the heart of a high-stakes technology war between superpowers.
Advanced semiconductors form the brains powering everything from AI to hypersonic missiles.
Now a global battle is unfolding between the US and China over who controls the future of these foundational chips.
With national dominance at stake, the US has imposed sweeping sanctions to blockade China from cutting-edge semiconductor designs and manufacturing.
But China is marshaling its vast resources to achieve self-reliance and circumvent restrictions.
The race is on to shape mastery over the electronics underpinning 21st century innovation.
Join us as we uncover the events, technologies, companies, and strategies fueling this multifront semiconductor conflict.
The trajectory of global scientific progress and economic power hangs in the balance.
I’m from Indonesia, a country with the largest Muslim population in the world.
When the Uyghur topic arised a few years ago, it was also a trending topic here.
Many people started to curse China because of this issue.
But Indonesia is a neutral & non block country, which means we’re friends with many countries, including China, even North Korea.
Indonesia, as well as many other Muslim countries has been sending alot of Imams (priests), delegations, and even students to China, including Xinjiang regularly.
Guess what? None of Muslim countries condemn China on their acts, because later we realize that it’s only propaganda made by Western countries to weaken China & to create destabilization.
As for me myself, I’ve visited Xinjiang 2 times before the Covid pandemic, I know that there were terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, which the members were mostly from Uyghur ethnic.
The terror movement is called the East Turkestan (Islamic) Movement. It’s backed up by Al Qaeda & Taliban.
The United Nations on their website also listed the Movements as a terrorist Movement, also they list most of the attacks on their website too.
The US already know this issue, and they also bombed Uyghurs, who ran to Afghanistan after Chinese Central Government took control of Anti-Terror acts (because the local government failed to control them and the situation became worse)
Note: This is an American news media, not Chinese media.
So the US also bombed Uyghurs, but later accusing China for their treatments against the Uyghur, don’t you think that it’s hypocrisy?
Nowadays Taliban is close to China, and they promised not to help Uyghur militants anymore, they even sending back the militants who ran and hide in Afghanistan.
I can read a little bit of Mandarin, I use some Chinese social media and make friends with Uyghurs, so I know what happened and what’s happening from the Uyghur themselves.
They said that those terrorists use Turkestan name because they want support from Turkic countries nearby, while those terrorists also killed their own Uyghurs who don’t wanna support them, as well as Uzbek, Kazakh & other Turkic people, also Tajik Muslim, Hui Muslim & Han people in China
And they use “Islamic” name, obviously for supports from Islamic countries.
On the early morning of Wednesday, 30 July 2014, an Uyghur Imam, named Juma Tahir, the imam of China’s largest mosque, (Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar), was stabbed to death by three young male Uyghur terrorists because he was strongly against the terrorists.
Alot of Western Media covered this, but it seems that they forget it easily (or intentionally).
These videos are the example of Muslim Scholars visiting Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region recently, there are Indonesian Scholars too in that event
Beside of those videos, there are still alot of informal visits from Islamic Scholars & imams to China.
In fact, tour to Xinjiang is available in Indonesia and it’s always fully booked, as I work at the one of the biggest Tour & Travel agency in Indonesia.
Latest Xinjiang Muslim Festival in Indonesia, featuring tribes in Xinjiang especially the Uyghurs, and Indonesian ustadz (Islamic preacher), leaders, government, etc
From 19 July – 10 August 2023 to celebrate the Islamic New Year, this is the re-stream from 2 August:
As for now, there are some people who are still condemning China in Indonesia, but most of them are either from extremist groups (we call them kadrun), or just ignorant & uneducated people. Which later we found to have links (directly or indirectly) to the US’ Anti Chinese founding
U.S Boeing Near Suspension in China as Tensions Between US China Escalate!
“Most Unsafe Site Ever” – Shocking Truths About TSMC Arizona Revealed!
The TSMC Arizona project is one of the biggest FDI deals in United States history with Taiwan investing over $40 billion. It’s all part of the $52 billion dollar CHIPS Act to bring Taiwan’s flagship company to the US, but there are a plethora of problems amounting the question the entire legitimacy of this project. In today’s video we examine the top 5 biggest problems TSMC is currently facing and if this project will be a success.
Beef Chili Cheese Fries
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cups chopped yellow onions
Salt and cayenne to taste
2 pounds ground beef
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Crushed red pepper to taste
2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
3 cups peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh or canned tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups beefsteak or beef broth
2 tablespoons Masa Harina
Vegetable oil for deep frying
2 large Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into shoestrings, rinsed in cool water and patted dry
1/2 pound grated Cheddar cheese
1/2 pound grated Monterey Jack cheese
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sliced pickled jalapenos
Instructions
Heat the vegetable oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onions, season with salt and cayenne, and cook, stirring, until they begin to wilt, about 2 minutes.
Add the beef, chili powder, cumin, crushed red pepper and oregano. Season with salt and cayenne, and cook until all the pink in the meat disappears, 5 to 6 minutes.
Add the garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste and 2 1/2 cups beef stock; bring to boil, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, until the meat is tender, about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.
Combine the Masa Harina with the remaining 1/2 cup stock and mix to blend. Slowly add to the pot, stirring to blend. The mixture will thicken. Cook for 30 minutes, then season again with salt and cayenne. It should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
In a heavy, deep pot or an electric fryer, heat 4 inches of vegetable oil to 360 degrees F. Fry the shoestring potatoes in batches until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Drain on paper towels, then season with salt and cayenne.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Cover the bottom of a large, glass rectangular baking pan with the shoestring potatoes.
Combine the Cheddar and jack cheeses. Sprinkle the cheese over the fries.
Bake just until the cheese melts, 3 to 4 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and spoon the chili over the top of the fries.
Garnish with the sour cream and jalapenos.
Serve immediately.
“U.S. bullying ends now!” – Putin issues stunning military plan
Yeah. Give nuclear weapons to Iran, Mexico, and a host of other nations that are sick and tired of the USA.
Ukraine’s Grifter Wars Through Gonzalo Lira’s Eyes
Former Glasgow MP George Galloway said it best about Gonzalo Lira, whose re-arrest by Zelensky’s Gestapo was announced by American transsexual grifter Sarah Ashton Cirillo, who is now a staff sergeant in Zelensky’s Wehrmacht even though, as we previously pointed out, Sgt Sarah has not yet completed basic military training.
In wishing Lira well, no matter what Lira’s motives were for staying in Zelensky’s Fourth Reich, Galloway spoke for most of us, who don’t take our marching orders from a transgender American who left his wife and children back in Yankee land to play act at being a girly spokesperson for the homophobic Ukrainian Wehrmacht.
In acknowledging Lira’s chequered history, Galloway said that was not a massive problem for him or for his listeners, who were more interested in Lira’s bird’s eye view on the conflict, rather than on tips on how to pick up hot Ukrainian chicks or, indeed, chicks with dicks like Sgt Sarah. Galloway, with his excellent command of the English language, also doubted that Lira “inflicted strategic damage on Zelensky’s regime”, thereby implicitly agreeing with my earlier analysis that Lira should have got a kick up the transom and be booted across the Hungarian border.
Leaving aside that Sergeant Sarah was a Federal informant, an agent provocateur, a gambler, a sexual deviant, a complete sociopath, and a terminal narcissist who pals around with terrorists, I, amongst others, have seen this D grade Hollywood plot play out a hundred times before.
Ukraine has an unhealthy sprinkling of such grifters on both sides of the lines. Former USMC officer Scott Ritter, who previously defended Lira, now believes Lira is a liar and SBU asset as does Eva Bartlett for the same reasons she objected to the family of Syrian President Assad bringing competition for her begging bowl to Damascus.
Brian Berletic, who posts informative videos under the New Atlas name, believes Lira is more fool than knave and, like Galloway, he admits he found Lira’s input helpful in his own analysis. To counter Berletic, there are a stream of twitter threads like these “exposing Lira” and all ‘kinds of “Putin shills,” some of whom, like Bartlett, Galloway was reduced to calling “flat earth fucks” because of their grifting, much of which, such as lying they were in Syria when they were not and stealing over $1 million of Iranian aid for Syria I have witnessed firsthand.
To get a feel for some of the whack jobs MI6 and the CIA support in Kiev, consider this MintPress article which reports on Cormac Smith, MI6’s hired Irish field hand who tells us that ““Russians are fucking animals” and that the Russkies have committed genocide by admitting that they forcibly transferred “700,000 Ukrainian children” to Russkie land, a figure Smith obviously plucked from Sgt Sarah’s more than ample ass.
MintPress goes on to discuss some of the usual suspects, such as MI6 asset Michael Weiss, the Henry Jackson Society, The Interpreter, the Atlantic Council, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Bellingcat, the 77th Brigade, MI6 contractors Torchlight, and NATO fixer Chris Donnelly, all of whom are grifting in Ukraine.
To me, all of those grifters are just noise. I go back to first principles, to the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and South Tyrone where the British fought a successful 40-year intelligence campaign against the Provisional IRA. As part of their war effort, MI5 bankrolled supposed former PIRA member Vincent McKenna’s Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT),who gave the IRA a series of very black eyes until grifter McKenna was jailed for raping his own daughter.
When I asked two members of the IRA’s Army Council, their governing body, why did MI5 hire such a boomerang, they replied that MI5 were so hell bent on beating the IRA that they turned a blind eye to everything, child rape included. Using that and similar examples as my compass, it is, to me, beyond doubt that MI6 and the CIA have exotic and unhinged operatives working behind the lines in Syria, Ukraine and everywhere else; however, I doubt Lira is one of them. Rather, I believe he is one of those well-meaning fools I have come across who have paid either with their lives or by serving very long prison sentences for their folly in the killing fields of Ireland and Syria.
The problem is that it can be hard to differentiate the wheat from the chaff, the fool from the knave. Jamal Daoud, a Jordanian living in Australia, complains here about an alleged former Hindu extremist terrorist, planning to bump him off. But they, in turn, reported Daoud to Syrian Military Intelligence for bringing Jonathan Spyer, an Israeli spy, into Syria. Because of all that, I bought Spyer’s book, which is published by Routledge, which more or less specialises in academic vanity publishing. Chapter 14, Undercover in Damascus, the relevant chapter of the book, is as forgettable as bland bread and served no benefit to Israel or its allies.
And then we have the Sydney based Anglican priest, who is on an Israeli naughty list because of his long-standing friendship with nuclear missile whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu Barrett tried to manipulate for one of her $40,000 scams and whose face another “street artist” scammer plastered on murals all over Sydney when the priest was already in very hot water with his archbishop for bringing the church into disrepute with his activism. The end result of their “humanitarian intervention” was that the priest became homeless.
That is not to say Israel does not want their legions of little helpers in Syria. It does and I have blocked some of them and observed some others of them up close. But they, like Lira and his critics, are not the main game and they are hardly even a sideshow. As Syria’s best secret service agents joined the colours, it was often the dross that stayed behind to mop up the bribes, often in cahoots with the grifters.
When I told two former senior members of the IRA, whose brothers were murdered by the SAS that Assad had, despite Bartlett’s keening, invited Major General John Holmes, the former commanding officer of the SAS to Damascus, one of them thought it a good idea as, to him, bridges have to be built and the other thought it a bad idea as, to him, the only good SAS officer is a dead SAS officer.
Schooled by such experiences, my own prognosis is quite simple and to the point. The main vectors in the Ukrainian shemozzle are the Armed Forces of Russia and their military allies on the one hand, and NATO and their lemmings on the other. All else is tinsel.
Allied and perhaps even integral to the Russian Armed Forces are a number of spokespeople, the best known of whom are Russian President Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russian Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zakharova, all of whom tend to tell it as it is, not as Tinseltown’ transexuals would like it to be. Opposed to those spokespeople are Hollywood circus clowns like Zelensky and Sgt Sarah, as well as a bunch of supporting clowns in Washington, London, Paris and Brussels.
The Syrian situation is slightly different as Syrian civil society and, indeed, Syrian military intelligence, have left far too many holes for domestic and foreign grifters to exploit. I have met many of these grifters and, not to put too fine a point on it but far better people were found in the back roads of Fermanagh and South Tyrone with bin bags over their heads and bullets through their brains.
Lira, as my previous article described him, is simply a middle-aged Chilean Ukraine will try to trade at a premium, just like they have done with previous civilians they kidnapped. Though Lira is only an irrelevant sideshow, I wish him and his family the best.
That said, this Ukrainian war will end with a resounding Russian victory that is already resonating across Africa and throughout Asia, from Syria in its West to China in its East. Cold comfort for Lira if he gets an OBE (one behind the ear) but, whether he lives or dies, his torture at the hands of Zelensky and transexual nut job Sergeant Sarah is one more score that has to be settled, one more vendetta that must, if necessary, be avenged in blood by the Russian Armed Forces.
ATLANTA — Former president Donald Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in Georgia in connection with efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an indictment made public late Monday night.
Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.
With so much alleged conspiring should we call all these indictments a conspiracy theory?
This indictment is again too wide and borders on, like the others against Trump, criminalizing the retelling of rumors and free speech.
Just consider this part:
COUNT 29 of 41
And the Grand Jurors aforesaid, in the name and behalf of the citizens of Georgia, do charge and accuse DONALD JOHN TRUMP with the offense of FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS, O.C.G.A. § 16-10-20, for the said accused, in the County of Fulton and State of Georgia, on or about the 2nd day of January 2021, knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully made at least one of the following false statements and representations to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs, and Georgia Secretary of State General Counsel Ryan Germany:
That anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
That thousands of people attempted to vote in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia and were told they could not because a ballot had already been cast in their name;
That 4,502 people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia who were not on the voter registration list;
That 904 people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia who were registered at an address that was a post ofiice box;
That Ruby Freeman was a professional vote scammer and a known political operative;
That Ruby Freeman, her daughter, and others were responsible for fraudulently awarding at least 18,000 ballots to Joseph R. Biden at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
That close to 5,000 dead people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
That 139% of people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Detroit;
That 200,000 more votes were recorded than the number of people who voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Pennsylvania;
That thousands of dead people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Michigan;
That Ruby Freeman stuffed the ballot boxes;
That hundreds of thousands of ballots had been “dumped” into Fulton County and another county adjacent to Fulton County in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
That he won the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia by 400,000 votes;
said statements being within the jurisdiction of the Office of the Georgia Secretary of State and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, departments and agencies of state government, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof;
The indictment takes an expansive view of the behaviors it alleges were acts “in furtherance of the conspiracy” — including, as an example, at least a dozen instances of Trump’s tweets alleging fraud and other claims. Such details from the indictment quickly drew criticism as potential violations of the defendants’ free speech protections.
Trials over these indictments, if any, will likely start only next year and will take quite a long time. Any judgment in them will be appealed.
Yet most Americans made up their minds about Mr. Trump long before prosecutors like Fani T. Willis or Jack Smith weighed in, polls have shown. He is, depending on the perspective, a serial lawbreaker finally being brought to justice or a victim of persecution by partisans intent on keeping him out of office. The Georgia indictment, powerful as it is in its language, has been priced into the market, as the Wall Street types would put it.
“The accumulated indictments are kind of a white noise for voters,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican political consultant who has organized opposition to Mr. Trump and conducts weekly focus groups with voters. “They can’t tell the difference between Georgia and Jack Smith because it all blurs together in one long news cycle of Trump’s-in-trouble.”
I believe, like Trump, that the indictment will help him. First in the primary and then in the general election:
Speaking to supporters in Alabama a couple of days after his last arraignment, [Trump] claimed he was looking forward to the next one. “We need one more indictment to close out this election,” he boasted.
That is bravado — the sort of bring-it-on bluster that electrifies a Trump rally.
Contrast that with the case and against the Bidens which will be laid out by a special prosecutor to the same public. As I wrote when the last bits about the Bidens-Burisma saga came to light:
On the one side we have a case which shows the deep corruption of ‘the big guy’ and his family who are supported by the deep state they control.
On the other side we have the underdog who thought he was doing the right thing but is now indicted by the deep state for, at that time, saying so.
The media will shine the light on both cases. Each time they will mention Trump it will, independent of what they write about him, be positive for him by making the case of the lone guy who gets unfairly prosecuted by the deep state.
Each time the Biden case will be mentioned it will remind the public of Biden’s corrupt dealings.
Proceed through that for sixteen month and the outcome is assured.
Now add to that the possible quirks of the Democratic primary. RFK junior has entered that race:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has raised eyebrows as the first right-sympathetic populist to run as a Democrat since William Jennings Bryan. Launching with twenty paid staff and functioning now with seventy, Kennedy’s campaign has latched on to several issues important to mainstream Republicans—Covid tyranny, censorship, government surveillance—as well as to the dissident right: public health threats posed by chemicals in food and water, ending forever wars. The difference is the right frames these issues as matters of social cohesion and public order, while Kennedy uses the language of democracy and freedom.
In the currant fashion RJK Jr. is not really a Democrat:
When discussing the issues that animate him most—the environment, censorship, state and corporate collusion—he brightens. His hopeless intellectual humility and his hesitation to emphasize the most divisive ideological commitments of his own party while regularly taking up the language of his partisan opponents are setting up a general election that could divide populist voters almost entirely on the basis of aesthetics.
During the primaries the Democratic Party mafia will do their best to eliminate him even when he is unlikely to be a real danger to Joe Biden’s candidacy.
Should Trump then consider to run for president with RFK Jr. as his future vice-president he could form a quasi bi-partisan populist ticket that might well attract a larger majority.
Posted by b on August 15, 2023 at 15:47 UTC | Permalink
Taiwan is in BIG TROUBLE as China Vows Retaliation for DPP Visit to US
China has rebuked the U.S. for its latest escalations on Taiwan, from a growing economic war to the DPP’s latest visit to the United States. Here’s what we know thus far about the potential consequences.
The Perpetual Wars You Aren’t Supposed to Notice
By William J. ASTORE
In his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds “who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”
As a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from a working-class background who volunteered to serve more than four decades ago, who am I to argue with Austin? Shouldn’t I just bask in the glow of his praise for today’s troops, reflecting on my own honorable service near the end of what now must be thought of as the First Cold War?
Yet I confess to having doubts. I’ve heard it all before. The hype. The hyperbole. I still remember how, soon after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush boasted that this country had “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” I also remember how, in a pep talk given to U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2010, President Barack Obama declared them “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known.” And yet, 15 years ago at TomDispatch, I was already wondering when Americans had first become so proud of, and insistent upon, declaring our military the world’s absolute best, a force beyond compare, and what that meant for a republic that once had viewed large standing armies and constant warfare as anathemas to freedom.
In retrospect, the answer is all too straightforward: we need something to boast about, don’t we? In the once-upon-a-time “exceptional nation,” what else is there to praise to the skies or consider our pride and joy these days except our heroes? After all, this country can no longer boast of having anything like the world’s best educational outcomes, or healthcare system, or the most advanced and safest infrastructure, or the best democratic politics, so we better damn well be able to boast about having “the greatest fighting force” ever.
Leaving that boast aside, Americans could certainly brag about one thing this country has beyond compare: the most expensive military around and possibly ever. No country even comes close to our commitment of funds to wars, weapons (including nuclear ones at the Department of Energy), and global dominance. Indeed, the Pentagon’s budget for “defense” in 2023 exceeds that of the next 10 countries (mostly allies!) combined.
And from all of this, it seems to me, two questions arise: Are we truly getting what we pay so dearly for — the bestest, finest, most exceptional military ever? And even if we are, should a self-proclaimed democracy really want such a thing?
The answer to both those questions is, of course, no. After all, America hasn’t won a war in a convincing fashion since 1945. If this country keeps losing wars routinely and often enough catastrophically, as it has in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, how can we honestly say that we possess the world’s greatest fighting force? And if we nevertheless persist in such a boast, doesn’t that echo the rhetoric of militaristic empires of the past? (Remember when we used to think that only unhinged dictators like Adolf Hitler boasted of having peerless warriors in a megalomaniacal pursuit of global domination?)
Actually, I do believe the United States has the most exceptional military, just not in the way its boosters and cheerleaders like Austin, Bush, and Obama claimed. How is the U.S. military truly “exceptional”? Let me count the ways.
The Pentagon as a Budgetary Black Hole
In so many ways, the U.S. military is indeed exceptional. Let’s begin with its budget. At this very moment, Congress is debating a colossal “defense” budget of $886 billion for FY2024 (and all the debate is about issues that have little to do with the military). That defense spending bill, you may recall, was “only” $740 billion when President Joe Biden took office three years ago. In 2021, Biden withdrew U.S. forces from the disastrous war in Afghanistan, theoretically saving the taxpayer nearly $50 billion a year. Yet, in place of any sort of peace dividend, American taxpayers simply got an even higher bill as the Pentagon budget continued to soar.
Recall that, in his four years in office, Donald Trump increased military spending by 20%. Biden is now poised to achieve a similar 20% increase in just three years in office. And that increase largely doesn’t even include the cost of supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia — so far, somewhere between $120 billion and $200 billion and still rising.
Colossal budgets for weapons and war enjoy broad bipartisan support in Washington. It’s almost as if there were a military-industrial-congressional complex at work here! Where, in fact, did I ever hear a president warning us about that? Oh, perhaps I’m thinking of a certain farewell address by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961.
In all seriousness, there’s now a huge pentagonal-shaped black hole on the Potomac that’s devouring more than half of the federal discretionary budget annually. Even when Congress and the Pentagon allegedly try to enforce fiscal discipline, if not austerity elsewhere, the crushing gravitational pull of that hole just continues to suck in more money. Bet on that continuing as the Pentagon issues ever more warnings about a new cold war with China and Russia.
Given its money-sucking nature, perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that the Pentagon is remarkably exceptional when it comes to failing fiscal audits — five of them in a row (the fifth failure being a “teachable moment,” according to its chief financial officer) — as its budget only continued to soar. Whether you’re talking about lost wars or failed audits, the Pentagon is eternally rewarded for its failures. Try running a “Mom and Pop” store on that basis and see how long you last.
Speaking of all those failed wars, perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that they haven’t come cheaply. According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University, roughly 937,000 people have died since 9/11/2001 thanks to direct violence in this country’s “Global War on Terror” in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere. (And the deaths of another 3.6 to 3.7 million people may be indirectly attributable to those same post-9/11 conflicts.) The financial cost to the American taxpayer has been roughly $8 trillion and rising even as the U.S. military continues its counterterror preparations and activities in 85 countries.
No other nation in the world sees its military as (to borrow from a short-lived Navy slogan) “a global force for good.” No other nation divides the whole world into military commands like AFRICOM for Africa and CENTCOM for the Middle East and parts of Central and South Asia, headed up by four-star generals and admirals. No other nation has a network of 750 foreign bases scattered across the globe. No other nation strives for full-spectrum dominance through “all-domain operations,” meaning not only the control of traditional “domains” of combat — the land, sea, and air — but also of space and cyberspace. While other countries are focused mainly on national defense (or regional aggressions of one sort or another), the U.S. military strives for total global and spatial dominance. Truly exceptional!
Strangely, in this never-ending, unbounded pursuit of dominance, results simply don’t matter. The Afghan War? Bungled, botched, and lost. The Iraq War? Built on lies and lost. Libya? We came, we saw, Libya’s leader (and so many innocents) died. Yet no one at the Pentagon was punished for any of those failures. In fact, to this day, it remains an accountability-free zone, exempt from meaningful oversight. If you’re a “modern major general,” why not pursue wars when you know you’ll never be punished for losing them?
Indeed, the few “exceptions” within the military-industrial-congressional complex who stood up for accountability, people of principle like Daniel Hale, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden, were imprisoned or exiled. In fact, the U.S. government has even conspired to imprison a foreign publisher and transparency activist, Julian Assange, who published the truth about the American war on terror, by using a World War I-era espionage clause that only applies to American citizens.
And the record is even grimmer than that. In our post-9/11 years at war, as President Barack Obama admitted, “We tortured some folks” — and the only person punished for that was another whistleblower, John Kiriakou, who did his best to bring those war crimes to our attention.
And speaking of war crimes, isn’t it “exceptional” that the U.S. military plans to spend upwards of $2 trillion in the coming decades on a new generation of genocidal nuclear weapons? Those include new stealth bombers and new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for the Air Force, as well as new nuclear-missile-firing submarines for the Navy. Worse yet, the U.S. continues to reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first, presumably in the name of protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And of course, despite the countries — nine! — that now possess nukes, the U.S. remains the only one to have used them in wartime, in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Finally, it turns out that the military is even immune from Supreme Court decisions! When SCOTUS recently overturned affirmative action for college admission, it carved out an exception for the military academies. Schools like West Point and Annapolis can still consider the race of their applicants, presumably to promote unit cohesion through proportional representation of minorities within the officer ranks, but our society at large apparently does not require racial equity for its cohesion.
A Most Exceptional Military Makes Its Wars and Their Ugliness Disappear
Here’s one of my favorite lines from the movie The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” The greatest trick the U.S. military ever pulled was essentially convincing us that its wars never existed. As Norman Solomon notes in his revealing book, War Made Invisible, the military-industrial-congressional complex has excelled at camouflaging the atrocious realities of war, rendering them almost entirely invisible to the American people. Call it the new American isolationism, only this time we’re isolated from the harrowing and horrific costs of war itself.
America is a nation perpetually at war, yet most of us live our lives with little or no perception of this. There is no longer a military draft. There are no war bond drives. You aren’t asked to make direct and personal sacrifices. You aren’t even asked to pay attention, let alone pay (except for those nearly trillion-dollar-a-year budgets and interest payments on a ballooning national debt, of course). You certainly aren’t asked for your permission for this country to fight its wars, as the Constitution demands. As President George W. Bush suggested after the 9/11 attacks, go visit Disneyworld! Enjoy life! Let America’s “best and brightest” handle the brutality, the degradation, and the ugliness of war, bright minds like former Vice President Dick (“So?”) Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald (“I don’t do quagmires”) Rumsfeld.
Did you hear something about the U.S. military being in Syria? In Somalia? Did you hear about the U.S. military supporting the Saudis in a brutal war of repression in Yemen? Did you notice how this country’s military interventions around the world kill, wound, and displace so many people of color, so much so that observers speak of the systemic racism of America’s wars? Is it truly progress that a more diverse military in terms of “color, creed, and background,” to use Secretary of Defense Austin’s words, has killed and is killing so many non-white peoples around the globe?
Praising the all-female-crewed flyover at the last Super Bowl or painting rainbow flags of inclusivity (or even blue and yellow flags for Ukraine) on cluster munitions won’t soften the blows or quiet the screams. As one reader of my blog Bracing Views so aptly put it: “The diversity the war parties [Democrats and Republicans] will not tolerate is diversity of thought.”
Of course, the U.S. military isn’t solely to blame here. Senior officers will claim their duty is not to make policy at all but to salute smartly as the president and Congress order them about. The reality, however, is different. The military is, in fact, at the core of America’s shadow government with enormous influence over policymaking. It’s not merely an instrument of power; it is power — and exceptionally powerful at that. And that form of power simply isn’t conducive to liberty and freedom, whether inside America’s borders or beyond them.
Wait! What am I saying? Stop thinking about all that! America is, after all, the exceptional nation and its military, a band of freedom fighters. In Iraq, where war and sanctions killed untold numbers of Iraqi children in the 1990s, the sacrifice was “worth it,” as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once reassured Americans on 60 Minutes.
Even when government actions kill children, lots of children, it’s for the greater good. If this troubles you, go to Disney and take your kids with you. You don’t like Disney? Then, hark back to that old marching song of World War I and “pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile.” Remember, America’s troops are freedom-delivering heroes and your job is to smile and support them without question.
Have I made my point? I hope so. And yes, the U.S. military is indeed exceptional and being so, being #1 (or claiming you are anyway) means never having to say you’re sorry, no matter how many innocents you kill or maim, how many lives you disrupt and destroy, how many lies you tell.
I must admit, though, that, despite the endless celebration of our military’s exceptionalism and “greatness,” a fragment of scripture from my Catholic upbringing haunts me still: Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Why I’m Raising My Children in CHINA – NOT The UK.
What I Wish My Dad Taught Me When I Was Little, According To 11 Me
It’s impossible to teach everything. But it’s helpful to know what untaught lessons might be felt the most.
A father’s influence on their sons is profound. As young men, we look first to our fathers to help lay the foundation for our own future growth and development. In an ideal world, they show us what to do, and what not to do. They help us distinguish between right and wrong. They encourage our strengths and nurture our struggles to prepare us for the future.
But, as well all know, fathers aren’t perfect. Sometimes opportunities to teach life lessons, impart simple skills, or prepare for hard-to-swallow truths get lost in the chaos of life. It happens. And it’s easy to look back with longing and regret at those moments. No, the point here is to not dwell on mistakes. Rather, it is to learn about what you might want to prioritize. We asked a dozen men what they wish their dads taught them when they were still kids. Whether learning how to problem solve, develop confidence, or rock and roll, they all had something to say. Here’s what they told us.
1. How To Be Present
“I grew up in a relatively low-income family with my mother on disability and my father always working hard to put food on the table and clothes on our backs. At one time my family had to file for bankruptcy because of debt. But my father still managed a way to get us what we needed.
My dad was a hard worker and taught me the meaning of hard work and perseverance.
But the one thing I wish I had learned sooner from my father was the importance of experiencing life, moments, and relationships over working for the dollar. Make your living doing what you do, but be present and don’t live life stuck in the past or even the future. Learn from past mistakes, but be in the present and cherish experiences and family because time is the one thing you can’t get back.” – Adrian, 31, Missouri
2. How To Know My Worth
“My father never taught me to be confident in myself. Instead, he forced me, as a little boy, to be timid, weak, and feel inferior to others, especially my peers. He was abusive and manipulative, and as a result, I would doubt whether any actions or decisions I took were the right ones.
Later on, colleagues would insult, hurt, and bully me, and I didn’t have the strength to defend myself.
I did learn lessons from my upbringing, though. The one that stands out in my mind all the time is that I must cherish and value my own children. I should never mistreat them or allow anybody to make them feel inferior. I’m traumatized by what my father did, and I wish he would’ve taught me differently. But what I have learned are essential lessons that I will never forget for the rest of my life.” – Phillip, 37, Colorado
3. How To Play Guitar
“My father was a musician, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I begged him to teach me how to play the guitar like him, but I wasn’t very good, and he wasn’t very patient. He got frustrated easily and nudged me toward other interests.
As a father myself, I certainly understand frustration. But I also know how wonderful it feels when your kids finally learn how to do something new.
I did eventually learn to play guitar. I’m still not good, but I’m better than I was when I was younger. My dad passed away before I had any skills worthy of sharing, and I always wonder what it would’ve been like if he were my teacher and we actually got to rock out together at least once.” – Jim, 45, New York
I begged him to teach me how to play the guitar like him, but I wasn’t very good, and he wasn’t very patient. He got frustrated easily and nudged me toward other interests.
4. How To Fix Things
“My dad was one of those guys who was very mechanically inclined. He had a blue collar trade for a career, worked on cars in his spare time, and fixed anything and everything that needed fixing around the house.
I’m not wired the way he was, unfortunately. Fixing broken things and working on cars is not a skill of mine. If I could go back in time to being a kid again, I would have asked my dad to take time to bring me in on some of his repair jobs.
To give me a shot at turning the wrench, so to speak. Not only would it have given me much needed knowledge, but it also would have given me much needed confidence when working with my hands, which happens a lot as a dad.” – Scott, 36, North Carolina
5. How To Set Goals
“When I was younger, I wish my dad had taught me about setting realistic goals. It’s a really important skill that could have helped me grow and become better. It would have made me more disciplined, determined, and adaptable from a young age.
Breaking big goals into smaller tasks can make a big difference in how kids deal with challenges.
If I knew this earlier, I would have been more motivated and faced difficulties with more confidence. Also, understanding the importance of setting timelines would have made me feel more urgent to get things done and not procrastinate. If my dad had taught me to celebrate even the small achievements, I would’ve felt better about myself and been more encouraged.” – Erik, 40, Texas
6. How To Care
“I wish my dad had taught me how to develop emotional intelligence. My dad wasn’t very present during my childhood. He was a traveling jeweler and usually out for two to three weeks, then back home for one or two.
He didn’t show me how to play sports, read, or any of the ‘normal’ stuff.
But the biggest thing he never showed me was how to care for the people I love.
I didn’t need him to be constantly checking up on me, but to be involved in how I felt, what I thought, or even what actually interested me outside of buying me whatever game I wanted. I now know this was something that he just didn’t know how to do, which is why I’ve made it a priority.
My kids will know that I’m interested in what they like, how they think, and the people they are going to become. And my wife will know I support her in whatever she does. Ultimately, their happiness and emotional health are priorities for me as a husband and father.” – Joshua, 33, Arizona
7. How To Connect With People
“Being a dad to two cool boys, 9 and 11, often makes me think a lot about what my own dad taught me growing up. One big thing I wish he’d shown me is how to connect with people.
I’m an introvert and striking up a conversation with someone new feels like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded.
It’s tough, and I see the same thing in one of my boys. I realized a few years back that I had a small group of friends and didn’t stay in touch as much as I should. This hit me hard and got me thinking about the importance of connecting and building relationships.
I’m learning to get better at this, and I’m taking my boys on the journey with me. I want them to understand that making friends and keeping them close is just as important as acing a test or scoring a goal. It’s something I’m still figuring out, but hey, that’s part of being a dad, right? We learn, and we teach.” – John, 31, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
My dad was very much a ‘Let me do it’ kind of guy. He wanted to fix the problem, whether it was a broken appliance or hurt feelings, rather than explore it.
8. How To Let Certain Things Roll Off Me
“I wish my father had known about and been able to teach me about the mind, and not letting what others say and do get to me so much. Sometimes the things other people say and do make us change how we do something or what we think about something, which has interfered with my life quite a bit.
Had I have been taught how to manage those types of thoughts, I’m sure some of life’s worst moments wouldn’t have weighed upon me so heavily, for so long, and I would have been able to move on from them sooner.” – Michael, 40, Michigan
9. How To Problem Solve
“Getting older has made me learn to appreciate the ability to understand how and why things work. I’ve taught myself a lot by taking things apart and putting them back together, and I realize now that I’ve been conditioning my problem-solving abilities.
My dad was very much a ‘Let me do it’ kind of guy.
He wanted to fix the problem, whether it was a broken appliance or hurt feelings, rather than explore it. Or help us learn about it. I appreciate what he was trying to do, but I think it hindered my ability to think for myself and really figure things out while I was growing up.” – Trevor, 40, Pennsylvania
10. How To Nurture My Inner Child
“I wish my father had taught me that most adults, even parents, still feel like kids themselves deep down inside. That the feeling of not being ready for adulthood never really goes away, and most grown-ups are still trying to learn how to do stuff the right way.
Since becoming a dad myself, I’ve realized that the feelings I have, like not always knowing the right answers, or trying my best but still making mistakes with my kids, must have been there for my dad, too.
I’ve realized that they must have occasionally felt like a child with adult responsibilities sometimes, just like I do. I also think that lesson would have helped me be a bit more calm and understanding with other people throughout my life.
When I stop and think of other adults as basically kids on the inside, with the same insecurities and fears that I have, it’s a lot easier for me to have patience and compassion for them.” – Phil, 45, Ohio
11. How To Manage Money
“I wish my dad had taught me about stocks and investing when I was young. He rarely talked about money or his work as a director at a large financial institution. His passing in December 2001 left a void in my life and financial knowledge.
As I grew older, my interest in finance intensified, and I felt unprepared to manage money.
I took it upon myself to learn about investing through self-education and seeking advice from others. Now, as a father, I understand the importance of sharing knowledge with my boy. I aim to be open and communicative about finances, empowering him to make informed decisions.
Though my journey to financial knowledge was self-driven, I hope to create an environment for my son where he feels supported and encouraged to learn about finance and investing, just as I wish I had been in my youth.” – Patrick, 45, Korea
How China Space Program Is BIGGER, BETTER & ADVANCED Than NASA
Armed with aggressive timelines, strategic investments, and an insatiable appetite for innovation, China’s space endeavors have propelled it into the forefront of the race to space. The nations remarkable successes, like landing rovers on the hidden part of the moon and building a growing space station, have caught the world’s attention and clearly show that China wants to be a leader in space exploration, challenging the long reign of the US. In today’s episode, we will cover how China space program is better than NASA in several aspects.
Black Wall Street in Tulsa Oklahoma, was one of the richest black community in all of America. Then in 1921, a group of white supremacists attacked the community with the help from the National Guard.
Known today as the Black Wall Street massacre, where 35 square blocks were decimated. The community was home to 10,000 African American residents. It was a thriving community, with brick and wood frame houses, and a bustling place of commerce, with shops, night clubs and theatres. It was a vibrant place, and full of promise which is why it became known as Americas Black Wallstreet.
Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed wiping out years of generational wealth. Hundreds had been killed and buried in mass graves as a heavily armed gang of looters and arsonists destroyed everything in there wake. One of the factors in the destruction of the community was resentment over the financial prosperity of the black community.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, a Lawyer bought a really expensive box of Cigars and then insured them against fire. Within a month he had smoked all 24 of these rather fine Cigars, without even paying his first premium payment on the insurance policy.
The Lawyer then filed a claim against the insurance company. In the claim the Lawyer claimed the Cigars were lost in a series of small fires.
The insurance company out-right refused to pay, stating the obvious reasons for not paying out the insurance claim, and that the man has consumed the Cigars in the normal way. The Lawyer filed a lawsuit against the insurance company and won.
The Judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous, but the judge stated that the lawyer had a policy from the insurance company, which it had warranted that the Cigars were insurable and guaranteed that they would insure them against fire, without defining what was considered to acceptable fire.
Instead of having to go through a lengthy legal battle and costly appeals process they accepted the Judges ruling and paid the lawyer 15,000 dollars for the smoked Cigars.
The Russo – Sino combination would produce an Economic Giant with :-
Combined Real GDP of almost $ 25 Trillion
Combined Food Per Capita of 575 Kg per Year (400 Kg per year being minimum desirable)
Combined Gold Reserves of 5000 Tonnes officially and around 6500 Tonnes unofficially
Around 4 Million Soldiers including Reservists
Capable of outproducing NATO at 17:1 in Ammo, 9:1 in Missiles, 6:1 in Ships and 6:1 in Choppers and Tanks
Oil and Gas Reserves
However this isn’t just adding numbers
China isn’t ready to split the world into camps
China wants a multipolar world and wants both the East and West
No matter what the West does, China is not burning bridges with the West because China still gets a lot of stuff from the West
My guess is China will wait and if Taiwan becomes a major issue then China may finally formally cut off the West and form a major alliance with Russia
Russia is ready even today
It’s tired and sick of the West
Putin and Shoigu are moderates but Medvedev, Lavrov, Surovikin, Prighozin are all extremists and tough hawks who want the West beaten and crushed
So it all depends on Taiwan
That would be the red line for China
If US supports Taiwanese Independence, China will formally get into a United Nuclear Alliance (If anyone nukes China, Russia nukes him back and vice versa) and a United Military Alliance (Anyone attacks Russia or it’s friends and China supplies everything including soldiers )
US politician Robert Kennedy Jr. has confirmed the existence of American biological laboratories in Ukraine which are used to produce banned biological weapons.
Tuesday, 15 August 2023 2:40 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 15 August 2023 9:37 PM ]
US politician Robert Kennedy Jr. (File photo by AFP)US politician Robert Kennedy Jr. has confirmed the existence of American biological laboratories in Ukraine which are used to produce banned biological weapons.
"We have bio-labs in Ukraine because we are developing bioweapons," the Democratic Party presidential candidate told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a video interview posted on the X social network (formerly known as Twitter) on Tuesday.
"Those bioweapons are using all kinds of new synthetic biology and CRISPR (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats in DNA) technology and genetic engineering techniques that were not available to a previous generation," the US politician, also known by his initials RFK Jr., said in the interview.
"When the Patriot Act reopened the biolabs arms race in 2001, the Pentagon began putting a lot of money into bioweapons," Kennedy Jr. added. "But they were nervous at that time because if you violate the Geneva Convention, it’s a hanging offense," he explained. "So they were nervous about actually going full force into bioweapons development.
So they transferred the authority for biosecurity to one agency in the HHS [the US Department of Health and Human Services]," the politician added. "But now, when you do bioweapons development, every bioweapon, it needs vaccine so you develop them side by side because in 100 percent of the cases when you deploy a bioweapon, there’s blowback.
Your side also gets sick," he concluded. The Russian Defense Ministry revealed the existence of US military biolabs in Ukraine working on producing bioweapons as early as February 2022.
In mid-April, a Russian parliamentary commission presented its final report on the investigations into the activities of the US-run bio-labs in Ukraine.
The report concluded that the Pentagon’s military biological program had grown large in scale, being implemented under the guise of anti-terrorist projects and activities that were permitted by the Biological Weapons Convention.
The parliamentary commission also pointed out that the activities of all the US-controlled laboratories involved Pentagon experts.
However, the results of their work were confidential and government agencies in the host countries only had access to secondary research results. Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, revealed that the secret US labs in Ukraine were producing biological warfare.
As a result of the illegal activities that were being carried out at US bio-labs in Ukraine, Russia last year asked the United Nations Security Council to establish a commission to investigate the reports that Washington and Kiev were in violation of the Convention prohibiting the use of biological weapons.
In the meantime, Moscow believes that the US bio-labs in Ukraine are only a fraction of a global network of 300 similar facilities. However, the US government has now denied the existence of such military bio-labs.
Instead, the US government has admitted to what it calls US-funded biological research facilities.
Earlier this year, Russia said it had obtained documents in Lisichansk, in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic (LPR), that revealed the US military-funded labs in Ukraine had been creating biological weapons components and testing them on the population of the country.
"Russian troops have secured over 20,000 documents, reference and analytical materials, and interviewed eyewitnesses and participants in American military-biological programs" since the start of the war in February last year, said the commander of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.
The general said that the documents "confirm... the focus of the Pentagon on creating biological weapons components and testing them on the population of Ukraine and other states along [Russia's] borders."
I am 67 years old. These are among the best things I have ever learned:
You spend your first 20 years worrying what people think about you. You spend your next 20 years swearing that you don’t care what people think about you. You spend the next 20 years realizing that they aren’t thinking about you. A liberation!
Any day on this side of the dirt is a good day. Some people didn’t make the cut last night. I was hit by a speeding taxi as I was walking to a bus stop. I spent a month in rehab with two broken legs, a brain injury, multiple back injuries and other fractures. The night before I was hit, a young, married couple was also hit. They both died. Practice gratitude.
A woman I know spends most of her time thinking about how much she hates her thighs. She can give you a detailed report on what is wrong with them. She forgets all the places those legs have taken her, all the miles they have walked for her. It doesn’t occur to her that when she gets up in the middle of the night to pee, those very thighs walk her to the toilet. Spend more time appreciating what you’ve got— a heart that beats, a way to pick up your cup of coffee, the eyes that see that cup and know what color it is. Blessings abound.
There are two kinds of people in this world – those who believe there is enough to go around, and those who don’t. Here is an example: If Margo is leaning up against the car kissing her boyfriend, and I think how nice that must feel, do I try to steal Margo’s boyfriend or do I go out and get my own boyfriend? I go out and get myself a boyfriend. I don’t need to steal Margo’s. I know that there is enough to go around.
An old Native American woman was asked why she was always so happy. She said that she has two wolves in her heart and they are both hungry— one wolf is angry and evil, the other wolf is filled with love, and that’s the only one she feeds.
India Just BURIED The Dollar, Saudi Arabia Is Next
Yes. It is happening.
A truth
Diver Dan – Riddle of the Hermit Crab – Episode 20
About 30 years ago, I lived in an apartment complex where the owner paid the heat, hot water and cooking gas. The owner was one of the cheapest people I knew and she refused to fix anything or hire a decent Super. Btw, she had paid off the complex 15 years prior so she was making good $$$ off the complex
The boiler breaks and she has an old, used one, that she found in the newspapers, installed during the summer. By state law she was required to provide heat by November 15th. By the 23rd, it is brutal cold and we still didn’t have heat. I called her up to find out what is going on. Her response was that she was out of $$$ and for me to buy some electric heaters. Btw, that meant my expenses would up, since tenants paid for their electricity.
I go to town hall, met with the appropriate officials, let them know what is going and file a complaint. I also let them know that there was a large elderly group of tenants in the complex.
The official calls her, tells her that she is in violation and that she needs to get the heat on ASAP. She tells him off and refuses saying that she knows people. (She didn’t) He tells her that he will fine her $1000/day for each unit or $48,000 a day starting with that day. She tells him that he can’t do that and called him some choice names. What she didn’t realize that the town’s lawyer heard the entire phone call.
The next day she was delivered a notarized invoice for $48,000 along with a legal document stating that this daily fine will continue until the heat goes on. Now she is in a panic since she now owes the town $48,000.
But the best part of the revenge is that this happened on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Do now she had to scramble to find someone who could get the system working which she eventually did. But he charged her double claiming that it was interfering with him going away for the holiday.
One last thing, the town official told her if she tried to harass me for reporting her, the town would go after her and would pay my legal bills if I had to sue her
Couldn’t Be Easier Brisket
Prep: 5 min | Bake: 2 to 3 hr | Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
3-4 pounds boneless beef brisket
1 bottle chili sauce
1 can Coca-Cola
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
Instructions
Heat oven to 300 degrees F.
Combine chili sauce, Coca-Cola and soup mix.
Place brisket in a foil-lined baking pan*. Pour sauce mixture over brisket and cover with another sheet of foil sealing edges.
Bake at 300 degrees F for 3 to 3 1/2 hours until tender.
Carve brisket against the grain and serve the pan juices as a sauce.
Notes
* or use a cooking bag for really easy clean-up.
Now CHINA Missile Force Can Destroy US Asia Pacific Command in Just 7 minutes
This audacious assertion unveils a stark reminder that in the realm of modern warfare, the boundaries of possibility are continually pushed, leaving the world to grapple with the implications of China’s missile might and its potential to reshape the geopolitical landscape in a matter of minutes. Today’s episode will cover China’s missile force power.
Today’s treat. Full movie with James Stewart. Please enjoy!
Out of the blue, the grizzled farmhand, John O'Hanlan, receives an unexpected letter from an unknown solicitor in the far-off town of Cheyenne, Wyoming, informing him that he is the proud owner of the Cheyenne Social Club, now that his estranged brother, D.J., has passed away. Intrigued and eager to trade in the dusty landscapes of 1867 Texas for an easy life as a businessman, without delay, John sets out on a long trip with his best friend, Harley Sullivan, to create a better future for himself. But somehow, John's newest and only acquisition has both a good and a bad reputation. Either way, the establishment's inexperienced manager now holds the fates of its loyal staff in his hands: a beautiful sextet of dedicated, and above all, famous female employees. However, is John cut out to run this type of business?
This is perhaps one of my most important Geo-political posts. Much bigger things than Ukraine is going on RIGHT NOW. Much, much, bigger.
Africa is unifying.
The Third-world is rising up against the West.
Russia is supporting the Africans.
The United States is playing the same old games
Guys, Africa is the sole remaining supply of energy supply to Europe. The USA blew up Nordstrom 1 & 2, fully expecting to get gas from Africa. Now Africa says NO!
So Europe is looking to go BLACK.
Europe (via France) is up for a fight, ha! Take on Africa, China and Russia? The situation is very dicey.
Key areas are [1], [2] , [3] and [4].
The first point…
[1] Africa just SHOCKED the world with this and Putin is watching
Oh MY GOD. The shit is really hitting the fan.
You all must watch this. It is happening right now.
Minimum wage in my state is $12 an hour. Which is multiplied to make $24,960 for full time. To “rich” to disqualify taxes.
With that, I have to live frugally to an impossible extreme. After taxes, no benefits I might bring home $13,000 at best.
Now I’m including federal state, local, gas, food, registration, safety inspections etc etc. all the things to stay legal and manage to work in a rural place where transportation is 100% required and not supplied by public methods. If you fail to meet these requirements, Law Enforcement is likely to levy more taxes. (Poor tax)
So less then $1100 a month. I’m single. My rent is $650 for a 1 bedroom. Now I have $450. Somehow I’m buying food to last…(which I almost entirely make myself.)
What if my already paid for clunker breaks down. what if I get injured, can’t afford the “benefits package” offered.
I’m not even going to break down $15 an hour. I CANT work for less then $20 and figure it out. The job market and employers don’t get it. “No one wants to work anymore” is what I hear. I have a job paying $16. Umm sorry.
I do better these day, worked hard to get there. My sense of compassion hasn’t left from those hard days, however. I live in a rural area with a lower cost of living, but…
For comparison purposes…
In China, a bottle of ketchup costs 10 yuan. (Roughly $1.40).
Keanu Reeves REFUSED To Sell His Soul To Hollywood
This video calmed me, and erased some earlier strife that I experienced today.
In 2013, a US company was running a routine security check and noticed that someone had been constantly logging into their system from China. Straight away, the company believed it was hackers and hired Verizon to root out the problem and secure their systems.
It didn’t take them long to realise it wasn’t hackers, it was actually a US employee of the company who would only be referred to as Bob.
The quiet and unassuming programmer was outsourcing his job to someone in China. Bob hired a programming firm in China to do the work for him and paid them one-fifth of his 6 figure salary.
Over the years, Bob earned the reputation as one of the best developers in the whole building and received outstanding performance reviews for his well-written code.
As they delved deeper into their investigation, they discovered that Bob had a very relaxed workday. Work at 9 am, where he surfed Reddit watching cat videos. Lunch at 11.30 am, and then at 1 pm, he would browse eBay. From 2.30 to 4.30 pm, he was browsing Facebook and LinkedIn. Finally, sending an email to update management before leaving.
Originally Answered: What's the craziest thing you ever said at a job interview and still got the job?
The interviewer, a very senior technical guy, asked me, “So, do you have any questions for me?”
I thought about it for a moment and said, “What’s the worst thing about working here?”
He thought about it for a minute, then got up and closed his door, and told me. For like half an hour, in painful detail, getting more agitated as he went. Then he was done, and sent me on my way saying I’d hear back soon.
The next day I got called back in. Seems that after he talked to me, he went and resigned, and the HR rep asked what happened in our interview.
After I told them, in detail, I expected to hear nothing further since I would have been reporting to him. Instead, the CTO came in to talk to me, and asked if I would be interested in coming aboard to help him fix all the things that seemed to be wrong with the organization (and solve some cool technical problems as well).
So I did.
Life Lessons
Nobody cares about you, your plans, your goals, or your little dramas. So stop pretending they do, or getting upset when they don’t.
When it comes to reaching your goals, discipline is more important than motivation. If you don’t have discipline, you’ll never stick to anything.
You are the only person capable of changing your life; no one can do that for you. The easiest way to change yourself is to change the things you do each day.
The biggest threat to your progression in life isn’t something or someone around you; it’s you.
The key to a successful life lies not in what you know, but in what you do with what you know.
Failure is just a stepping stone on the road to success.
You can’t change the past, but you can still fuck up your future if you repeat it.
Success is not about what you accomplish, it’s about who you become in the process.
Your comfort zone is a barren place. Nothing ever grows there.
Anything in life worth achieving will not be easy to get. If it were, everyone would get what they wanted. Most people give up on their goals when things become too difficult. Don’t be like most people.
I have been hearing that China is doing dollar-yuan swaps with countries like Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, etc.
These countries are having difficulty getting dollars to pay back loans because the US Fed has set higher interest rates, drawing US dollars from overseas back to the US. China wants to cut back on its dollar holdings. So China is offering these countries’ central banks US dollars to pay back the dollar-denominated loans. These countries would pay off their dollar loans, and then pay back China in Chinese yuan.
My guess is that in order to get rid of US treasury holdings, China is offering favorable yuan exchange rates to these borrowing countries.
Locking in low exchange rates also helps China because it promotes Chinese exports because they appear to be cheap. Since China is the manufacturing nation to the world, it is very important that Chinese exports be as competitive as possible, especially while the west is trying to set up China-free supply chains outside China.
China has seen the results of the terrible mistake the US made by de-industrializing and letting the dollar rise in parity against other countries’ currencies, hurting US exports, and is likely determined to avoid that mistake.
ASML Not Needed World Shocked as China Makes Domestic 28nm DUV Lithography Machines!
Nothing can stand in China’s way when it comes to technology like it or not!..
Best Macaroni and Cheese
This is the tastiest, easiest and fastest macaroni and cheese you will ever eat. DO not skimp on the Colby cheese. Use as much as you can afford.
Ingredients
Macaroni (as much as needed)
Colby cheese (lots)
Instructions
While the macaroni is cooking in salted water, dice the Colby cheese up rather small.
As soon as the macaroni is cooked; drain it well. Keep it, covered, in the same pot in which it was cooked.
Add the diced Colby cheese and stir it in. Cover immediately and let it sit for about five minutes so that the cheese melts.
Pilots Report SWARM-LIKE Objects In Military Zones Amid UAP MOMENT
The Hill is a USA Washington Insider publication. Never the less, watch the intro and discard the rest if you want. Point is that swarm drones are fling in and around American bases inside of the USA.
China urges U.S. to stop utilizing South China Sea issue to sow discord
Source: Xinhua
Editor: huaxia
2023-08-07 22:56:30
BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) — China on Monday urged the United States to stop utilizing the South China Sea issue to sow confusion and discord, respect China’s territorial sovereignty, maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, and respect regional countries’ efforts to uphold peace and stability in this region.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson made the remarks in response to a U.S. State Department statement criticizing China for obstructing Philippine vessels that sought to deliver new troops and supplies to a grounded military vessel at Ren’ai Jiao and firing water cannons.
The U.S. statement says such actions are “inconsistent with international law” and “threatening regional peace and stability” and calls upon China to abide by the South China Sea arbitration award issued in 2016. The statement indicates U.S. support for “the Philippines’ lawful maritime operations” and says an armed attack on the Philippines’ Coast Guard would “invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under the U.S.- Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”
The State Department’s statement, in disregard of the facts, attacked China’s legitimate and lawful actions at sea aimed at safeguarding its rights and enforcing the law, and the statement also voiced support for the Philippines’ unlawful and provocative behavior, the spokesperson said.
“China firmly opposes the statement,” the spokesperson said.
For some time, the United States has been inciting and supporting the Philippines’ attempts to overhaul and reinforce its military vessel that was deliberately grounded on Ren’ai Jiao. The U.S. even sent over military aircraft and vessels to assist and support the Philippines, and repeatedly sought to threaten China by citing the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. The U.S. has been brazenly bolstering Philippines as it infringes upon China’s sovereignty, but those moves will not succeed, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Ren’ai Jiao has always been part of China’s Nansha Qundao and the historical context of the issue of Ren’ai Jiao is very clear.
In 1999, the Philippines sent a military vessel and deliberately ran it aground at Ren’ai Jiao, attempting to change the status quo of Ren’ai Jiao illegally. China immediately made serious démarches to the Philippines, demanding the removal of the vessel. The Philippines promised several times to tow it away, but has yet to act. Not only that, the Philippines sought to overhaul and reinforce the military vessel in order to permanently occupy Ren’ai Jiao, the spokesperson said.
On Aug. 5, in disregard of China’s repeated dissuasion and warning, the Philippines sent two vessels that intruded into the adjacent waters of Ren’ai Jiao and tried to deliver the construction materials for overhauling and reinforcing the grounded military vessel. Such actions violated China’s sovereignty and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). The China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels stopped them in accordance with law and warned them off through appropriate law enforcement measures. Their maneuvers were professional, restrained and beyond reproach, the spokesperson said.
The South China Sea arbitration was a pure political drama staged in the name of the law with the U.S. pulling strings behind the scenes. The so-called award contravenes international laws, including UNCLOS, and is illegal, null and void. The U.S.’ attempt to make an issue of the illegal award will not affect China’s firm resolve to safeguard its territorial sovereignty, maritime rights and interests in accordance with the law, the spokesperson said.
There has been much written about the failure of the US elites, with three recent thoughtful cases being that of Aurelian and Charles Hugh Smith and Harold Robertson.
While all three make excellent contributions to the discussion they make some incorrect assumptions and miss important contextual drivers.
All of them seem to assume that at some point in US history the nation was led by a highly competent leadership, rather than by a relatively weak leadership which again and again had its wars fought for it, fought relative weaklings, or had its main opponents commit fratricide while luxuriating in a vast continent full of resources far away from its main enemies.
To put it bluntly, the US elite has never really been tested against a peer competitor.
Let’s start with a little history.
From the founding of the British colonies in North America to the independence struggle the colonists relied on the British Army, and British military leadership, to do its fighting.
Only when the British army had thoroughly vanquished the French in Eastern North America could some of the colonists start dreaming of a safe independence.
The War of Independence would not have been won without the extensive support from France (money, arms, men and the containment of the British fleet), a lack of coordination between the British armies, and a Britain that was engaged in a world war with France at the time; later, the US proved incapable of subduing Canada.
In the next century, the US battled a much weaker Mexico and Spain to take vast swathes of territory, purchased the middle of the country from the much-weakened French, and ethnically cleansed the Amerindian population.
Its elite also made fortunes from Opium in a China subjugated by the European powers and Japan.
All this while its heartland was safe from threat, with vast deposits of every mineral possible – including coal, oil and then natural gas.
At the end of the century it jumped on the decline of the Spanish colonies to grab The Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam and dominate Cuba.
Also, by the end of the century it was an economic powerhouse with a thoroughly dominant capitalist bourgeoisie. It would be surprising if it hadn’t been.
Then its main competitors committed fratricide over a three-decade period. For most of World War 1 the US sat back and made huge profits from supplying the war. By the time it did enter the war, the main protagonists were absolutely exhausted, and it was at the margin that the sheer number of US troops coming to the front tilted the balance.
The actual performance of the US military was awful, committing all of the failings that the other belligerents had at the beginning of the war; with massive casualty rates the outcome.
But the Germans knew that more and more would be coming, no matter how many they killed, and the German home front was in absolute collapse.
The compulsory licensing of all German patents provided a massive scientific and technical windfall to the US in the post-war period.
For more than two years, the US sat out WW2 while again making money out of supplying the conflict. When it did enter its contribution was nowhere near what is celebrated.
Its Pacific campaign was one of limited numbers of soldiers fighting other limited numbers of Japanese for one island after another, while the vast US industry turned to war production.
The Chinese were fighting the vast majority of the Japanese army, which they had been doing since 1935.
Late in 1945, as the two nuclear bombs (developed with extensive help from foreign scientists) were being dropped on Japan, the Soviet army showed how to carry out large scale operations by utterly destroying the Japanese armies in Manchuria and Sakhalin within weeks.
They were poised to invade Japan proper, and a case can very much be made that this was the reason for the Japanese surrender not the nuclear bombs, even the US establishment journal Foreign Policy published a paper taking this position in 2013. In Europe, it was the Soviets who destroyed the Axis armies and the most probable outcome without the Normandy landings would have been Soviet dominance of the whole of Europe.
The forces landing at Normandy fought a force significantly made up of divisions resting from their mauling on the Eastern Front, while having overwhelming air and artillery superiority.
As Big Serge puts it so well, the US “recipe for victory was simple: dispense of a superior volume of sustained firepower. Or, as George Patton would have put it: ‘Shoot the bastards.’”
With the end of WW2, the US experienced its first unipolar moment, as the Axis powers and Japan were destroyed and occupied, most of the European continent, Russia and China utterly devastated and Britain utterly bankrupt.
A financial system favouring the US was set up, and the US once again stole much of German scientific ingenuity though the Operation Paperclip that provided scientists central to the development of such projects as the moon landings. The “father” of the H-bomb was also a Hungarian Jew who had fled to the US from Nazi Germany before the war.
The US was good at covert operations but failed at “shooting the bastards” in Korea and then in Vietnam.
At the same time, its industry flourished until the Europeans and Japanese recovered enough to become real competitors; after which many leading manufacturing sectors had to be rescued by subsidies and tariffs (e.g. the car and computer memory industries).
So, then the game changed to a reliance on the reserve-currency status of the US dollar, the offshoring of US manufacturing, and the movement of elite extraction from the US Empire to the home country itself.
Anyone thinking that the US military was full of brilliant leaders should consider the laughable invasion of the tiny island of Grenada in 1983 against no opposition, where nineteen US military personnel died and others were wounded as shown below (starts at 27 minutes).
Another would be the blowing up of the US barracks in Beirut also in 1983, which killed 241 US military personnel.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, which had much more to do with the decay of its institutions and the demolition-style policies of Gorbachev than any US pressures, removed the US strategic competitor; handing over Eastern Europe on a platter.
Together with the opening of China and the end of the Indian License Raj, it provided the second US unipolar moment. An overwhelming win without a fight.
It is from this period, with the extensive neoliberal policies carried out by the Clinton administrations, that we can point to pure hubris among the US elite.
In addition, these massive new market opportunities covered up the failings of the US elite in building a strong domestic base to support their global empire.
At the same time, two underlying trends were eating away at that base. After WW2, the US state and the US foundations (Ford, Rockefeller etc.) worked hard at supporting the development of a non-communist critical theory, which became a non-materialist post-modernist critical theory.
This really took off in the academy in the 1970s, and then from the 1990s in gender theory (e.g. Judith Butler). This theory “world war” has been documented by Gabriel Rockhill, here and here, and while removing class as a central precept of critical theory (as planned) also spread throughout academy and undermined the modernist assumptions upon which it was based.
At the same time, US universities and corporations utilized H1B visas to keep the remuneration for scientists down through an influx of foreign nationals (and also IT offshoring), reducing any incentives for US students to enter scientific programs. Instead, programs in law, business and the social sciences in general rapidly grew and the escalating cost of a university education produced a customer (as against student) mentality in the student body which was supported by a growing administrative bureaucracy.
Once again, the US benefitted from the output of foreign schools and universities to bolster their research and development activities. At the same time, the native population was continuously denuded of these skills as they focused on the social sciences, the professions, and business.
This was the time of the fad of the “Virtual Corporation”, where everything except finance, sales & marketing, design, and legal could be outsourced, and extra profits could be made through financial subsidiaries (e.g. G.E. Capital). Business groups could be treated like a portfolio of stocks, with laggards pruned brutally, “cash cows” milked, and money thrown at growth areas, and continuous mergers and acquisitions done to hone the portfolio.
No need for experts in production, IT, logistics etc., that could all be outsourced and offshored. Generic CEOs could run any corporation, epitomized by Jack Welch and the many GE spin-off executives that helped break corporations such as GE and Boeing.
Welch’s massive expansion of GE’s finance arm (GE Capital) proved utterly disastrous during the GFC. “Greed Is Good” was the motif of the US executive, epitomized by the corporate raider played by Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street, as he pumped his stock options with stock buybacks and paid himself exorbitant amounts.
Wealth extraction not wealth creation, handing over industrial leadership to a China who was much more focused on national renewal and far more proficient at playing the hand they had.
The US sleep-walked through two disastrous occupations (both after campaigns against extremely weak opponents) which swallowed vast amounts of money and resulted in the growth of Iranian power in the case of Iraq, and an unceremonious exit in the case of Afghanistan.
Something started to change near the end of the first decade of the new century, as the US economy crashed in the GFC, Russia started to re-establish its sovereignty and strength (and won the proxy war against Georgia), and China emerged as a massive industrialized nation.
Since then the US economy has been on the life support of QE and near-zero interest rates, and the US elites have been struggling to deal with the new geopolitical reality.
After the success of the Occupy Wall Street protests, that focused on class struggle, the “woke” thermostat was turned up to boiling by the elite-controlled media, the elite-controlled state and the elite-controlled corporations; the classic divide and conquer tactics that had always worked in the past, this time on the basis of “identity”.
But this let rip the toxic post-materialist, post-modernist brew throughout a society where so many were damaged by nearly four decades of neoliberalism, stripped of their identities as well-paid competent workers with futures, or even stripped of the hope of that for the younger generations.
Desperately competing with any weapons available for the few remaining “good” jobs.
The wealthy may have been always “not like you”, but as Charles Hugh-Smith notes, decades of financialized asset inflation have separated the asset holders by a yawning chasm from the not so lucky.
With interest rates now rising back to more normal pre-2000 levels and the US dollar slowly losing its reserve status, much of that wealth may prove to be a mirage while the massive debts racked up against that wealth will not.
It’s the courtier class that stand to lose the most from the end of the financial bubble, and even billionaires can lose everything when they are leveraged. With the bubble will go many, many of the “bullshit” courtier jobs that currently pay so much as they extract rather than create wealth.
Robertson points to a change from a “systemic selection for competence” to a “systemic selection for the ideologically compliant” through diversity politics.
He misses the fact that the political-economic base of the US elite has changed, and that they see many of the “competent” jobs as no longer necessary in a world centered around financial and symbol manipulation.
They believe that “competence” can be simply outsourced and anyway they will be long gone before any consequences are felt.
When he goes on about “diversity” hiring, he makes invisible the legions of mediocre rich kids and kids of faculty that get into the elite schools every year.
He also makes invisible the Nigerian-Americans who are one of the richest and most successful ethnic groups in the US, and the Asians-Americans disgustingly discriminated against in US universities, and the Indian-Americans who are also extremely successful.
The issue is not “diversity” hiring, it is a general selection bias for the skills required in a “virtual” corporation where specific knowledge is seen as old fashioned, a trend that has been going on for decades.
Aurelien focuses on the Professional Managerial Class (PMC), but does not understand that these are just the courtiers to the really powerful – the owners. Of course, the owners won’t want competent financial crimes prosecutors when so much wealth today is based upon financial crimes.
A Professor of Human Rights is very useful in creating excuses to invade or regime change another country so that its wealth and ongoing income can be extracted by the US ownership class.
The real “diversity” problem stems from the post-Occupy Wall Street identity politics mayhem that has now invaded so many institutions.
Deep down the US elite has now ruled nearly effortlessly for so long it cannot comprehend of a real competitor, as Russia will be soon be “rubble” and China will “inevitably” collapse.
So, no problem with letting loose an extremely disruptive identity politics as long as the ownership class keep owning. The owners are slowly waking up to the fact that Russia and China (and Iran) are not following the script, and therefore we may see a rapid reversal of the worst aspects of identity politics.
The departments whose name is an anagram for DIE may be doing just that over the next few years. As Aurelien has noted though, there are now legions of PMCs who have happily failed upwards as their failures have served the owners (messed up foreign nations can be very profitable for example), but they are not so useful when the homeland needs to be rebuilt and allies strengthened.
They are the troops of the last war of the US on easy street, but now the street has gotten rough and a much tougher breed are required. But they are generally not available, and any that are may want to go back to their own nations given the increasing racism and state-aggression toward Asians.
The US has been lying about the size of its economy in greater and greater ways since at least the 1990s. Costs (financial system fees) are counted as value added when they are pure rentier taxes, inflation is manipulated downwards, and rent imputed on owner-occupied houses, among many other tricks.
US official GDP also counts value added that is produced in other nations as created in the US, when US corporations such as Apple can capture that for themselves through the control of global value chains backed up by intellectual property, financial and legal control, and state help in the destruction of competitors when required (i.e. the Huawei handset business).
What happens when that disappears, and those nations get to keep that value added? What will be left to fund the US military and stability at home? I tend to agree with Simplicius that actual US GDP, and therefore GDP per capita, is about half of what the US states it is.
If Australia is called the “lucky country”, perhaps the US should be called the “really lucky country”. Its elites have never had to deal with a real competitive threat and have never had to fight a direct war against a peer competitor. The “best army in the world” is really only as good as its ability to overwhelm the opposition with “shoot them” power.
It won’t have that against the Russians, the Chinese and even the Iranians.
Without it, it will be seen to be a shadow of its well-groomed reputation. At home, the US really only had a period of economic dominance in the post-WW2 period which quickly faded as other countries rebuilt their economies.
The US elite may have become significantly worse in the past few decades, but they were never the best.
It’s easy to appear to be brilliant when you have a gun in your pocket and your opponent has a plastic fork.
The US elite have never needed to be brilliant because they have been so lucky; that time is now gone.
The Russian, Chinese and Iranian elites have certainly not been lucky, and therefore their competence level is far, far higher.
There has been much written about the failure of the US elites, with three recent thoughtful cases being that of Aurelian and Charles Hugh Smith and Harold Robertson. While all three make excellent contributions to the discussion they make some incorrect assumptions and miss important contextual drivers.
All of them seem to assume that at some point in US history the nation was led by a highly competent leadership, rather than by a relatively weak leadership which again and again had its wars fought for it, fought relative weaklings, or had its main opponents commit fratricide while luxuriating in a vast continent full of resources far away from its main enemies.
To put it bluntly, the US elite has never really been tested against a peer competitor. Let’s start with a little history.
From the founding of the British colonies in North America to the independence struggle the colonists relied on the British Army, and British military leadership, to do its fighting. Only when the British army had thoroughly vanquished the French in Eastern North America could some of the colonists start dreaming of a safe independence.
The War of Independence would not have been won without the extensive support from France (money, arms, men and the containment of the British fleet), a lack of coordination between the British armies, and a Britain that was engaged in a world war with France at the time; later, the US proved incapable of subduing Canada.
In the next century, the US battled a much weaker Mexico and Spain to take vast swathes of territory, purchased the middle of the country from the much-weakened French, and ethnically cleansed the Amerindian population.
Its elite also made fortunes from Opium in a China subjugated by the European powers and Japan.
All this while its heartland was safe from threat, with vast deposits of every mineral possible – including coal, oil and then natural gas.
At the end of the century it jumped on the decline of the Spanish colonies to grab The Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam and dominate Cuba.
Also, by the end of the century it was an economic powerhouse with a thoroughly dominant capitalist bourgeoisie. It would be surprising if it hadn’t been.
Then its main competitors committed fratricide over a three-decade period. For most of World War 1 the US sat back and made huge profits from supplying the war. By the time it did enter the war, the main protagonists were absolutely exhausted, and it was at the margin that the sheer number of US troops coming to the front tilted the balance.
The actual performance of the US military was awful, committing all of the failings that the other belligerents had at the beginning of the war; with massive casualty rates the outcome.
But the Germans knew that more and more would be coming, no matter how many they killed, and the German home front was in absolute collapse.
The compulsory licensing of all German patents provided a massive scientific and technical windfall to the US in the post-war period.
For more than two years, the US sat out WW2 while again making money out of supplying the conflict. When it did enter its contribution was nowhere near what is celebrated. Its Pacific campaign was one of limited numbers of soldiers fighting other limited numbers of Japanese for one island after another, while the vast US industry turned to war production.
The Chinese were fighting the vast majority of the Japanese army, which they had been doing since 1935. Late in 1945, as the two nuclear bombs (developed with extensive help from foreign scientists) were being dropped on Japan, the Soviet army showed how to carry out large scale operations by utterly destroying the Japanese armies in Manchuria and Sakhalin within weeks.
They were poised to invade Japan proper, and a case can very much be made that this was the reason for the Japanese surrender not the nuclear bombs, even the US establishment journal Foreign Policy published a paper taking this position in 2013. In Europe, it was the Soviets who destroyed the Axis armies and the most probable outcome without the Normandy landings would have been Soviet dominance of the whole of Europe.
The forces landing at Normandy fought a force significantly made up of divisions resting from their mauling on the Eastern Front, while having overwhelming air and artillery superiority.
As Big Serge puts it so well, the US “recipe for victory was simple: dispense of a superior volume of sustained firepower. Or, as George Patton would have put it: ‘Shoot the bastards.’”
With the end of WW2, the US experienced its first unipolar moment, as the Axis powers and Japan were destroyed and occupied, most of the European continent, Russia and China utterly devastated and Britain utterly bankrupt.
A financial system favouring the US was set up, and the US once again stole much of German scientific ingenuity though the Operation Paperclip that provided scientists central to the development of such projects as the moon landings. The “father” of the H-bomb was also a Hungarian Jew who had fled to the US from Nazi Germany before the war. The US was good at covert operations but failed at “shooting the bastards” in Korea and then in Vietnam.
At the same time, its industry flourished until the Europeans and Japanese recovered enough to become real competitors; after which many leading manufacturing sectors had to be rescued by subsidies and tariffs (e.g. the car and computer memory industries).
So, then the game changed to a reliance on the reserve-currency status of the US dollar, the offshoring of US manufacturing, and the movement of elite extraction from the US Empire to the home country itself.
Anyone thinking that the US military was full of brilliant leaders should consider the laughable invasion of the tiny island of Grenada in 1983 against no opposition, where nineteen US military personnel died and others were wounded as shown below (starts at 27 minutes). Another would be the blowing up of the US barracks in Beirut also in 1983, which killed 241 US military personnel.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, which had much more to do with the decay of its institutions and the demolition-style policies of Gorbachev than any US pressures, removed the US strategic competitor; handing over Eastern Europe on a platter. Together with the opening of China and the end of the Indian License Raj, it provided the second US unipolar moment. An overwhelming win without a fight. It is from this period, with the extensive neoliberal policies carried out by the Clinton administrations, that we can point to pure hubris among the US elite. In addition, these massive new market opportunities covered up the failings of the US elite in building a strong domestic base to support their global empire.
At the same time, two underlying trends were eating away at that base. After WW2, the US state and the US foundations (Ford, Rockefeller etc.) worked hard at supporting the development of a non-communist critical theory, which became a non-materialist post-modernist critical theory.
This really took off in the academy in the 1970s, and then from the 1990s in gender theory (e.g. Judith Butler). This theory “world war” has been documented by Gabriel Rockhill, here and here, and while removing class as a central precept of critical theory (as planned) also spread throughout academy and undermined the modernist assumptions upon which it was based.
At the same time, US universities and corporations utilized H1B visas to keep the remuneration for scientists down through an influx of foreign nationals (and also IT offshoring), reducing any incentives for US students to enter scientific programs. Instead, programs in law, business and the social sciences in general rapidly grew and the escalating cost of a university education produced a customer (as against student) mentality in the student body which was supported by a growing administrative bureaucracy.
Once again, the US benefitted from the output of foreign schools and universities to bolster their research and development activities. At the same time, the native population was continuously denuded of these skills as they focused on the social sciences, the professions, and business.
This was the time of the fad of the “Virtual Corporation”, where everything except finance, sales & marketing, design, and legal could be outsourced, and extra profits could be made through financial subsidiaries (e.g. G.E. Capital). Business groups could be treated like a portfolio of stocks, with laggards pruned brutally, “cash cows” milked, and money thrown at growth areas, and continuous mergers and acquisitions done to hone the portfolio.
No need for experts in production, IT, logistics etc., that could all be outsourced and offshored. Generic CEOs could run any corporation, epitomized by Jack Welch and the many GE spin-off executives that helped break corporations such as GE and Boeing.
Welch’s massive expansion of GE’s finance arm (GE Capital) proved utterly disastrous during the GFC. “Greed Is Good” was the motif of the US executive, epitomized by the corporate raider played by Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street, as he pumped his stock options with stock buybacks and paid himself exorbitant amounts.
Wealth extraction not wealth creation, handing over industrial leadership to a China who was much more focused on national renewal and far more proficient at playing the hand they had.
The US sleep-walked through two disastrous occupations (both after campaigns against extremely weak opponents) which swallowed vast amounts of money and resulted in the growth of Iranian power in the case of Iraq, and an unceremonious exit in the case of Afghanistan.
Something started to change near the end of the first decade of the new century, as the US economy crashed in the GFC, Russia started to re-establish its sovereignty and strength (and won the proxy war against Georgia), and China emerged as a massive industrialized nation.
Since then the US economy has been on the life support of QE and near-zero interest rates, and the US elites have been struggling to deal with the new geopolitical reality.
After the success of the Occupy Wall Street protests, that focused on class struggle, the “woke” thermostat was turned up to boiling by the elite-controlled media, the elite-controlled state and the elite-controlled corporations; the classic divide and conquer tactics that had always worked in the past, this time on the basis of “identity”.
But this let rip the toxic post-materialist, post-modernist brew throughout a society where so many were damaged by nearly four decades of neoliberalism, stripped of their identities as well-paid competent workers with futures, or even stripped of the hope of that for the younger generations.
Desperately competing with any weapons available for the few remaining “good” jobs.
The wealthy may have been always “not like you”, but as Charles Hugh-Smith notes, decades of financialized asset inflation have separated the asset holders by a yawning chasm from the not so lucky.
With interest rates now rising back to more normal pre-2000 levels and the US dollar slowly losing its reserve status, much of that wealth may prove to be a mirage while the massive debts racked up against that wealth will not.
It’s the courtier class that stand to lose the most from the end of the financial bubble, and even billionaires can lose everything when they are leveraged. With the bubble will go many, many of the “bullshit” courtier jobs that currently pay so much as they extract rather than create wealth.
Robertson points to a change from a “systemic selection for competence” to a “systemic selection for the ideologically compliant” through diversity politics.
He misses the fact that the political-economic base of the US elite has changed, and that they see many of the “competent” jobs as no longer necessary in a world centered around financial and symbol manipulation.
They believe that “competence” can be simply outsourced and anyway they will be long gone before any consequences are felt.
When he goes on about “diversity” hiring, he makes invisible the legions of mediocre rich kids and kids of faculty that get into the elite schools every year.
He also makes invisible the Nigerian-Americans who are one of the richest and most successful ethnic groups in the US, and the Asians-Americans disgustingly discriminated against in US universities, and the Indian-Americans who are also extremely successful.
The issue is not “diversity” hiring, it is a general selection bias for the skills required in a “virtual” corporation where specific knowledge is seen as old fashioned, a trend that has been going on for decades.
Aurelien focuses on the Professional Managerial Class (PMC), but does not understand that these are just the courtiers to the really powerful – the owners. Of course, the owners won’t want competent financial crimes prosecutors when so much wealth today is based upon financial crimes.
A Professor of Human Rights is very useful in creating excuses to invade or regime change another country so that its wealth and ongoing income can be extracted by the US ownership class.
The real “diversity” problem stems from the post-Occupy Wall Street identity politics mayhem that has now invaded so many institutions.
Deep down the US elite has now ruled nearly effortlessly for so long it cannot comprehend of a real competitor, as Russia will be soon be “rubble” and China will “inevitably” collapse.
So, no problem with letting loose an extremely disruptive identity politics as long as the ownership class keep owning. The owners are slowly waking up to the fact that Russia and China (and Iran) are not following the script, and therefore we may see a rapid reversal of the worst aspects of identity politics.
The departments whose name is an anagram for DIE may be doing just that over the next few years. As Aurelien has noted though, there are now legions of PMCs who have happily failed upwards as their failures have served the owners (messed up foreign nations can be very profitable for example), but they are not so useful when the homeland needs to be rebuilt and allies strengthened.
They are the troops of the last war of the US on easy street, but now the street has gotten rough and a much tougher breed are required. But they are generally not available, and any that are may want to go back to their own nations given the increasing racism and state-aggression toward Asians.
The US has been lying about the size of its economy in greater and greater ways since at least the 1990s. Costs (financial system fees) are counted as value added when they are pure rentier taxes, inflation is manipulated downwards, and rent imputed on owner-occupied houses, among many other tricks.
US official GDP also counts value added that is produced in other nations as created in the US, when US corporations such as Apple can capture that for themselves through the control of global value chains backed up by intellectual property, financial and legal control, and state help in the destruction of competitors when required (i.e. the Huawei handset business).
What happens when that disappears, and those nations get to keep that value added? What will be left to fund the US military and stability at home? I tend to agree with Simplicius that actual US GDP, and therefore GDP per capita, is about half of what the US states it is.
If Australia is called the “lucky country”, perhaps the US should be called the “really lucky country”. Its elites have never had to deal with a real competitive threat and have never had to fight a direct war against a peer competitor. The “best army in the world” is really only as good as its ability to overwhelm the opposition with “shoot them” power.
It won’t have that against the Russians, the Chinese and even the Iranians.
Without it, it will be seen to be a shadow of its well-groomed reputation. At home, the US really only had a period of economic dominance in the post-WW2 period which quickly faded as other countries rebuilt their economies.
The US elite may have become significantly worse in the past few decades, but they were never the best.
It’s easy to appear to be brilliant when you have a gun in your pocket and your opponent has a plastic fork.
The US elite have never needed to be brilliant because they have been so lucky; that time is now gone.
The Russian, Chinese and Iranian elites have certainly not been lucky, and therefore their competence level is far, far higher.
The Astonishing REINCARNATION CASE of Patrick Christenson
Children usually remember a past life experience when they’re between the ages of two and seven, then as they get older, the memories begin to fade or the children lose interest where they become less interested in the past and are more involved in the present. About 70% of reincarnation stories involve violent or unnatural deaths and most of the lives that the children described took place about 500 km away from their current location.
China has so much manufacturing that China is able to extract rare earths from their Industrial waste by products from the Nuclear or Aluminium or Steel Industry at a fraction of the cost that it would take say Canada or US to extract the same from a fully developed Industrial procedure
China can produce Gallium at roughly 6% the cost that it would take the Canada to produce the same
That is 17 times cheaper
Likewise China extracts so much rare earth metals and has such a huge scale of processing and refining that it can deliver finished rare earths at 25% the price that it would take the nearest competitor to achieve
That’s China’s advantage
Not having Rare Earths
Many Nations have as much or more Rare Earth Raw Materials or Ores than China does
Using these technologies, China now has unique technology in making Rare Earth components that no other nation has due to PROHIBITIVE COST
Example we imported Rare Earth filament sheets for 260,000 Yuan in ISRO from China
Had this been processed and made in US and imported from there at 0% tariff the cost would have been 1.76 Million Yuan
So commercially China has a huge cost advantage that even 40% tariffs cannot stop or mitigate
And they also have the cost effective technologies that no one else has or even tried to develop knowing that the cost would be simply prohibitive
Deadly Chinese Fighter Jets Which Can Fly Before 2030
I am 67 years old. These are among the best things I have ever learned:
You spend your first 20 years worrying what people think about you. You spend your next 20 years swearing that you don’t care what people think about you. You spend the next 20 years realizing that they aren’t thinking about you. A liberation!
Any day on this side of the dirt is a good day. Some people didn’t make the cut last night. I was hit by a speeding taxi as I was walking to a bus stop. I spent a month in rehab with two broken legs, a brain injury, multiple back injuries and other fractures. The night before I was hit, a young, married couple was also hit. They both died. Practice gratitude.
A woman I know spends most of her time thinking about how much she hates her thighs. She can give you a detailed report on what is wrong with them. She forgets all the places those legs have taken her, all the miles they have walked for her. It doesn’t occur to her that when she gets up in the middle of the night to pee, those very thighs walk her to the toilet. Spend more time appreciating what you’ve got— a heart that beats, a way to pick up your cup of coffee, the eyes that see that cup and know what color it is. Blessings abound.
There are two kinds of people in this world – those who believe there is enough to go around, and those who don’t. Here is an example: If Margo is leaning up against the car kissing her boyfriend, and I think how nice that must feel, do I try to steal Margo’s boyfriend or do I go out and get my own boyfriend? I go out and get myself a boyfriend. I don’t need to steal Margo’s. I know that there is enough to go around.
An old Native American woman was asked why she was always so happy. She said that she has two wolves in her heart and they are both hungry— one wolf is angry and evil, the other wolf is filled with love, and that’s the only one she feeds.
Encountering an online robot, or bot, is as frequent as discovering a pair of shoes in your closet.
This occurrence is intrinsic to the internet, yet users have reached a crucial juncture: A growing multitude of individuals are losing their capacity to differentiate between bots and humans.
This is a circumstance that developers have cautioned about for an extended period, and its rationale is easily comprehensible.
A recent study has determined that bot-generated content now constitutes 47 percent of all internet traffic, marking an uptick of over 5 percent from 2021 to 2022. Concurrently, human activity on the internet has recently hit its lowest point in an eight-year span.
Combined with advancements in AI-driven human-like interactions, nearly one-third of internet users are no longer able to ascertain if they’re engaging with a human being.
Senior US China Diplomats Meet to Decide How Biden Should Apologize!
The owner of the Patriots has five of his Super Bowl rings, and Putin has the sixth one, and you won’t believe how he got it. In 2005, the owner of the American Football team the Patriots, Robert Kraft was in Russia visiting a friend Sandy Weill who was president of the Citi Group. They were attending a press conference with heads of state in Russia, and at the time Kraft’s team the Patriots, had just beaten the Eagles at Super Bowl 39, and he was showing off the Super Bowl Ring he had just received. That’s when someone had the bright Idea to show Putin.
Putin admired the ring, before he put it on his finger. He loved how it looked on his hand and joked about how he could kill someone with a ring like this and proceeded to put the ring in his pocket.
Kraft held out his hand expecting to get his ring back, but three body guards surrounded Putin and he left. To avoid international conflict the White House urged Kraft to say that the ring was a gift. Although, he didn’t want to give away the 4.9 carat diamond ring, he goes on to say
“Its a great story I get to tell my friends and I can’t believe my ring is in the Kremlin.”
Officials from the Kremlin responded and said if Kraft wants his ring back so badly we will send him one like it as a Gift from Putin.
Putin isn’t a Fool – The Mother of all Miscalculations | Dmitry Orlov
Man oh man, this is a really excellent interview. Wow.
Beef Turnovers (Empanadas)
You can use the discos or make your own turnover pastry. I’ve done both, and they’re equally as good.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 pound ground beef
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup tomato sauce
6 stuffed green olives, finely chopped
2 tablespoons sofrito
1 packet sazon with coriander and annato
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 (14 ounce) package Goya discos (yellow or white), thawed*
Vegetable oil, for frying
Instructions
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add ground beef and cook until browned, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, about 10 minutes.
Add onions and cook until soft, about 5 minutes more.
Stir in tomato sauce, olives, sofrito, garlic, oregano and black pepper. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer until mixture thickens, about 15 minutes.
On a lightly floured work surface, using a rolling pin, roll out discos until 1/2-inch larger in diameter. Spoon about 1 tablespoon meat mixture into middle, fold in half to form a half moon; moisten edges with water and pinch to seal closed, or seal with a fork.
Fill a deep saucepan with oil to a depth of 2 1/2 inches. Heat oil over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking (350 degrees F on deep-fry thermometer).
Cook turnovers in batches until crisp and golden brown, flipping once, 4 – 6 minutes.
Transfer to paper towels to drain.
Notes
* Flattened dough for turnover pastries all rolled out and ready to fill – in the Mexican refrigerated section. Make sure you buy the larger ones.
As far as sazon, you can really use whichever flavor you like. Goya now makes a salt-free version of their seasoning. Or, if you don’t want to use sazon for any reason, just use a good seasoning salt, to taste.
The lack of renewable energy in the US is not a lack of ability, but a lack of will.
The US is a post-industrial nation. Sure, a few holdouts of heavy manufacturing exist, but for the most part there aren’t any high-density factory regions in the US. Nations at this point in the industrial chain are most likely to wean off hydrocarbons, but the US is an anomaly. It puts more and more eggs in the hydrocarbon basket.
The reason is there are too many entrenched interests. People want to take the path of least resistance, and the US is no exception.
Moving to solar, wind, hydro, or nuclear requires the US to get its entrenched hydrocarbon industries to keep up with the times. But of course they don’t want to. It’s far easier to just sit on your behind, open your mouth, and have everything spoon-fed to you. And because the US refuses to actually have a government with power, the result can be seen even by a blind man – power flowed from the public to the private. When you give Exxon-Mobil power, do you really think you’re going to be able to move away from hydrocarbons?
—
And that’s how things are. The US will continue with its “but it’s not economic!” excuses, even though anybody who’s studied a cursory amount of history knows no nation ever developed by doing things that are profitable. Want to know why the Qing Dynasty couldn’t industrialize? Just look at the US today.
This is SUPER GOOD.
Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter reacts to the Biden’s failed diplomacy with China and points to the ongoing threat of US interference in Taiwan as a major point of tension between the two countries.
Some years ago I was involved in a traffic accident. The insurance carrier for the car which hit me tried to ignore the whole thing, until I filed suit against the owner of the car.
Insurance settled, and then a few weeks later, I got a call from a secretary at a law office which was working for the insurance company.
She asked me if I was satisfied with the outcome, and I replied that I was.
She then told me that to close out the file, they would like me to sign a document stating that the case was closed. I said, “sure, no problem”.
She sent me the documents, which I read carefully.
Then I threw them in the trash.
In the fine print, the documents stated that I accept full responsibility for the accident, and that I would repay the insurance company plus reimburse insurance company for all the other payments they’d made for the accident, AND I’d pay this attorney’s fees!
All this was very thoroughly hidden in lots of pages of gibberish.
I have learned to NEVER sign anything that I haven’t studied in detail.
[2] Another dispute in the SCS – here’s what’s really happening
As typical for the United States, it is trying to ignite a war (where people die) so that it can obtain “opportunity” to loot, steal and gain control.
In this case, fools (prodded, imbecilic fools, greedy, or drug addicted) are typing to claim this “island” as their own territory. As Philippine citizens, they hope that the resultant Geo-political disputes ignite a conflict where they will be the personal victors. They do not expect to be killed in the process, but rather either [1] forcefully removed, or [2] allowed to stay and claim ownership of the island. Thus making each one multi-millionaires as they lobby China for “rights”.
Stoking this issue is the United States.
What is that all about?
Come one, a group of young men, took a derelict ship and rammed it into a Chinese island, beaching it. And now the United States is using this situation to ignite a war between China and the Philippines.
Complicating this matter is the fact that this ancient pile of rust and shit used to be a commissioned military vessel.
And the United States WANTS to claim that it is still in active duty. Thus, any Chinese activity concerning it will be a “military conflict”.
Like I have said; the USA is “chomping at the bit for a war”.
This is how The Guardian reports on this matter…
An international row is growing between the Philippines, the US and China over a rusting ship that has been turned into a crucial military outpost in the South China Sea.
Tensions have intensified under the current Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, with the country increasingly accusing China of aggression and pursuing closer ties with the US, with which it has a mutual defence treaty.
On Saturday, China provoked condemnation from the Philippines, the US, the EU, France, Japan and Australia after its coastguard directed water cannon at a Philippine coastguard vessel. The Philippines was trying to deliver food, water, fuel and other supplies to its troops stationed in the grounded ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, on Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.
On Tuesday, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, underlined the “ironclad nature of the US-Philippines alliance” in a call with his counterpart, the Philippine secretary of national defence, Gilberto Teodoro Jr.
Austin reaffirmed that the treaty between the two countries – under which the US would defend the Philippines if its public vessels and forces were subjected to an armed attack – extended to those of the coastguard in the South China Sea.
And there you have it.
A pre-packaged provocation is hot, ripe and ready to ignite.
…
I say DO IT. Sink that festering bucket of rust.
Show the world that the USA is a toothless, loud-mouth bully.
China bans Mongolia from using Chinese ports to export rare earth minerals to US
I am not sure you are familiar with this device. It is an automatic soda siphon, known as the Sipholux. It was very popular in Israel in the 1950’s and 1960’s. It uses disposable co2 canisters which are simply broken open in a way that injects the co2 into the water.
How it is related to your question? Okay so this is how:
When the British left Palestine in 1948, they left behind them lots of military equipment, from military clothes and tents, to army vehicles and even some fighter airplanes. Not wanting to leave this equipment in combat ready state, the tried to cripple it in all kind of ways, and then sold it as scrap.
The young Israeli army was putting in much effort and creativity into putting as much as possible of this equipment to use, in any way they could, which sometimes brought to pretty amazing stories.
One of them is about 20 Auster Autocrat airplanes that the British left behind them. The airplanes were disassembled and with most of their fabric made body cover and major parts of their engines and other mechanisms missing. The young Israeli air force aquired them, hoping that maybe they can build 2 or 3 operational airplanes from all the pieces. The work was done secretly in the former underground Templar wine storing chamber in Sarona. Eventually the Israeli engineers got 18 airplanes to go back to fly. An operation that took enormous amount of innovation and resourcefulness.
In one of the airplanes, the mechanism that starts the engine by rotating the plane’s propeller by hand, was missing. There was no way to rebuild it, but one especially brilliant engineer figured out that all they have to do is to compress the air in the pistons to make the engine start. So he made a device that allowed to “fire” compressed air into the pistons from bullet shell like canisters. The same canisters were used later in the Sipholux.
So how did Israel had such a formidable army right ftom the start? It did not. It had a bunch of extremely brave and creative people, and more importantly, there was something it didn’t have: any other choice.
[3] Niger CLOSES AIRSPACE Amid Invasion Threat
American military power… European Energy… and the future of BRICS+ is “on the line”…
The 2023 growth rate of several indicators such as exports and industrial profits has slowed down, and economic activity has weakened. Looking at the world, geopolitical tensions are intensifying, global inflation is running high, and the central banks of the United States and Europe continue to tighten monetary policies, …, etc. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economic growth rate will hover around 3% in the next five years, which is at a low level in nearly 30 years. In May 2023, due to factors such as the rapid increase in the base of the same period last year, the growth rate of the exports from China turned from positive to negative year-on-year, and downward pressure on external demand emerged.
The industrial upgrading and industrial chain integration in China have been absolutely fruitful. Our world today is reshaping the industrial chain, redundant production, and capacity backup. What can expand aggregate demand in history is actually related to technological progress. The expansion of demand for new energy vehicles is brought about by technological progress. New energy vehicles are indeed easier to drive and smarter than petrol ICE cars.
In an unsafe anti-globalization world, whether it is for security, for the possibility of war, for market expansion, or for long-term prosperity, technological progress is required. In a globalized world, there may be more. The demand in the anti-globalization world may be more autonomy, and the development of technology may also be linked to security. Logically, China must persist in long-term transformation, but the key is how to avoid all the short-term major risks before reaching long-term success.
Inflation is too low because China is still actively destocking. China is still very motivated to leverage technological progress. The end of the active destocking in the manufacturing industry, the natural recovery of the service industry and the slow recovery of the consumption scene can still be counted on. The employment pressure of 10 million college students every year is always there, and the number of workers required for industrial upgrading has decreased. In the future, the development of the service industry must be required to absorb employment.
Actually, China’s economy in 2023 is not too bad.
Needless to say, China had always been getting worse and worse since 1949 according to the foreign media.
China has been predicted to collapse since May 20, 1988, when the high-tech industries in China have started to be developed.
China focused on exponential economic growth potential through ideas and how to add and export value out of automobile ideas. China succeeded to graduate in creating economic value out of a domestic flow of knowledge and ideas.
Industrial upgrading and technological progress are definitely the road that China must take in the modernization, but this road is definitely not smooth. How to deal with bumps is something that the market and the government need to think about and set a model for. The government has to formulate monetary policy based on the long-term economic growth trend line and favor industrial policy and credit policy for high-tech industries. It is estimated that China’s monetary policy, fiscal policy and credit policy will be the basis for many years to come. Monetary policy also plays a role in preventing financial turmoil.
Markets may still be too pessimistic about the economy in China. China’s economy is in the stage of development from quantitative change to qualitative change. People should not only focus on changes in quantity and speed, but also on qualitative changes. China’s economy continues to transform and upgrade in response to pressure. Although the current market demand is insufficient and the internal driving force needs to be strengthened, these pressures and challenges will not change the long-term positive trend of China’s economy.
Some college students and older low-skilled workers have difficulty finding employment, and some industries and enterprises face a shortage of high-skilled and compound innovative talents. Vigorously developing advanced manufacturing clusters and national strategic emerging industry clusters, promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and the cultivation and growth of emerging industries will effectively enhance the role of economic growth in driving employment.
From a rational perspective, a lower level of inflation leaves more room for macro policies to stabilize growth, employment, and prices. The decline in prices at this stage is staged and temporary, and its impact should not be exaggerated. Deflation mainly refers to the continuous negative growth of prices, the money supply also has a downward trend, and is usually accompanied by economic recession.
The overall supply and demand of the economy in China is basically balanced. The monetary conditions are reasonable and moderate. The expectations of residents are stable. There is no basis for long-term deflation or inflation.
China’s real estate industry will not pose systemic risks, but there is indeed an imbalance between supply and demand at present, and structural reforms must be carried out in the long run. Preventing and defusing risks is an eternal theme in the financial industry.
Only by coordinating development and security can people ensure the stability and long-term development of China’s economy.
Originally Answered: What’s been the most mind blowing example of incompetence ever displayed by one of your coworkers?
Here’s a good one. Not exactly “incompetence” but just a failure to grasp a simple concept.
The warehouse I worked in stored a whole variety of weird and wonderful things that were in bags, boxes and steel drums of varying sizes. The way our warehouse worked was that the computer would allocate the oldest stock first (obviously) and then the lowest numbered location first if there was more than one pallet of a particular item. Easy enough.
Here’s a pallet of 40 by 25kg bags. 5 bags on a layer x 8 layers… That’s 1000kg… a tonne.
99% of our customers would order one or multiples of full one tonne pallets. Easy. Grab fork-lift, go to pallet, grab pallet, place on the wagon or in a line ready for loading.
Occasionally a customer would only want half a pallet, or even just a few bags which obviously meant some manual labour but it was easy enough.
We may end up with a pallet with, say, 35 bags on it instead of 40.
The next order would come along and it would be for 40 bags… a full pallet.
The first pallet that the computer wants to allocate is… yes you guessed it… that pallet with 35 on. The computer would instruct us to pick 35 bags from that location and 5 bags from the next location along which had 40 bags in it.
OMG what do we do? It’s so complicated I can’t cope! The drama! The physical exertion!
Actually all we used to do was grab the next full pallet of 40 bags, then relocate the pallet with 35 on to where the pallet with 40 used to be. Easy. No physical work required. It was quicker. The computer’s stock figures are correct and we could only do it if the batch numbers and every detail were the same. Easy-peasy.
Then one day the foreman, Mike, spotted Terry and I doing what we called a “swapsie”.
He’d ambled over for a chat about last night’s football because his beloved Wolves FC had won a game.
Mike – Hi lads. Good result last night for the old gold and black eh.
Me – Yes very good Mike. You’ll be as good as the mighty Albion one day.
Mike – Pah!
Terry appeared out the aisle on his fork-lift with a full pallet.
Mike – What order is this?
Terry – It’s a swapsie for Megachem.
Mike – A swapsie? What’s that?
Me – They want a full pallet of 40 bags but the computer allocates 35 from one pallet and 5 bags off the next one. We do a swapsie as we call it.
Terry – Yeah we do them all the time.
Mike – I don’t like the sound of that.
Me – The sound of what Mike?
Mike – You guys swapping stock all over the place. You should pick stock from where it’s allocated, not just to make your life easier.
Terry – The way we do it means just two movements with the fork-lift instead of manually moving bags by hand. It’s easier and quicker.
Mike – What is the “swapsie” bit then? Sounds like you’ve swapped some stock around to me. Come on lads, I’m not thick.
Me – We take a full pallet of 40. Then move the pallet of 35 to where the 40 used to be. That’s the swapsie bit. The system shows that zero is left where the 35 used to be and 35 where the 40 used to be. Go and look and you’ll see that’s what is left.
Mike went to look and examined Terry’s paperwork. He scratched his head a few times. If only Terry hadn’t used the word “swapsie” we wouldn’t even be in this pickle, but it was a word we used so often it was normal.
Mike – I don’t like this at all lads. Something is wrong here.
Paul the supervisor appeared at this point.
Paul – Come on lads. Hurry up with that Megachem order for fuck’s sake.
Mike – Ah Paul. I don’t like what’s been going on here. This “swapsie” nonsense that John and Terry have been telling me about sounds like a swizz to me. Fiddling the stock figures is not acceptable.
Paul knew exactly what a swapsie was.
Paul – A swapsie is perfectly fine Mike. We’ve been doing them for years.
Mike didn’t want to know and wouldn’t listen to Paul’s explanation. He said we had to stop doing swapsies. Paul tried in vain to explain the mathematics of it. We even put the pallets back where they were before we started and ran through the whole swapsie process again, but he simply couldn’t grasp what went on at all.
He banned us from doing swapsies and pinned a notice to the board to that effect.
We all continued to do swapsies and totally ignored him.
== added on 13/7/2021 ==
I’ve added this image and further explanation to illustrate better what we did. I don’t think I was crystal clear enough.
Obviously in a real warehouse there are hundreds of locations and many different products but hopefully this will help eliminate any confusion.
The computer system would instruct us to pick 40 bags of Batch A for a customer. It would pick the lowest numbered locations first. In this example it has instructed us to pick 5 bags from location 2 and 35 bags from location 3 which has 40 bags in it. Doing a “swapsie” meant that we picked the full pallet (40 bags) from location 3 then relocated the 5 bags from location 2 to location 3.
Therefore we picked 40 bags for the customer, there was nothing left in location 2, and 5 bags left in location 3 which is exactly what the computer system would show.
We would and could only do this operation if every detail regarding the product was identical. We wouldn’t throw a few bags of Batch B into the mix for example.
Therefore no physical work was required, only fork lift movements. We didn’t do this because we were lazy. We did it because it’s quicker, easier and less stress on your back if you were doing many of these movements in a day
[4] Niger DEPLOYS WAGNER Soldiers For MILITARY INTERVENTION Prep
Good move. These are brave African leaders and this is a noble cause.
Myself, not a coworker. In 1997 I was an assistant manager at a Taco Bell. The gerneral manager spent his days oogling the teen girls and not doing his job. On my day off, at around 8pm he called me said he had something come up and needed to leave, and can I cover him? Sure, I like money, I’ll work. I get there to find out he had already left, and dismissed another employee for the shift as well. That left me, a great guy named John, and a teen cashier who couldn’t stay long. We closed at 10pm. There were already mounds of unwashed dishes, filthy floors, stuff to put away ect ect… at 950 pm, a high school football team came in, about 15 of them. They ordered, ate in, trashed the lobby, left around 1030 pm. My cashier had to leave, he was young, there were work rules ect… So now its just me and John, with EASILY 4 to 5 hours more work ahead of us cleaning and getting that place ready for the next day. Our shift was supposed to be over at 11pm. This wasnt the first time it had happened. I said screw it. Told John we were leaving, didn’t clean anything, and left it all for the manager that screwed me over to fix the next day. They were supposed to open at 6am, they opened closer to lunch time. That was with 4 staff it took them that long to clean up and prepare.
The Slime People (1963) PYSCHOTRONIC
Full movie. Perfect for a lazy Saturday Summer afternoon. Get some iced tea, and light snacks…
Right now, the world is scarred, and embroiled in a puss-like situation. It’s festering with maggots and slime. It is pulsating, with pustules, and is very painful.
We cannot make out what is going on as the pain is excruciating.
But over time, maybe soon, a scab will form.
And once the scab is removed, we will get to see what the world really looks like. My guess is that it will be much different than what we have known and our lives… all of our lives will be forever changed.
…
I had a vision.
Quod Licet Iovi …
The BBC reported on August 22, 2022:
Taiwan: Two US warships sail through strait
Two US warships are passing through the Taiwan Strait, the US Navy has announced.
...
Washington says its two guided-missile cruisers - the USS Antietam and the USS Chancellorsville - are demonstrating freedom of navigation through international waters.
...
Beijing views such actions as provocative and maintains that the island of Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory.
On Sunday, its military said it was monitoring the two vessels' progress, maintaining a high alert, and was ready to defeat any provocation, Reuters news agency reports.
The US Navy said in a statement that the transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrated the "United States' commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific".
The WSJ on August 6, 2023:
Russia and China Sent Large Naval Patrol Near Alaska
A combined Russian and Chinese naval force patrolled near the coast of Alaska last week in what U.S. experts said appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach American shores.
Eleven Russian and Chinese ships steamed close to the Aleutian Islands, according to U.S. officials. The ships, which never entered U.S. territorial waters and have since left, were shadowed by four U.S. destroyers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft.
“It is a historical first,” said Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a retired Navy captain. “Given the context of the war in Ukraine and tensions around Taiwan, this move is highly provocative.”
...
Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the patrol was a reminder that the U.S. has entered “a new era of authoritarian aggression” and applauded the robust U.S. response.
I put a two pound tin of it in hot water to soften before use, and thought I had cracked the lid open. Apparently not.
Ten minutes later, with an impressive bang, the pressure opened the lid, and most of the tin sprayed itself all over the kitchen. Walls, cupboards, ceiling, lights, the lot. It took weeks to get properly clean, and I had to repaint.
I repeat fifty nuclear weapons that can destroy Tokyo, Kyoto, Sydney, Melbourne and allegedly even Honolulu
They have hacking skills that even Israelis fear
How do you think they became a Nuclear Power? How do you think they remain a Nuclear Power? How do you think they sustain themselves financially and trade wise given they are cut off from the entire civilized world?
CHINA!!
They played the Bishops Gambit with North Korea & you seriously seem to believe that sending F-16s to Taiwan would lead them to retaliate?
It’s nothing bigger than moving a pawn
You seriously think the Chinese are 1% worried or nervous about weapons being sent to Taiwan or Japan?
This is a Country that literally provided Nukes to North Korea to create the largest strategic chess move on the Pacific Sea
What the US are doing – Sending Pelosi, McCarthy to Taiwan, giving weapons to Taiwan etc are all petty stuff of zero strategic significance
China meanwhile has two fully armed Nuclear Allies in Asia and under the nose of the US ensured that North Korea got nukes
So dont believe the Chinese protests
The Chinese have done things of the highest strategic significance and something infinitely more dangerous than 20 Air Bases Or F-16s by the US
So why would they ever retaliate?
They like to pretend to be offended and pretend how US is dangerously doing stuff when in reality, China ensured a country is given an arsenal capable of liquidating 6 Million people
And every Idiot thinks US is the strategic player
In reality with North Korea, China won the game a long time ago.
In the picture above is Cameron Herrin, and this is the moment a Judge sentenced him to 24 -years in prison. 18-year-old Cameron Herrin, lived in Tampa, Florida, and in 2018, graduated high school and was gifted a black Ford Mustang from his parents to congratulate him on graduating.
On May 23rd, Cameron and his brother Tristan had gone to the gym and while there bumped into a friend named John Barrineau, and it was there the three decided to go for a drive. Cameron and Tristian was in the Mustang, while John took his own car. As they approached street lights both cars were side by side, and both goaded each other into a street race.
As they sped down the residential street, both cars had reached over 100 miles an hour in a attempt to keep up with each other. At the same time, Jessica and and her young daughter Lilia were crossing the road as the cars came hurtling towards them. Unfortunately for this young mother and and her baby daughter, the cars were going too fast to make it to the other side of the road, and the black Ford Mustang slammed into them.
At he same time Jessica’s husband David Robonel, happened to be driving past in his own car, not realising what had just occurred. He noticed a big crowd of people gathering to see the carnage, but he just wanted to get home and hoped no one was badly hurt. David then tried to call his wife, but she wasn’t answering and when he went home she wasn’t there either. He figured his wife must have stopped to see the accident, so went to look for them there.
Once he got there it didn’t take him long to realise what he was looking at. HIs wife and the babies stroller was right there in the middle of the street and it was that moment his world came crashing down on him. His wife Jessica passed away the same day and his daughter Lilia passed the following day, after doctors fought to save her.
Right away Cameron and John were arrested and charged with vehicular homicide. John Barrineau took a plea deal and was given 6-years in prison and 15-years probation. Cameron took an open plea, but to his surprise he was given 24 years in prison. His family were shocked at this verdict and many people believed it was to harsh a punishment.
Actions have consequences and in this case the consequences were dire for David who had his whole family wiped out in a blink of an eye. We could take into account the fact Cameron parents gave their son a powerful sportscar, at 18, your still a kid, and if he wasn’t going to kill someone, he would have killed himself.
When the Judge was sentenced him he had to take in the mitigating factors, had Cameron no history of dangerous driving the sentence would have been much different. Had it not been a mother and her young daughter, with a father sitting in the gallery contemplating were his life goes after the trial is over, then the sentence would have been different.
What punishment would have been fitting here? He will be classed as a non-violent inmate and when his parole hearing comes around after 7-years (I’m not sure how the parole system works in America, so I’m guessing) he will more than likely walk, his friend John will be out in about 3 years.
China Declares It Will Hit The U.S Hard Against The CURBS!
Ukraine Declares “Military Threat to Navigation” Against Russian Ports; Poland, Lithuania, Latvia Moving Troops Toward Belarus and Kaliningrad. Blockade to Begin?
For the first time in modern history, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia are simultaneously moving military forces to the borders with Belarus and Russia. Local observers say a land blockade of Kaliningrad and Belarus is taking shape. This comes just hours after Ukraine publicly declared a “Military Threat against Navigation” for the Russian ports of Anapa, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi, and Taman.
All three countries seem to be clearly preparing for a total land blockade of Belarus and by extension the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Beginning to look like the start of WWII with what happened with the enclave Dantzig; only this time, the Suwalki Gap may be the tripwire.
Below from the Latvian city of Ludza, through which, allegedly, the transfer of military equipment to the border with Belarus is taking place:
Meanwhile, inside Belarus, elements from the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) send “Greetings from the Poland Border.”
Meanwhile, in Germany, the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall this week marked the construction launch of a new factory in the western town of Weeze that will produce fuselage sections for the F-35 stealth combat aircraft.
The premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, took part in a ground-breaking ceremony at the construction site, saying that “a highly modern factory is to be built here that will guarantee good jobs for decades.”
Rheinmetall is a partner of the US company Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35 together with Northrop Grumman, another US firm.
The factory, which is estimated to cost €200 million ($219 million) and will have an area of some 60,000 square meters (645,835 square feet), is to go into operation in 2025 – unless the war breaks-out and Russia smashes it with hypersonic missiles, as seems VERY likely to anyone capable of actually thinking.
Its up to 450 workers will produce the fuselage parts for at least 400 of the aircraft, 35 of which are earmarked for use by Germany’s armed forces at a cost of €8.3 billion. Those aircraft are being purchased as part of the €100 billion package agreed by the government last year to upgrade the country’s military.
This announced planning should give readers a much better view of how current hostilities are viewed by the bigshots: They seem to be planning that the war that’s coming will literally last YEARS.
If any of us thought the troubles between Ukraine and Russia would remain a limited conflict, clearly that belief was incorrect. Very much military hardware is actively moving this morning and, day-by-day, it seems clear that an actual World War 3 is shaping up.
Get right with God.
Browned Butter Spaghetti with Mizithra
I used to love to go to the Spaghetti Factory for this. It’s so delicious! Mizithra is a great Greek cheese.
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 cup butter
Cooked spaghetti, drained
1 cup Mizithra cheese, grated
Parsley, chopped (optional)
Instructions
Cut butter into tablespoon-size pieces and place in a 2 quart sauce pan. Place the pan of butter on a burner on medium heat. Bring butter to a slow boil (about 5 minutes).
When the butter begins to boil, stir constantly to prevent residue from sticking to the bottom of the pan. As the butter cooks, it will start to foam and rise. Continue stirring, otherwise the butter foam could overflow (about 5 minutes) and catch fire.
When the butter stops foaming and rising, cook until amber in color (about 1 to 2 minutes). It will have a pleasant caramel aroma.
Turn off the heat and remove pan from burner. Let the sediment settle to the bottom of the pan for a few minutes.
Pour the brown butter through a strainer into a small bowl. Do not disturb the residue at the bottom of the pan.
The brown butter can be stored in the refrigerator and reheated in a microwave as needed.
Boil the pasta of choice until al dente.
Drain pasta and divide into four servings.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup Mizithra cheese over each pasta serving.
Top with 1/4 cup hot brown butter.
Old Folks
San Jose Is The Most Empty City I’ve Ever Seen | Theres Literally 0 People
A multi-multi millionaire and I were driving home after a poker game. We stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. The millionaire asked to speak to the manager. When he came over he asked him what do you do with the chicken when you close? The manager said, well when we close in 20 minutes we have to throw it out. The millionaire said that we shouldn’t pay full price for what you’re throwing away, why don’t you let us have it for a third the price? The 2 of them spent 8 minutes bargaining and finally agreed on half price. When we got to the car my companion said that since he bargained the manager down, I should pay for it. I said that since I was driving him home he should pay. He looked disgusted, but eventually agreed.
Turns out my gut was wrong, in this scenario. I was closing up a coffeeshop by myself in downtown Seattle, was probably around 10:30 PM and in the winter so pitch black outside. We had a regular who always seemed nice, he was maybe 60something and was always wearing the same MIA-POW Vietnam vet hat and jacket, long grey hair, beard, the works. I tried to make it clearer and clearer that I was closing up (ie LEAVE!) but he just sat there, and kept looking at me with kind of an intense look. I started getting more and more nervous; he was a big dude. Finally he came up to the counter and I can’t lie, I was wondering what the hell he was trying to pull. He just said “I saw someone go into the bathroom, and they never came out. I really don’t want to leave you here until I know you’ll be OK. I will wait outside if you want but that’s why I’m still here”. I still wasn’t sure if he was screwing with me or what, so I went and tried to open the (locked) bathroom door. No answer. We used to get junkies shooting up, or people would just forget and lock the key inside, so I wasn’t really worried. I knock multiple times and ask if there is someone in there, no response. Then, on a whim I say “I just called the cops”…a dude BURSTS out of the door covering his face with his jacket and books it onto the street outside. I am standing there flabbergasted as this dude was pretty clearly waiting in there until I closed the shop, hopefully just to rob us but who knows. Needless to say the Vietnam vet did not ever pay for his tea from me or any other employee as long as I worked there. I still think of him as a guardian angel and hope he is doing well and happy. So, for once I’m glad I *didn’t* trust my gut
***EDIT #2***
He did not leave until I did, I had to ask him to wait outside as that was company policy when we cashed out the register, but he damn well stayed outside until I left, and even offered to escort me to my bus stop. He is a damn angel on earth.
***EDIT***: Thank everyone for your heartfelt responses. I agree, this man was and is a hero. I am not a hawk by any stretch (I’m a big ol’ anti-war peacenik), but our veterans don’t necessarily get the support they should. If you want to donate to a veteran’s charity the following are supposedly very high quality
The recent coup in Niger has left the United States in the lurch, relegating the more than 1,000 troops stationed in the African country to U.S. bases.
A pan-African response to Western (American led) colonialism.
Yes, to the multiple American military bases located in Niger, which are ostensibly being used to “fight terrorism” but in fact are just another arm of U.S. military power that stretch to nearly every corner of the globe.
They normally think 1001 times before making such a decision because they don’t want to be caught flat like the USA or EU who make all decisions in a hurry and are usually left holding nothing and end up embarrassed
All that China is doing is simply saying
Look. I took on Rare Earth processing because you decided it was too unprofitable and too messy and too unsafe for your water and your environment
I extract rare earths and process them at a profit of $ 3.95 a ton so that you guys can make your EVs at a 36% —54% profit
Now, I feel with the way you guys are treating me and harrassing me. I won’t clutter my environment and affect my people for you anymore
It’s not worth the $ 3.95 a Ton profit
I can rather use it for my domestic industries in greater quantity
I can reduce my rare earth processing and save my environment
I can sell you rare earths at $ 21 profit per Ton because I know you will process them at $ 26.50 a ton LOSS if you directly process rare earths
Its not retaliation
It’s REFLECTION
Why should China keep cluttering its environment and soil just to keep EU and US and Australia clean and pristine in their switch to EVs when these nations are so hostile to China to all the time
Is this a Blow?
Yep
A quota may be established where a maximum of 40,000 battery packs will be exported a year from China
Today it’s almost 180,000
So that’s a 70% -75% cut in the supply chain
For at least the next 10 —15 years until the production is met elsewhere , EVs made outside China and friendly nations like Russia will be throttled badly
Yet here is the silver lining
China has no issues if you keep making EVs in China and exporting them. No issues at all.
This is to protect Chinese EVs from the same trade threats as Chinese Chips at a later date
Tomorrow if EU bans Chinese EVs like they banned Huawei then China will cut all EV rare earths and throttle their EV industry for at least 2 Decades
That will keep China dominant in EV technology and a leading player
China was caught on the wrong foot for 5G and Huawei
Now China is taking precautions with its EV dominance
Gonzalo Lira ARRESTED Before Hungary Border Per Mark Slebota Journalist. BREAKING IF TRUE?
The power of these so-called internet influencers was shown in full force.
21-year-old Kai Cenat is arguably the biggest black internet influencer today. He’s largely famous on Twitch, a streaming platform.
He doesn’t make music; he plays no instruments, he doesn’t act; he has no apparent talents, and he had zero prior connection to the entertainment industry. He’s funny, he had access to the internet. That’s how he became famous.
Good on him. Life’s hard, a young man’s gotta make bread however he can.
One of the reasons why he has a huge following is that he maintains a good relationship with his fans, for instance, he does regular giveaways.
He had told them he was going to give away 300 PS5s, a largely sought-after gaming console, on Friday at NYC’s Union Square park.
Guess how many people turned up?
Around 2000 people, mostly teenagers and young adults, the perfect age group for a wild riot.
The majority of them couldn’t get close to Kai. Just to see him, they climbed cars and the train station entrance’s roof.
Eventually, they became rowdy. The mass held up traffic. They threw bottles, rocks, lit fireworks, fought with police, damaged cars.
Police slowly dispersed the crowd and arrested over 60 people, half of whom were minors.
No deaths, no serious casualties.
Kai did not notify the city before hosting such a huge event. He was taken into police custody, charged with inciting a riot, and released a few hours later.
The First Real Images Of Mercury – What We Found?
ASEAN-China Week kicks off, reaffirming cooperation and closer ties
‘Track II diplomacy’ helps in breaking down barriers, leaving less room for third parties to sow discord
By Wang Qi in Fuzhou Published: Aug 06, 2023 11:18 PM
China and ASEAN reaffirmed the importance of solidarity and cooperation in the face of challenges and vowed closer and stronger ties in the future as the first ASEAN-China Week 2023 unfolded in East China’s Fuzhou on Friday, two days before ASEAN Day 2023, the organization’s 56th birthday.
The event is co-hosted by the ASEAN-China Center (ACC) and the Foreign Affairs Office of the Fujian Provincial Government and Fuzhou Municipal Government. Over 300 senior government officials, diplomatic envoys, entrepreneurs and think tank experts from ASEAN and China attended the event that will last until August 11.
During the main themed forum on a “Forward-looking ASEAN-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in the New Era,” representatives of both China and ASEAN countries stressed the importance of regional peace and stability.
During the ASEAN-China (Fujian) Forum on Trade and Investment Cooperation on Sunday afternoon, three public service platforms under the China-Indonesia “Two Countries, Twin Parks” were unveiled. Strategic cooperation framework agreements for nine projects under “Two Countries, Twin Parks” were also signed.
Sessions like a gourmet carnival, ASEAN film week and an ASEAN-China symphony concert were held during on opening day. The Shangri-La Hotel in Fuzhou offered food from ASEAN countries and China for participants to enjoy, with majority of whom used chopsticks instead of knives and forks, while films from ASEAN nations were introduced on a huge screen.
Despite the complexities in the international situation, ASEAN has successfully managed to maintain peace and stability of the region and sustain good growth momentum, Shi Zhongjun, Secretary-General of the ASEAN-China Center, said in his opening speech on Sunday.
Shi said that ASEAN is one of the most dynamic regions and is leading the post-pandemic recovery of the world. The success of ASEAN “lies in its right choice of progress over regression, cooperation over confrontation and openness over isolation… [it] lies in its adhering to solidarity and independence, in its cherishing peace and development.”
The year 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of China’s accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), and the 10th anniversary of an initiative for China to work with ASEAN countries for a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and for a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future.
Ambassador of Thailand to China Arthayudh Srisamoot hailed the ASEAN-China Week’s role in creating more knowledge and understandings about ASEAN culture, as the Chinese public will have an opportunity to learn about ASEAN, products and meet new people through the event.
2023 also marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Ambassador Srisamoot hailed the initiative’s role in fostering connectivity between nations.
The free flow of Thai exports has enjoyed very good market access in China… the BRI provides an ideal neighboring environment for the two countries to cooperate, not only in transportation, logistics, but also in people-to-people exchanges of culture and youth between two nations, the ambassador told the Global Times.
Ong Tee Keat, senior fellow with the Taihe Institute and chairman of Malaysia-based think tank the Center for New Inclusive Asia, told the Global Times on Sunday that since the relationship between China and ASEAN has been upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership, it becomes more necessary to develop all-round and multi-dimensional relations.
Non-political sessions during the event seek to break down barriers between the people to avoid unnecessary suspicion, just in case a third party sows discord and inciting populism when there’s misunderstanding, Ong said.
Ong is former deputy speaker of Malaysia’s lower house of parliament, Malaysian transport minister and president of the Malaysian Chinese Association. He believes that the “Track II diplomacy,” which stresses people-to-people and cultural exchanges and non-official contact, is crucial for China to deepen ties with ASEAN.
ASEAN-China Week, which came after the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in Jakarta in July, is viewed as an important event to promote other China-ASEAN exchanges in the second half of 2023.
The 2023 ASEAN-China Summit is scheduled to be held in September, followed by the 20th China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit. The APEC Summit in November will be also attended by ASEAN nations and China.
Benito Gosiaco Techico, special envoy of Philippines president to China for trade, investment and tourism, told the Global Times on Sunday that Manila is looking forward to more investment collaboration with China, particularly in the field of agriculture, information, technology, tourism, manufacturing and renewable energy.
“The prospect is definitely positive,” he added.
ASEAN has been China’s largest trading partner for three consecutive years. In the first half of 2023, trade with ASEAN countries accounted for 15.3 percent of China’s total trade, reaching 3.08 trillion yuan ($428.96 billion), up 5.4 percent from 2022.
Carne Adovada
This is a wonderful filling for burritos or simply great served over rice with the resulting gravy. For better flavor, prepare a day ahead.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon shortening
4 garlic cloves, minced
8 ounces (about 25) whole dried New Mexican red chile pods
4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons diced yellow onion
1 tablespoon crushed chile pequin
1 teaspoon granulated garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried Mexican oregano
3 pounds thick boneless shoulder pork chops
Instructions
Heat shortening in a Dutch oven, and sauté garlic until browned.
Remove the seeds and stems from the chile pods. Rinse chiles in large mixing bowl and drain.
Place moistened chiles on baking sheet and toast carefully in the oven for 5 minutes. They do not need to be completely dried out.
Remove from the oven then let cool.
Add half of the chiles into a blender, and puree with 2 cups warm water. Pour into Dutch oven with previously browned garlic and repeat with the other half of the chiles.
Add the remaining ingredients to the chile (garlic salt, oregano, onion, chile pequin)and let boil on a medium-high heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce will thicken but should remain a little soupy.
Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
Remove the fat from the pork and cut the meat into 3/4 inch cubes. Stir pork into the chile sauce and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator.
The following day, heat oven to 300 degrees F. Use butter to coat large baking dish, so it doesn’t stick.
Add the marinated carne adovada with sauce into baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 3 hours, stirring once at an hour and a half into baking. At 2 1/2 hours, remove foil (to thicken sauce).
They cannot afford to maintain it and they cannot afford the aircraft for it. It serves no purpose other than to be the world’s most expensive royal yacht. In fact, nobody understands why they wanted an aircraft carrier to begin with since Thailand has no need for overseas force projection. It is the ultimate example of a white elephant.
To conclude, Thailand has too many aircraft carriers, because even just one is too many for them.
It is becoming increasingly clear to more and more people in the West that something has gone terribly wrong with the Ukraine project. Predictions and projections didn’t pan out and the West doesn’t seem to know what to do. The Russian economy wasn’t a house of cards as predicted, Russian weapons weren’t inferior as predicted, Russian soldiers and commanders weren’t incompetent as predicted, and Russian technology wasn’t inferior as predicted.
In some respects the Russians even seem to be superior to the West. Their weapons are effective and in many cases outright technologically superior, as clearly demonstrated by their hypersonic missiles, SAM systems and electronic warfare systems. Their economy appears to be surprisingly advanced and diversified and based on real wealth creation rather than financialization and debt like the West’s. Their strategic and tactical thinking also seems to work, while the West‘s clearly doesn‘t.
The whole mess is often explained as a result of a miscalculation by the western elites – they underestimated Russia and overestimated the West. The situation, however, is far worse than that. Every day that passes reveals the impotence of the West more and more and the situation is becoming outright humiliating. At this point the rest of the world either shakes their heads or simply laughs at the West and its politicians and diplomats – not to mention its crazed populations.
The dysfunction of the West is far deeper than just the situation around the Ukraine project. It’s absolutely everywhere. The West can’t do diplomacy in general, it can’t run its cities or countries except into the ground, its high-tech projects fail almost as a rule, its infrastructure is crumbling, its economies are crumbling, and all public policies seem to have a civilizational suicide as a final goal. The West’s control mechanisms over the rest of the world are also crumbling, including the dollar, sanctions, color revolutions, military interventions and threats. Nothing seems to work and everything the West does seems to make things worse.
Any rational person upon hearing a western leader, diplomat or “expert” speak, asks himself this question: “Are they just lying or are they really this incompetent and delusional?” The answer is “both” but the incompetence factor is far greater than most people can imagine.
Why has this happened? It’s clear that the cause is far deeper than the deindustrialization of the West or economic problems in general. The economy doesn’t explain the incredible incompetence shown by the West before and during the war in Ukraine.
I suggest that the cause of this unfolding disaster is a serious structural problem in the West – which Russia seems to have largely avoided. This structural problem is a necessary condition for the current western system and has been purposely created to bring it about and maintain it. This problem is the subject of this article – as well as the “mechanism” behind it. This is unfortunately a long article, but the subject matter demands it.
Human capital and its properties
The current ideologically-based power structure of the West outright requires that certain types of people be in positions of influence and certain types of people be sidelined. This applies to all steps of the social ladder; from kindergarten teachers to university teachers and corporate executives, and all the way up to the leaders of society itself. This has been progressing steadily for the last five decades or so, and has resulted in a major structural problem for the West. That problem is the obvious and massive degradation and misallocation of human capital in the West.
Human capital can be described as the quality of a company’s or nation’s workforce, or more specifically how competent the employee pool is – how well they are trained, how quickly they can be trained, how they are educated in general, and how they make decisions. In order to understand what competence really means, let’s define it further.
Competence can be described as specific or general. This distinction is extremely important and must be understood by anyone who attempts to manage human capital on a small or large scale.
Specific competence is the ability to do a certain type of work. This can be carpentry, coding, chemistry, medicine, piloting an airliner, and so on and so forth. Some of these types of jobs may require a lot of competence, training and intelligence, but what they have in common is that their scope is limited and clearly defined. They exist within clear boundaries, separate from the complexities and vagueness of the world in general. Each type of work requires certain abilities innate in the person, as well as varying degrees of training. People, of course, differ a lot in their level of specific competence within each field.
General or high-level competence is the ability to do work that is beyond clearly defined boundaries. The subject matter of those types of work exists in a complex “variable universe” and can be exceedingly vague and confusing. It requires the ability to be adaptive and be able to transfer skills between different types of work. This also applies to expertise in one field being applied to a completely different field – such as applying psychology to economics or astrophysics to climate science.
Examples of positions requiring general or high-level competence people are corporate executives, all kinds of planners and administrators, product developers, inventors, high-level consultants and analysts, military leaders and planners, diplomats, judges, political leaders, and high-level scientists and theoreticians, to name a few.
Specific and general competence types of work are not two separate things. Types of work or “jobs” can be said to range from almost completely specific up to almost completely general. Almost all types of work have elements of both but in varying proportions. To illustrate this I will take an example from a company I’m personally familiar with. This is a software company with several owners, most of whom work at the company. One of the owners is an exceptionally competent database specialist. However, when he contributes to decision making for the company as a whole, he becomes an outright problem. The management structure of the company had to be “modified” to neutralize him in that role, as well as a few others. This employee has exceptional specific competence but very poor general competence. He cannot “transfer” his specific database competence over to competence in moving the company into the future. He simply cannot operate objectively or sensibly outside his database job.
So what makes this employee have such poor general competence – or more specifically – what is general competence? General competence requires three necessary conditions: a) High general intelligence or IQ, b) the ability to be objective, even in situations where the result of your conclusions may not be to your liking, and c) the ability to reach conclusions without being influenced by others (i.e. independent thinking). The latter two conditions are a direct result of how the human brain interacts with the environment. The mechanism behind it is too complicated to describe here, but in simplistic terms it can be said that humans range in their relationship with reality from the emotional-outward/subjective to the introspective/objective. This variable, like all evolutionary traits, including IQ, is normally distributed. This has rather disturbing implications which may be difficult for some people to understand.
Let’s first look at IQ, or general intelligence. In order to be able to deal with seriously complicated work or get through a real university program, an IQ of about 125 is necessary. Only about 5% of the population in the West has this IQ or higher. This means that the pool of potentially high-level competence people is very small to begin with. Even if we use a cut-off of an IQ of 115, which is sufficient for most semi-complicated work, the potential pool only goes up to 16% of the population.
Now let’s take a look at the other variables, i.e. objectivity and independent thinking. Those two are correlated and we will, for the sale of convenience, handle them as the same variable or trait, even though they aren’t. They are normally distributed, much like IQ, with most in the middle and fewer toward the extremes in both directions. On one side of the distribution are people who, to state it bluntly, are incapable of thinking objectively about any issues that may interact with their personal views about anything at all. They can be competent in a limited field which is “neutral” to them (such as databases), but not involving anything else. They can’t run a company in a competitive environment, except into the ground. They can’t run a city, a country, a military campaign, an economy, or anything requiring general competence, except into the ground, regardless of their intelligence. These people are clearly not suitable for general/high-level competence jobs.
So, what is the proportion of the population that is objective enough and independent thinkers enough to be suitable for those jobs? That’s difficult to determine but it’s clear that it is maximum 50% of the population. In reality it’s far less but let’s be generous and say it’s 30%. What does that mean?
IQ and objectivity/independent thinking are somewhat correlated but let’s assume they are not. Let’s say that we have a pool of potentially objective and rational people that is 30% and a pool of people with IQ of 125 that is 5%. That means that the pool of high-level general competence people is 5% of 30%, or 1.5% of the population.
If we are really generous and assume that 50% of the population is objective and rational and an IQ of 115 is sufficient for those jobs, then we have 16% of 50%, which is a pool of 8% of the population.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. This group, whether we define it as 1.5% of the population or 8% of the population, is extremely valuable. This is essentially the only group in society that can reliably evaluate complex situations and make subsequent rational decisions. Without it, modern technological society simply cannot be built or maintained – let alone advanced. Let me rephrase this – if we do not identify and utilize this group, we cannot run our complicated societies except into the ground.
The western purging of competence
Modern western society is from a governance standpoint ideologically motivated and ideologically controlled. It is being pushed in a very clearly defined ideological direction, led by the European Union and the current US administration. This ideology is not the subject matter of this article, but it can be seen everywhere by any rational and independent-thinking person. For the uninformed-curious a good place to start is the website of the EU’s policy-making body; the World Economic Forum.
In order to achieve these ideological goals for the West, two things must happen: a) The right people must be put into power at all levels of society and b) any disruptive elements must be eliminated or suppressed. Since all ideological goals tend to be more or less in conflict with reality, there is no group more disruptive to them than the one who operates objectively and independently. People like that simply cannot be allowed into positions of power, and if they must be, they must be kept quiet and/or forced to toe the line.
The objective/rational/general competence group, whether it is 1.5% or 8% of the population, therefore becomes a problem rather than a resource. This is exactly the situation in the West today.
Many people have noticed that meritocracy has been systematically abandoned in the West and the relationship between competence and reward severed in giant swaths of the economy – and almost completely in government. What few people seem to realize is that this is a necessity for the West’s ideological goals to be reached. High-level competence cannot be promoted because it is a threat. It cannot therefore be rewarded.
In order to illustrate this, let’s take a look at what happens when a member of the 1.5% is allowed to gain significant power. Elon Musk is a smart man, probably with an IQ of 150 or more. He is also quite objective and realistic in his assessments, and an independent thinker. His ownership and governance of Twitter/X is a major problem for western ideological goals. Free speech is an obvious threat to any ideology and, to rub salt in the wounds, Musk belittled the guardians of the Ideology at Twitter by making fun of them, then by firing them all and only keeping the competent ones. This cannot be allowed to stand and we can already see the response. The EU is planning to use force to stop this affront to the Ideology and may actually block Twitter in Europe. Ideological champion (and suspected lizard robot) Mark Zuckerberg was even instructed to cook up an ideologically pure Twitter copy in response – but seems to have failed. We eagerly await further responses, which may range from lawfare up to more “direct” actions, and will most likely be directed at Musk personally.
The reconfiguring of western education
As previously noted, two things must happen for the ideological goals to become reality: The right people must be promoted and the wrong people must be suppressed. This process of elevation/suppression has become the main goal of the western education system – all the way from kindergarten up to university. If we look at what the education system has been doing, this becomes extremely obvious. Here are a few examples:
Evaluation of competence is being systematically degraded to avoid comparison between the competent and the incompetent. Exams are being discarded in favor of constant “projects” and students work in groups so the incompetent may hide. Schools avoid testing the individual directly as much as they can – and thereby comparing him to others. The competent ones must not be encouraged, and if at all possible, they themselves must not realize that they are above others.
Universities are increasingly basing admittance on other criteria than competence, including quotas based on non-competence variables. The most insidious selection method is the “personal essay” which applicants must submit – and is sometimes even more important than grades. All applicants know that the more they signal virtue in the essay, the more likely they are to be admitted. On the basis of the essay, the universities can pick the ideologically pure – which is the only purpose of the essay requirement to begin with.
Almost every academic subject is being turned from the objective to the subjective to assist the irrational-incompetent student. This even applies to hard subjects such as mathematics – where nowadays 2+2 doesn’t necessarily equal 4. Even intelligence is now subjective and the stupid can be as smart as the intelligent – it’s just a question of perspective, the right measuring tools, and idiotic inventions such as “emotional intelligence.”
Almost every subject has been made easier than before to help the incompetent students and even critical fields such as medicine are now graduating people who are utterly incompetent and clueless – on a large scale. This systematic lowering of standards also has the added benefit of creating disinterest in smart and rational students. A smart student performs better and better relative to others as the subject gets harder. If the subject is easy or made uninteresting, he will sink down to mediocracy – which is a part of the purpose of lowering the standards to begin with.
Disciplines which may be a threat to the irrationality of the Ideology have been massively subverted and corrupted. This applies to several fields, but particularly to psychology and history, which in their proper forms would be a massive threat to western ideological goals. Psychology has been twisted into an almost unrecognizable abomination, and history is mostly just lies these days.
Fake disciplines have been invented from the ground up for the purpose of training the ideologically pure without the need for competence or intelligence or any connection to reality. These disciplines can be found in lists of “most useless university degrees” all over the internet, but that is a misunderstanding. Those degrees are not useless at all – they elevate the ideologically pure in society by awarding them university “certification.” This certification justifies giving them important positions in society.
I could go on but you get the picture. What we are looking at here is not the failure of the western education system, but a very carefully planned “pivoting” toward new objectives. The primary purpose of the education system is no longer education. The entire education system of the West has been reconfigured to carry out a “filtration” process. The purpose of this process is to identify, instruct and elevate the ideologically pure while suppressing the dangerous 1.5/8 group. The education system, particularly the universities, has largely abandoned real education and is almost solely focused on this mission. This mission is not just carried out by the education system, but by all institutions of governments and a large part of the corporate sector. A side-result of this filtration process is the degradation of all education in the West, and subsequently, degradation of its human capital in general.
Western society, in general, has abandoned rationality and replaced it with subjectivism (formally designated as “post-modernism”). The purpose of that is not just to train and advance the ideologically pure, but to use subjectivism as an oppression tool against the 1.5/8 group and the rational part of the population outside of it. The best way to suppress a rational person is to subject him to an existence of total and constant irrationality. It is essentially gaslighting on a civilizational scale, directed at the dangerous rational group.
While the dangerous rational group is being suppressed and subverted, the ideologically pure “leaders of tomorrow” are indoctrinated rather than educated, given university certifications rather than real degrees, and finally provided with an unending amount of fake and well paid jobs in both the private and public sector. This well-paid ideologically pure group then becomes the power base of the new ideological system.
The upward migration of the incompetent
The goal of this deliberate intervention into the educational system is to create what you might call a “migration pattern” in society based on (lack of) competence and ideological purity. The right people need to be put into the right positions and the right jobs, and since they are incompetent, this needs to be managed for them. After they leave school with their certifications, government and the private sector take over and actively push them upward, while pushing the dreaded 1.5/8 group away from influence and well-paid jobs.
Two developments in the West have been godsends for these efforts: the outsourcing of western manufacturing to Asia and the virtual abolition of competition in the corporate sector. This massively decreased the complexity level of the western economy and subsequently the need for the 1.5/8 group. When most companies operate services in a protected environment, there is far less need for high-level/rational people – while in a “real economy” these people simply cannot be sidelined. Also, when you can get away with operating a fake economy based on the dollar reserve status, you can also operate a fake society run by incompetents.
Let’s take a closer look at how this upward migration of the ideologically pure is managed after they receive their university certifications – and how the 1.5/8 group is systematically blocked. There are five main methods being employed – which together form a long-term takeover process of society. These methods are the following:
Public sector filtering
Public sector stuffing
Job-creation by decree
Private sector filtering
Private sector stuffing
Public sector filtering – This describes the job selection process in the public sector. Initially the “foot-in-the-door” method is used. A few ideologically pure politicians and bureaucrats position themselves within the system and start controlling who is hired. This increases exponentially over the decades as more and more purists gain access to the levers of power. Currently the process is so overt that it is starting to become expressed in recruitment policy papers – such as the recent example of the British government excluding “white men” from becoming fighter pilots. The West has almost completely been able to exclude the 1.5/8 group from public-sector positions using this method – including its armed forces.
Public sector stuffing – As the public sector filtering process advances, the purists inside the system start creating more and more positions for their purist brethren. New departments are created, work groups and committees appear, and the public sector expands. Publicly owned companies, such utility companies, hospitals and schools are also often used as storage units for large numbers of the ideologically pure. This is extremely obvious in the West. Every unnecessary law or initiative requires more and more people – and these people are all carefully selected.
Job-creation by decree – This method is directed at the private sector, as well as the semi-public sector. Government purists start creating new laws and standards which all companies must fulfill. Those are justified on the basis of “goodness” and usually involve the environment, equality, safety and such things. This creates a large number of positions within private companies which are tailored for the ideologically pure – particularly in support functions such as human resources, compliance functions and others. This enables a “foot-in-the-door” situation in the private sector and gives the purists access to the levers of powers there – much like they already have in the public sector.
Private sector filtering – As the purists have gained access to the private sector – particularly human resources (which is the standard purist Trojan horse in private companies) – they start filtering new recruits exactly the same way the public sector does. As in the public sector, this filtering process is becoming more obvious. A significant number of companies are now specifying which groups will not be hired in their job advertisements. Since they can’t overtly say “we don’t hire smart, independent thinkers” they usually use “white men” as a proxy for that group for some reason. That group is considered to be a particular threat, although you can be sure that anyone who doesn’t follow the program will be fired, regardless of their gender or the color of their skin.
Private sector stuffing – Shortly after Elon Musk bought Twitter he fired something like 80% of its employees. That 80% was the company’s private sector stuffing ratio – quite high. Companies, particularly in sectors which can influence public opinion – but not solely, are increasingly creating a large number of positions which are either totally superfluous or intended for influence operations against the public.
Those filtering and stuffing methods are the primary mechanisms that have been used for the takeover of western societies by the ideologically pure. There are other mechanisms, such as ESG, filtering by certain banks and investment funds regarding who gets financing and who doesn’t – and the uncontrolled immigration engineered by the ideologically pure which is seen by them as a continuation of the internal migration process. However, all that is beyond the scope of this article.
The ideologically pure have systematically been moved into almost all positions of power in the public sector and a large part of the private sector – and the situation in the private sector is increasingly mirroring the public sector in hiring practices and employee stuffing. The dangerous 1.5/8 group is being kept away by all means, and with great success. The power base of the Ideology is firmly in place.
This job migration program hasn’t been cheap. Millions of unnecessary jobs cost money and it is clear that a significant part of western public debt can be attributed to this program, a fact which doesn’t seem to have been noticed by many people.
The consequences
The main thing to understand is that western societies and economies have been put on an ideological footing. Productivity, competitiveness, technology and science are simply not priorities anymore in the West. Explaining the consequences of this process for the West would take many articles, or a book of several hundred pages. Still, let’s mention a few examples.
The inverse competence crisis – The goal of this entire project has been to place the ideologically pure in all positions of power at all levels of society. These positions are, in a normal and competitive society, occupied by the highly competent 1.5/8 group. The process has now reached near-completion with most positions of power occupied by the ideologically pure. Some of those people have high IQs but they are neither objective nor independent thinkers. The Ideology they must subscribe to is simply incompatible with those qualities. This has some serious consequences.
Remember that positions of power and influence are more likely to demand general competence than other positions (as opposed to specific competence). The greater the power, the more the position demands general competence. The people in these positions now are selected by ideological fervor and reliability – so the higher you go, the more ideologically enthusiastic the people who hold them. This means that the least objective and independent thinking people hold the positions which require the greatest objectivity and independent thinking. Therefore, in the West incompetence becomes greater and more common the higher you go. As someone said – “a general is an incompetent colonel.” This can be seen absolutely everywhere except in some holdout private companies. Those exceptions are of course being addressed as we speak.
The second problem is that many of the irrational/subjective people holding all the power have reasonably high IQs. That may seem to be a positive thing but it has a major disadvantage. Moderate to high IQ irrational/subjective people are the easiest to brainwash of all people. The reasons for that are complicated and need to be addressed in another article – but what this means is that the top tier in the West is not only the most incompetent it can possibly be in comparison to what their jobs require – but are also the most malleable and delusional.
The cost and debt crisis – The migration of the ideologically pure into the ideological power base and positions of influence has created millions of jobs in western societies which create no value. These jobs are much more numerous and more widespread than most people realize, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something like 20%-30% of the entire labor force of the West could be fired without any adverse effect. In fact, the effect would be positive, especially if those people could be made to work the (mostly menial) real-economy jobs they are suitable for.
Deindustrialization has been blamed for the extreme debt levels and tax burdens of the West. That is, as far as it goes, true – but maintaining this giant group of incompetents in their fake jobs is also placing an extreme burden on the West. Western societies are now completely unsustainable and cannot be run without constant debt increase.
The competition crisis – This crisis can be explained by the following example: Let’s say there are three companies with combined 100% market share in some sector. There is no real competition between them and everybody can just relax because the customers can’t go anywhere else. These companies can get away with absolute incompetence on most levels, including in management. They don’t need to think about efficiency, safety, productivity or costs, except on their websites and in annual reports. However, if a competitor with competent employees manages to infiltrate the sector, those three companies will hit a wall. There will be an enormous crisis and one or more of them will most likely go under.
This is exactly the situation in the western economies now. Monopoly and oligopoly is the rule and the main objective of most large western companies is to prevent anyone from infiltrating their sector – usually by bribing regulators or by buying the competition. This is a necessity because a huge number of western companies are now run by incompetent management and staffed by incompetent people, particularly in support and management functions. The immortal words of the nameless Boeing employee about the 737 MAX apply to most large western companies; “this airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.” Western companies are no longer competitive. They cannot compete with Chinese companies now and soon they won’t be able to compete with companies in general outside the West. They simply can’t function except inside an economic safe-space. In fact, the situation is such that the Chinese already do the real work for many of them and reshoring the work is problematic because of (surprise!) the human capital degradation in the West caused by the repurposing of its education system.
This also applies to western societies as a whole. The entire leadership and diplomatic classes of the West are no longer competitive against the rest of the world for exactly these reasons. They are being outmaneuvered by the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, and everybody else at every turn. Even African leaders are now more competent than western leaders. They have consistently made decisions that are better for their people than leaders in the West – for the last few years anyway.
The complexity crisis – Earlier in this article I stated that the 1.5/8 group is extremely valuable for modern societies and without it complicated modern societies cannot be managed. In the West this group has been successfully sidelined to a great degree and a good part of it doesn’t even bother with university education anymore. The situation, however, is even worse than that. The reconfiguration of the education system and the break between competence and reward in the job market has fundamentally changed the decision making process behind the selection of university education. Why study engineering (which is hard) when you can get an even better paying job with a degree in psychology (which is easy nowadays)? The reconfiguration of the western education system has changed the reward structure, encouraging young people to pursue easy and useless education – simply because the “system” will provide them with jobs.
This has already caused a major crisis in western societies, particularly in the US. The “maintenance” of complex aspects of US society needs a large group of engineers and people with related education. This maintenance is faltering now, and significantly relies on foreign engineers educated in US universities. You see, why would Americans study engineering in a system which doesn’t reward it? If China and India could somehow recall their engineers and others with hard education from the US, the US system could probably not be maintained, let alone advanced. This will get progressively worse and we will soon reach a point where complex systems which underpin society cannot be kept running. That will require some kind of “reset” to a less complex society, with less prosperity of course.
There are far more crises than those four, but I wouldn’t want to sound like a doomsayer by listing more.
Russia and the future
So, what about Russia? Firstly, there are clear signs that the Russians have figured out what is happening in the West and are learning from it. Recently they left the “Bologna process” which is a European education standardization system. The Bologna system has the express purpose of diluting education in member states, implementing certifications rather than real degrees, and filling European societies with badly educated and generally incompetent “experts” who follow the consensus, no matter what. The Russians saw this system as a threat to their country, which it is, and have, at least partly, reverted to the older and more hardcore Soviet system.
Secondly, the Russians seem to be carrying out purges of the incompetent and corrupt within state structures, including the military. Meritocracy seems to be on the agenda, a radical concept these days. The Russians most likely see these efforts as critical to the continuation of their state and nation – and they would be right.
The situation in China is much the same and there are indications that the rest of the non-western world is catching on. Remember that one of the results of the recent Russia-Africa summit was a Russian-organized education effort in Africa. I doubt that women’s studies will be a part of that curriculum.
The current clash between the West and Russia – and increasingly between the West and the rest of the world – is becoming a clash between the incompetent and irrational and the competent and rational. The result is obvious – but what happens when an irrational person who is backed into a corner has access to nuclear weapons? That’s anybody’s guess.
By putting its societies on an ideological footing the western elite has backed itself into a corner. They can’t compete; they can’t develop their economies or societies; and they can’t go back. Fixing the problems of the West will require an economic revival, where a real economy will replace the current fake financialized service economy. This cannot be done without putting the hated 1.5/8 group into positions of power. Therefore, it will not be done as long as the current western ruling class is in power. Western societies will not survive an economic revival in their current ideological configuration. Conflict is therefore the only remaining option for the ruling class to hang on to power.
Indonesia Is Picking China Over US ; Giving The Right To Power
The US and China have taken two distinct paths for economic development: the US and the west have chosen financialization, de-industrialization and de-regulation, while China has chosen industrialization.
In the US economy, the largest sector is services, and in services, finance is largest. Finance is mainly about moving money and over time, it does not require that money. This means a large portion of the population becomes unemployed, and wealth flows to the top where wealth is concentrated. With de-regulation, capital is free to seek return anywhere. Under this system, capital becomes more important than the welfare of individuals.
Hong Kong’s economy is dominated by finance; it closely followed the US in economics. This video explains what happened to Hong Kong; the same applies to the US economy:
The great irony about China is that although it is run by a Communist party, it is much more middle-class friendly than the US is. The government understands that China’s future depends on a robust middle-class, and it does not allow the consumer middle class to be eroded the way it was in the US. Unlike the US, the Chinese government believes that finance should be a service to assist manufacturing, not the dominant sector of the economy.
The reason the US does not have good infrastructure now is because Americans voted for low taxes and a weak government and de-regulation; this resulted in capital being in the hands of a very wealthy ruling class, while the rest have to be pleased with the crumbs which fall under the table.
China has a larger and more powerful government which spends it money on infrastructure, and this modern infrastructure investment shows.
Americans chose weak government, and it shows. Now they are paying the price of their choice when it comes to competing with China.
Top 5 Lessons From A 10 Year Journey To Becoming Disciplined
No one becomes disciplined overnight. It’s a lifetime journey.
I think there’s way too much emphasis placed on “motivation” and “willpower.” Instead, I think it’s better to understand how human behavior works, and use it to your advantage.
Here are the five most important things I’ve learned about becoming more disciplined, and I hope it helps you.
Win the Morning, Win the Day
It’s a big challenge to have a productive day – That’s 24 hours. It can become overwhelming!
Instead, I only focus on two things.
I make sure I have a good night’s sleep. If I don’t sleep well, then I’m not on my A game the next day.
This means I go to bed early, I avoid screens at night, I make the room colder, etc.
Next, instead of trying to have a productive day…I laser focus on my mornings. If I get the first hour right, then the rest of my day will go smoothly.
This means a solid morning routine.
Mine is roughly wake up, use restroom, drink 20oz water, and walk my dog. That’s it. It looks simple but I’m hydrating myself, getting some exercise, and getting some sunlight.
Now I have energy to crush the rest of the day.
Vs imagine starting the day late, checking your phone for an hour, fapping, and then starting work.
It’s about starting your day with MOMENTUM.
Manipulate Your Environment
Make it easier for yourself if you want to DO an action. Make it harder for yourself if you want to AVOID an action.
I use to play my PS4 a lot more than I should. It’d be lunch time and I’d go over to my living room and play a few quick games. A 15-minute break would turn into two hours.
How did I stop? In the morning I’d simply unplug my PS4, and put it in my closet. I increased the “resistance.”
I used my phone as my alarm clock for a period of time. I’d wake up and immediately start checking my social media / reddit. That would turn into an hour, and I’d start my day distracted.
Now I use a standard alarm clock. I turn off my phone the night before and I don’t turn it back on until lunch time the next day.
I’m able to control my behavior because I slightly increase the resistance.
You can also DECREASE the resistance. I was moving to a new city and going to the gym was important to me. One of my criterias for my apartment was to have one with a really nice gym.
Before I struggled going to the gym because it was a 30 minute drive. I only went twice a week. Now I have a place that’s in my Condo. I go to the gym 5 times a week.
Nothing’s changed except the resistance.
Start Small
I’ve noticed on the internet that people literally want to change their lives overnight. That’s not the way things work.
It’s like being able to bench 100lbs and expecting to bench 1000lbs the next day. It takes time.
Don’t have an all or nothing mentality.
A few years ago I started meditating. I told myself, “I’m going to meditate 30 minutes a day!”
That’s challenge.
For the next six months I’d only hit my goal maybe 5 times a month, and I’d keep beating myself up.
And then I decided to start small. My goal was to meditate 1 minute a day. I did that. The small wins kept me motivated. That turned into 5 minutes, and now it’s 10 minutes a day.
So for the past few years I’ve meditated consistently 10 minutes a day. I checked my Calm app and I’ve logged over 200 hours of meditation.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s ok to start small.
Think of your discipline ability as a muscle. If you’ve never done an act before then your muscle is small. Small muscles gets small goals!
Keep Score
What gets measured, gets results.
If you don’t keep score then how do you know if you’re winning or not? Keep score and make it specific.
I always avoided keeping score in the past. I think deep down I was afraid of knowing that I wasn’t putting in my best effort.
Don’t say meditate in the morning as a goal. HOW LONG?
As far as trackers…don’t overcomplicated it. I like HabitBull on SmartPhones. Creating your own spreadsheet is great too.
Score can mean different things depending on your goal.
If you’re trying to save money, then track how much you’re spending on a weekly basis. If you’re trying to gain weight then track your macros. If you’re trying to read more books, then track how many minutes a day you spend reading.
A common excuse is that it takes too much time…
Keeping track of my macros takes 3 minutes a day using myfitnesspal. I keep track of every penny spent using YNAB and it takes me 10 minutes a month.
You know what takes too much time? Putting in a lot of effort and not getting any results.
Is it Optional, or is it a Non-Negotiable?
What does a non-negotiable mean? It means it has to be done no matter what.
A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to do Yoga everyday for 20 minutes. I was trying to figure out where I could get it in my schedule.
I then asked myself, how important is this? Well it’s important to me because of x, x, and x.
Then why not turn it into a non-negotiable?
That means I have to do it no matter what. I think of it like life or death. Someone has a gun to my head and if I don’t do it everyday, then I’m dead. That’s non-negotiable.
In practical terms that means I do Yoga first thing in the morning, before I start work. It means I’m not allowed to sleep and call it a day unless I do Yoga.
Guess what? I’d done it 30 days in a row because I have this attitude.
It’s not optional.
This Cat’s Love For Her Owner Is Everything We Needs
A smile for the day.
Bad “news” on Gonzalo
I was given a vision “snapshot” on late Sunday 6AUG23. I saw Gonzalo Lira. He was dead. Like, really dead. On a slab/table/gurney.
Is this real, or my imagination?
I don’t know. It came out of the blue, and surprised me.
I don’t know what it means. Was my ELF probes hacked? Is it a message from the DC, or just some entities fucking with me.
I. Do. Not. Know.
My mind tells me that Gonzalo is probably performing a “red herring” and actually has other plans. Slipping into Belarus, or going to the Chinese embassy in Ukraine. I don’t know.
But if he was stopped and picked up, he probably (more likely than not) be arrested and transported to court with additional charges.
It is unlikely that he was killed if this was the case. You get, and jail him. Tack on some additional time to his sentence. 5 – 8 years at hard labor sucks, but is not as bad as he thinks. I did five years at hard labor, and I survived. And I was 50 at the time. So, now, you tack on an additional 4 years.
So, my mind tells me that his death is truly unlikely.
Yet…
My vision? Another story. And I always question my “visions” as there’s a lot of “noise” that clouds things up and you at best, you might get a general idea of things, but you don’t know the importance as the time track is often missing.
I hope that he is fine.
And I’m sure that we will hear something, one way or the other.
In less than 24 hours Wagner have rolled back and left Russia
Prighozin is leaving for BELARUS
Wagner PMC soldiers who didn’t participate in the Mutiny get new MoD contracts
In 24 hours
No Moscow
No Civil War
So like i said ,
Putin was never Prighozins Target
He was BAITED into organizing a march on Russia
He was used by Putin into convincing all hardliners that Shoigu and Gerasimov be eased out and Putin not take the fallout politically
My guess is Surovikin will get overall command
Wagner is part of MoD
Prighozin is regarded traitor by all of Russia
Putin noted which Russians offered resistance and which Russians didn’t and MADE A LIST as a LOYALTY METER
And PUTIN SHOWED THE WEST HOW A POTENTIAL CIVIL WAR CAN BE CHANGED IN A MERE 24 hours
If this was the West, you would have the cities bombed by now
Man of the Hour — LUKASHENKA
APPLAUSE!!!!
Conveniently there to talk to Prighozin and end the situation
If you tell me the whe thing where Wagner invades , holds a city for 24 hours as people are still rushing to watch the latest movies and malls is logical
To others especially Indians who believed Putin would be deposed and Prighozin would be moving to Moscow
ITS WHY THOSE 200 YEARS HAPPENED (1757–1947)
Untold Truth: Rent-a-Girlfriend – A Popular Trend in China
Is it possible to rent a girl in China? How much will it cost? What is included in the services of a girl for rent? We will answer these and many other questions in as much detail as possible in this video! Renting girls in China for a long time is a fairly frequent service, why do the Chinese so often resort to renting girls? How much do these girls get, and what is included in the cost of their services? We have to answer these and many other questions in this video! Watch this video from the beginning to the very end to know everything about renting girls in China!
The wackiest thing in history has just unfolded.
12:50 AM EST
So, a few hours ago, I was pretty sure the Russian state was going to utterly collapse, and that the Ukraine would seize Russian territory.
It now appears, by some fantastic twist, that this is actually not going to happen.
I have zero idea how it is possible that Prigozhin had everything lined up to take control of Southern Command, and then was like “ah – nah, I guess I’ll just surrender.”
He could have just been drunk. But he had to have lined this all up with the FSB and the military, and that would have been a very big thing, to do that all in secret, and get that many powerful players on his side.
As of right now, he has stopped the push towards Moscow, and is possibly en route to Belarus.
Just out of nowhere, it was announced that Prigozhin agreed to talks with Lukashenko, President of Belarus, and then hours later it was announced that he was calling the whole thing off.
This is part of the statement from Belarus:
“Evgeny Prigozhin accepted the proposal of President Alexander Lukashenko to stop the movement of the armed men of Wagner in Russia and to take further steps to de-escalate tension.” It added that Prigozhin had been offered “an advantageous and acceptable option for resolving the situation, with security guarantees for the Wagner PMC fighters.”
This is still in flux, or whatever, and something could still go wrong, but that is where we are apparently at as of Sunday morning in Russia. Actually, that statement is 12 hours old, at time of writing, but nothing seems to have changed.
Wagner peacefully left the base in Rostov, surrendering control, with the troops going back to the territories of the former Ukraine and Prigozhin going wherever he is going. He should be executed, but I guess he can’t be if he made a deal. I think he will most likely end up dead in the next few months either way.
It really, really, really looked like this was going to turn into a full-on civil war, and the Ukraine war would collapse, and Russia would collapse as a country, breaking into different parts like the US wants it to.
I have no idea how Prigozhin was so competent to organize taking over Southern Command and then just giving up. Something must have went wrong.
The chaos now is over, the borders and airports are back online, the military seems to be totally off the streets in Moscow.
There are going to have to be purges of the FSB and whoever else sided with Prigozhin.
The people who said the whole thing was a staged event are going to claim victory. I don’t really understand what the purpose of faking this would be, but the way it collapsed, and the way none of it made any sense, will allow those theorists to say “see, this was the plan all along!”
How this will affect Russia and the war effort in the longer run, I do not know. I think there should be an increased desire to escalate, and Putin is definitely not going to want to look weak after all of this, so he will probably back a move toward “total war” or as I like to call it “Blitzkrieg.”
Yesterday, I said that Putin’s legitimacy would be gone if it wasn’t solved in 12 hours, and 8 hours after I said that, it was solved. So I do not think he’s lost legitimacy. It looks bad, but not so bad he’d need to resign.
I do think the fact that so many people would back Prigozhin in his insane plan shows that there is a very real desire for Putin to get more aggressive in the Ukraine, and that has to be taken into account.
But wow.
This went from being the worst thing ever to the most confusing thing I’ve seen in my life.
I bought an old farm with a barn. The roof of the barn was sagging and the walls were bulging out. I contacted a local contractor to fix it. He was known as the best in the business. He studied it for a while and made the following offer:
“We’ll jack up the entire barn and then reinforce the walls and install some pulleys to draw in the walls and then we can put in support beams from the roof apex down to the ground and then slowly over a week or two, lower the barn back onto the new beams. This will give the roof time to adjust and bend back in shape. It will cost about $50,000.”
I listened and then said:
“What if we pin the walls to the roof joists and then put in beams and screw-jacks along the roof centerline and jack up the roof slowly over time? The rising roof will draw in the sides. Then we can replace the screw jacks with 10×10 beams”. How much would that cost?
The contractor thought about it and said: “Yeah, that would work, too. It’d cost about $3000.”
I think it would be an excellent sign of good character if you can just take a step back and acknowledge that the entirety of what you know about “Chinese food” is either based entirely on the “Chinese food” in your country that has been adapted, sometimes quite extensively – to the point that it is no longer seen as Chinese food in the eyes of Chinese – to suit the tastebuds of the people in your country, OR just a tiny speck on the tiny tip of a Titan-sized iceberg.
I mean, I’ve been eating Chinese food since I’ve been a kid, and yet, I dare not say I know any more than 1% of all the dishes from all the various Chinese cuisines. Sometimes, a friend will mention this or that dish from their hometown, and I would be like “what is that? Never heard of it before…” and it just leaves me with the impression that I will never be able to sample every Chinese dish out there in this lifetime – it would be too tall of an order for one lifetime. Give me two or three lifetimes, then I might be able to give it a shot.
Things like “Chinese like to eat this and this for breakfast” or “Chinese like to eat more vegetables than meat” or “Chinese are very obsessed with meat” don’t hold up well when you’re speaking of 1.5 billion people – just like it wouldn’t work if you say all Americans love eating donuts or Girl Scout cookies. See: countless arguments on Chinese social media whether “savory” or “sweet” tofu pudding is better, or whether glutinous rice dumplings should be “sweet” or “savory”.
There are Chinese who don’t like to eat rice and who don’t even own a rice cooker. There are Chinese who won’t even touch savory tofu pudding if you paid them to eat it. There are Chinese who don’t like eating green leafy vegetables.
Generalizations break down very quickly when they encounter reality.
IMHO, the much better attitude to adopt is:
Every cuisine has dishes that have carbs. If you don’t want to eat carbs, don’t order dishes that have carbs. Don’t cook dishes that have carbs. Don’t eat dishes that have carbs. Order, cook, eat all the other dishes that dont have carbs.
I mean, let us imagine if the assumption in the question is true, that Chinese food is indeed “high in carbs”.
If that were indeed true, then Chinese folks who suffer from diabetes would …. what?
Starve?
Or go “I have diabetes now. I think I should change to a Western diet. Let my new Western diet begin. This will mark a new beginning for me. Ho ho ho.”
I know quite a few Chinese peeps with diabetes. They have neither starved to death, nor changed to a Western-style diet.
To round off this answer, I’ll provide some pictures of home-cooked Chinese meals. Everything that has carbs, I’ll cross off in red. By doing this, you’ll see that you still have a lot of other dishes to enjoy.
There’s some tofu in the various dishes, usually paired with meat. As far as I’m aware, tofu does have a bit of carbs, but it’s generally viewed as a low carb food.
Here’s the lunch my cousin and I prepared two days ago. Don’t eat the rice. Don’t eat the dish on the top left, because it has julienned potato strips in it. I’m not sure whether North Americans or Europeans eat potatoes, but potatoes do have carbs, so that’s why I’ve crossed this dish off.
Don’t eat the rice. There are a few small fermented black beans in the meat+veg dish on the right, but hopefully that still counts as low carb.
Don’t eat the rice.
Don’t eat the julienned potato strips. Don’t eat the peanuts.
Don’t eat the noodles. Don’t eat the glutinous rice. Don’t eat the fruits. Don’t eat the snow fungus dessert and cake.
You’re good to go.
You’re good to go. You can avoid the soy sauce dips easily enough.
You’re good to go.
Conclusion:
Just like in any cuisine, when it comes to the various Chinese cuisines, if you don’t want to eat carbs, then order, cook, eat those dishes that do not have carbs.
From my experience the above is the best way to avoid carbs for people who are looking to avoid carbs.
Advice From Cats On How To Survive The Holidays
The holidays can be quite stressful—between buying gifts, coping with family, attending various functions, and realizing that mixing Jagermeister and egg nog together to make “Jag Nog” was a bad idea, it can get a bit overwhelming. Fortunately, the felines behind You Need More Sleep: Advice from Cats are here to give you all the tips you need to enjoy a joyful, peaceful, and—most importantly—restful season.
Tanks, depleted uranium shells, long-range missiles, F16s: hardly a week goes by without some news of how Britain is upping the ante again.
The deeper the economic crisis bites, the more desperately the ruling class is throwing everything it can into military confrontation. Only through victory in war will it stand a chance of keeping its failing system alive for another generation. The world’s masses owe it to their children to make sure that such a victory is never achieved.
By Proletarian writers from the Communists (dot) org
The recent announcement that Rishi Sunak’s government would be providing first depleted uranium shells to Ukraine and then Storm Shadow long-range missiles represent two of the latest of examples of the British government’s consistent and active efforts to escalate the war in Ukraine . It is doing so with zero concern for the lives of British workers and even less for those of Ukrainians.
Reckless and criminal escalation
This was demonstrated very clearly when the Ukrainian military stored the aforementioned depleted uranium shells in a large ammunition depot near the town of Khmelnitsky. When Russian armed forces blew up this arms store, a cloud of radiation was dispersed across the town, posing both immediate and long-term health risks to everyone resident or present in the area.
Not for nothing did the Russian foreign ministry warn the Sunak government not to provide such weapons to its Ukrainian proxies. Russian armed forces are not using such weapons in Ukraine themselves, knowing well the health risks they pose.
Russia had previously warned very strongly against the use of such weapons: “If Kiev is supplied with such shells for Nato heavy military equipment, we will consider this as the use of dirty nuclear bombs against Russia with all the ensuing consequences,” a statement said. (Russia warns Britain against supplying Ukraine with depleted uranium shells , Donbass Insider, 22 March 2022)
The cancer epidemics in parts of Serbia and Iraq following Nato’s widespread use of depleted uranium munitions there are just two of the many war crimes perpetrated by British and US forces in their wars of plunder that are carefully ignored by British and US establishment politicians, journalists, lawyers and scientists.
How far across Ukraine and neighbouring countries this radiation and its effects might spread is at this time unknown. Nor can we yet know how Ukraine’s food exports will be affected. In all likelihood, no meaningful effort will be made to find out by our self-identifying ‘defenders of human rights’.
Sanctions war has failed
These latest reckless escalations by British imperialism come hard on the heels of bitter admissions carried in the Spectator and the Telegraph that the “shock and awe” sanctions war that was supposed to “reduce the rouble to rubble”, in the words of US president Joe Biden , has been an abject failure. The aggressive western wagers of this economic war had confidently expected to bring about the collapse of the Russian economy, triggering either a mass uprising by a hungry and unemployed populace or some other political crisis that could result in the long dreamt-of regime change in Moscow.
But, owing to the preparations the Russian government has been making since 2014, the severity of the sanctions regime has been mitigated both by increased state intervention in the Russian economy and by redirecting the country’s trade flows eastwards – in particular to China, Iran and India. The workers and economies that are being destroyed by the sanctions are not those of Russia but of the west, most specifically those of the European Union and Britain, where residents and industry alike have been suddenly cut off from the cheap and reliable flow of Russian oil and gas on which they have depended for decades.
Now, having failed to defeat the Russians either economically or militarily, the imperialists are getting desperate.
The aim of the war in Ukraine, from the perspective of US imperialism, is to destabilise Russia itself and, ultimately, to secure regime change (ie, the installation of a client regime in place of an independent one) and, ideally, the fragmentation of the country. This is all in order that the USA and its junior partners in Europe can seize full, unrestricted control of Russia’s immense natural resources.
With the global overproduction crisis deepening every day, the contradictions of the imperialist economic system are becoming ever more apparent. US imperialism, mired in a mountain of bad debt , has reached the point where it is not only seeing long-term stagnation at home but is also losing control over markets overseas that it has long sought to dominate by means of its economic, technological and military might.
Meanwhile, African nations are increasingly trading with China and turning to Russia for energy and security partnerships, thus further deepening the contradictions faced by US imperialism and forcing it down the road of trying to remove both the Putin-led government in Moscow and the Communist party (CPC) in China. The removal of these two rival centres of power, which are working increasingly closely together, is necessary for US imperialism if it is going to succeed in ‘solving’ its crisis via the ruination of its opponents and the destruction of the opportunities for independent development that they are offering to the oppressed countries via Brics, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO ) etc.
Decline and decay of British imperialism
British imperialism, likewise mired in crisis and tied hand and foot to the US imperialist bandwagon, is equally desperate for these plans to be brought to fruition, hence its reckless escalation of the war in Ukraine by supplying long-range missiles and depleted uranium munitions. The British ruling class has played a subservient role to US imperialism since at least 1956, when it failed to win its war to bring down Abdul Nasser’s anti-imperialist pan-Arabist Egypt .
The decay of British imperialism actually has its origins ever earlier than this. In fact, even at the highest point of the development of British capitalism, the seeds of its own terminal crisis had already been sown. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels pointed out in Capital Volume 2, there is a tendency inherent within the system for capitalists not only to maximise profitability at all costs but to actually cut out commodity production altogether if they possibly can.
“The process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production.” (Chapter 1 , 1885)
Marx identified a tendency that would be explored and fleshed out by VI Lenin in his work Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Written in 1916, at the height of the first world war , Lenin’s examination of the development of imperialism included an analysis of the ongoing deindustrialisation of Britain. He showed how the development of imperialism was linked to the declining profitability of commodity production for the home market in Britain in the latter part of the 19th century.
At this point, British capitalists were able to realise far greater profits by exporting their capital to the colonised nations, where resources and land were cheaper and where labour could be exploited in a far more profitable fashion (ie, with even greater brutality). This brought the British ruling class into conflict with other imperialist powers, mainly the newly unified Germany. The competition for markets, resources and hyper-exploitable sources of labour led (ultimately) to the mass slaughter of World War 1.
As a result of the war, however, the British ruling class was much weakened, and it ultimately failed to restore its position as the overwhelmingly dominant power in the world, partly because it had heavily indebted itself to the rising power of US imperialism during the course of the war.
It was only after World War 2 though that the crisis of British imperialism was fully realised. Britain began to lose control of its colonial possessions (starting with India) and faced the reality of having to depend upon US imperialism for economic and military support both for reconstruction at home and for exploitation of the oppressed nations abroad.
A faction within the British ruling class tried to resist this subordination to the USA, but it was decisively defeated in 1956, partly due to the anti-imperialist struggles of the Egyptians and also because the US ruling class would not tolerate what it regarded as its British junior partner operating without its consent. Following the Suez debacle, the British ruling class realised it had little choice but to fall in line behind the USA if it wished to continue to operate in the markets it still dominated abroad, even after being forced to give up direct control of most of its empire.
In order to maintain their profits, Britain’s financiers need to be able to move capital anywhere in the world. They require all barriers to this to be knocked down, and, since WW2, the USA is the only imperialist country with the global economic and military power to be able to do this. The state of British imperialism is one of profound and multiple crises: it has undergone a longer decay and is much more vulnerable than the USA is.
The fortunes of the imperialist powers ultimately rest on convincing the oppressed and developing nations of the world that they have to accept the terms dictated by countries like Britain if they want to escape being put under an economic siege or subjected to military attack.
Anti-imperialist bloc cutting the ground from beneath the imperialists’ feet
Today, the economic fortunes of British imperialism are entirely tied to US economic and military power. The British ruling class has been cutting its own armed forces down for many years now, so it depends ever more heavily upon the USA to facilitate the ability of British finance capital to keep on plundering the world.
The British state may spend a large amount of defence, but it does not maintain the kind of forces that would be capable of taking on the Russian or Chinese armies for more than a few days. What Britain’s armed forces have specialised in since their failure in the Iraq war is in waging wars by proxy, training and directing jihadists in Libya, mercenaries in Yemen and fascists in Ukraine to do the heavy lifting while they remain in the shadows – advising, directing and facilitating.
If Nato’s fascistic Banderite forces in Ukraine lose their war with the Russian Federation, which they show every sign of doing in the near future, this will be a defeat for US imperialism of an even greater magnitude than its humiliating retreat from Afghanistan in 2021. Many nations that are currently dominated by British and US imperialism will see the defeat of the Nato-aligned forces in Ukraine as being a clear sign that the US-led imperialist bloc has been fatally weakened.
This in turn will undermine British imperialism’s ability to continue to exploit countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia . If US imperialism decays or collapses entirely, the British ruling class will be fatally weakened as well, not only in terms of the markets and resources it seeks to control overseas, but also in its ability to contain the class contradictions within Britain society itself.
This is why the British ruling class is desperate to secure the destruction of the Russian and Chinese governments. Because British imperialism needs to ransack huge areas of the world if it is to try and resolve the deep crisis in which it is enmeshed, and the anti-imperialist governments of Russia and China are standing in the way of that goal.
That is how we must understand Sunak’s declaration at the recent G7 meeting in Hiroshima that China is “the biggest challenge of our age to global security and prosperity”.
Of course, Sunak was referring solely to the ‘security and prosperity’ of the class he represents – the class of billionaire owners of capital. All that will come to the majority of the world’s workers from the strengthening of our exploiters is the prolongation of the existence of the system that keeps them immiserated, condemned for another generation and more to the miseries of unemployment, poverty , crisis and war.
Those of us who oppose British capitalism at home must learn this lesson: that there can be no victory over capitalism at home without also destroying British imperialism’s ability to loot abroad. Only with the departure of this parasitic system can the British working class advance in solidarity with the workers of the world to a bright and fulfilling future.
The Poverty In Mississippi Is Unlike Anything You’ve Ever Seen
Shaker Strawberry Summer Pudding
Ingredients
1/2 loaf white bread, sliced
1 quart ripe strawberries
3/4 to 1 cup sugar (depending on the sweetness of the berries)
Instructions
Line a 9-inch square pan with aluminum foil or wax paper.
Remove the crust from the bread.
Mash and sweeten strawberries.
Place the bread slices slices on the bottom of the prepared pan.
Spoon strawberries over the bread and alternate berries and bread until pan is filled. Cover with wax paper slightly smaller than the pan. Chill at least 8 hours or overnight.
To serve, invert on a platter. Top with whipped cream. Scatter fresh berries on top and around edge.
Pay it forward
Waiting in line to pay for groceries while maintaining a 6ft distance, this man cut in line. He didn’t appear to notice what he’d done.
The person he skipped didn’t say anything, just maintained the proper distance.
When it was time for the man to pay he reached in his back pocket and pulled out a small note pad. He’d forgotten his wallet.
He looked a bit disappointed and embarrassed. The person he skipped stepped up and told the cashier they’d take care of his groceries. (Which only consisted of Milk and Chocolate Chip Cookies.)
He was more than grateful. He kindly thanked them and off the man went.
Upon arrival to the register, the cashier asked: “He cut you off and you paid for his groceries.. Why??”
“They calmly replied with a smile: “I hope that if one day my Dad forgets his wallet, someone will step up and buy his Milk and Cookies”
With all the negativity going on in the world..I thought it would be nice to share this moment.
A little kindness goes a long way. Why not pay it forward?
Shaker Spoon Bread
Ingredients
1 cup cornmeal
1 quart (4 cups) sweet milk
3 eggs, separated
2 tablespoons butter
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Instructions
Scald milk and add cornmeal gradually. Cook until thick.
Pour small amount over beaten egg yolks. Return to heat and cook a few minutes longer.
Add butter and fold in beaten egg whites.
Add baking powder and salt.
Pour into greased baking dish and bake at 325 degrees F for 1 1/2 hours, stirring once after the first 15 minutes of baking.
In the 1930s, a full decade or more before the advent of fast food, George Orwell put his finger on this problem. His book The Road to Wigan Pier chronicled the lives of the poor and unemployed in Northern England’s distressed mining regions. Orwell described their insufficient diet and brilliantly explicated the psychology underlying the poor’s consumption patterns:
The basis of [the poor’s] diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes—an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn’t. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three [penny’s worth] of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. [public assistance] level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don’t nourish you to any extent, but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the Englishman’s opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread.
A “Karen” is a woman (naturally), white (always), middle-aged (30–55), attractive solely because of her hair, makeup and clothing, blonde (usually), and middle-class or higher. As a customer or citizen, she is demanding, entitled, privileged and impossible to satisfy in any reasonable manner.
Karen wants you to take her expired coupon and, when you won’t, she wants to speak to your supervisor. Karen calls the city to ask them to stop road work in her area from noon to 5 p.m. so her child can have a nap, then calls her city councilor when her request is refused.
It’s use was popularized by African-Americans on Twitter in 2018.
African Americans have had slang terms for such an individual since before the American Civil War, including “Miss Ann”, “Becky”, “Barbecue Becky”, “Cornerstone Caroline” and “Permit Patty”. “Karen” is the type of person who would call the cops on kids running a lemonade stand without a permit.
The first use of “Karen” as a pejorative refers to an ad for the Nintendo Switch from 2016 where the woman on the right was referred to as “antisocial Karen”. Unlike the typical stereotype, she’s a brunette.
Before the breakout on Twitter, “Karen” was the subject of many memes on Reddit in 2017.
Naturally, white people co-opted the term. The UK paper The Guardian, noting the rash of women calling the police on black people engaged in perfectly legal behaviors like barbecuing in a public park or pointing out that Central Park has a leash requirement for dogs, dubbed 2020 “The Year of Karen”.
Psychologists say the stereotype is the result of a pattern of “weaponizing victimhood” where a group of people who have suffered social discrimination in the past don’t just ask for empathy with their plight but instead use it to claim rights over and above everyone else, including both present and past victims of similar discrimination. Karens are hardly the only group that do this.
Why Africa is angry at the “West”
Train derails into Yellowstone River sparking fears of hazardous spill
Montana residents have been warned to conserve water after a freight train potentially carrying hazardous materials collapsed into the Yellowstone River.
A large emergency response has been seen in the area, amid concerns of a toxic spill after the bridge collapsed early on Saturday morning.
It was initially feared oil or petroleum was contained in the cargo train, but the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office said it was later determined they contained asphalt and ‘a second substance that officials are working to confirm’.
Water treatment facilities throughout the area have introduced emergency measures due to the crisis. Despite warnings to conserve water, officials said there is currently no threat to life in the area.
A statement re-posted by the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Department on social media confirmed no injuries have been reported in the incident.
‘A total of 8 rail cars are involved and in a great stroke of luck, none contained oil,’ the post said.
‘The cars contained asphalt and a second substance that officials are working to confirm. Both of the substances are described as “slow moving” and have not gone much past the initial scene.
‘The public is asked to stay away from the (scene) to prevent congestion.’
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department also warned locals to avoid water from certain parts of the river.
‘From Indian Point to Buffalo Mirage, avoid water due to possible contact with contaminants,’ the department tweeted.
A multi-agency effort was on the scene Saturday, including Stillwater County Emergency Services, the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office and Columbus Fire & Rescue.
Water treatment facilities in Laurel, Billings and Lockwood shut down their headgates in response to the potentially toxic spill.
The Yellowstone County Disaster and Emergency Services department said irrigation canal companies are also implementing protective measures.
According to the Billings Gazette, the train fell into the water after a bridge it was crossing collapsed under the weight of the carriages.
The outlet claimed the bridge had recently been battered by high water levels as a result of storms in the south-central Montana area.
The potential toxic spill comes months after a similar incident in East Palestine, Ohio, sparked mass evacuations when hazardous chemicals leaked from another train derailment.
Locals reported side effects including eye and throat irritation, and some even claimed pets had died due top the toxic fumes. The chemicals on board the Ohio derailment were not the same as those from Saturday’s incident in Montana.
Putin just dropped a BOMBSHELL & outplayed the Western coup | Redacted w Clayton Morris
The Pleistocene epoch is a geologic epoch which began around 2.6 Mya (Million years ago) and came to an end around 11,700 BP (Before Present). It is characterized by lower sea levels than the present epoch and colder temperatures. During much of the Pleistocene, Europe, North America, and Siberia were covered by extensive ice sheets and glaciers. The Pleistocene was an important time because it was when the human genus first evolved.
The flora and fauna today also more or less reached their current form during the Pleistocene. Most Pleistocene animals and Pleistocene plants also exist in the Holocene. Furthermore, the Pleistocene epoch was the last geological epoch in which humans had relatively little impact.
Pleistocene Geology and Climate
The Pleistocene glaciations are among the defining geologic events of the Pleistocene. Much of North America was covered by the Laurentide ice sheet and northern Europe and Siberia were covered by the Eurasian Ice Sheet Complex. The size of the ice sheets resulted in lower sea levels and dryer climates. Britain was a peninsula and the Indonesian islands were connected to the Southeast Asian mainland, for example. There were also glaciers on Mauna Kea of the Hawaiian Islands.
While parts of the world were dryer – such as central Europe, which was mostly covered in tundra, other parts of the world were wetter and greener. The American southwest, for example, contained grassland with numerous lakes. The Sahara Desert was also covered in savannah grassland for many parts of the Pleistocene. Parts of the north-eastern Arabian Peninsula were the site of an enormous oasis. It is even possible that this ancient, wetter environment may have helped inspire stories like the Garden of Eden or have been the original Garden of Eden itself.
Pleistocene Animals
Many of the animals common today were also common in the Pleistocene. Deer, big cats, apes, elephants, and bears could all be found in a Pleistocene landscape. There were also animals that were common which have since gone extinct, such as mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths , and pre-human hominins .
Europe and Asia had significant populations of African fauna. Cave paintings and paleontological finds in Europe reveal that rhinoceroses, lions, and hyenas were all common at that time in southern Europe. The island of Sicily was also inhabited by a dwarf elephant species until surprisingly recent times. Northern Europe was covered in glaciers and inhospitable, while central Europe was tundra. Southern Europe, however, contained forests and was inhabited by numerous species of megafauna, most of which have since died out.
Lions were also much more common in Asia, as were rhinoceroses and elephants. There were even rhinoceroses living on the islands of the Philippines. Apes were also more common. Until about 300,000 BP, Gigantopithecus, possibly the largest ape ever to live, flourished in Asia.
Pleistocene North America is known for its impressive megafauna populations. The more well-known are the woolly mammoths and mastodons. North America was also inhabited by American lions, North American llamas, and giant ground sloths, all of which are extinct today.
The continent of Australia has been separated from Eurasia since the Mesozoic. As a result, Australia has very unusual vegetation and wildlife. Pleistocene Australia was no different. Australia was inhabited by extraordinary creatures such as kangaroos the size of a rhinoceros and other giant marsupial mammals. There were also numerous giant flightless birds such as moas in New Zealand, rheas in South America, and ostriches in Africa and Asia that had to compete with large mammals.
Pleistocene Humans
Another important development on the Pleistocene timeline was the emergence of the human genus: Homo. Humans probably evolved out of bipedal apes, such as the Australopithecines and Ardipithecus Ramidus . These early bipedal apes are classified as hominins. Hominins first evolved near the end of the Miocene epoch (25-5 Mya) in south and east Africa. Other than their upright posture and bipedalism, these hominins were not significantly more human than previous apes.
Their skeletons indicate that they resembled modern apes such as chimpanzees and their use of tools was limited or absent. At the beginning of the Pleistocene, however, a new type of hominin appeared. These hominins were taller, more dependent on upright locomotion, and had larger brains, which allowed them to excel in tool use over any previous hominin. These hominins belong to the genus Homo and hominins in this genus are simply called humans.
The earliest human species was Homo Habilis . The first examples of this species appeared about 2.3 million years ago. They used simple flake tools which were made by taking rocks and striking sharp flakes off other rocks – which could be used as cutting tools. Homo Habilis was more technologically inclined than its hominin predecessors, but it was still closer to earlier and more ape-like hominins than modern humans.
The next earliest human species is Homo Erectus . The first H. Erectus evolved around 2 million years ago and the last of them did not die out until sometime within the last 100,000 years. Archaeological and paleontological evidence suggest that they may have been the first humans to use culture as a wholesale approach to adapt to their environment. They were more advanced tool users and were also much taller than previous hominins, about six feet (1.83 meters) tall. They were also the first humans to leave Africa. By 1 million years ago, H. Erectus had spread to both Europe and Asia, bringing humans for the first time to these regions.
The earliest humans were universally hunter-gatherers. Their use of technology to interact with their environment made them very adaptative – so that humans eventually found their way into every possible environment on the planet: forests, grasslands, deserts, even tundra.
Megafauna Extinctions in the Pleistocene: Accelerated by Humans?
For most of the Pleistocene, humans did not significantly impact their environment. There were no more than a few hundred thousand individuals at a given time and their ability to transform the landscape was limited by primitive technology and limited social organization.
This all changed with the emergence of Homo Sapiens (modern humans) in Africa and Homo Neandertalensis (Neanderthals) in Europe. Anatomically modern humans first evolved in Africa around 200,000-300,000 BP. After the emergence of anatomically modern humans, something happened, perhaps a rewiring of the human brain , that led to the emergence of modern behaviors like art, blade production, long distance trade, and more efficient, organized hunting, among other abilities.
This change in behavior caused humans to have a significantly larger influence on their environment than in previous times. This can be seen in the fate of most megafauna, especially in the New World. Megafauna extinctions occurred around 40,000-50,000 years ago in Australia and around 13,000 years ago in North America. Both occurred shortly after the appearance of humans on these continents.
It has been suggested that the reason for the worldwide extinction of megafauna at that time was overhunting by humans combined with climate change. The climate was constantly changing during the Pleistocene and the megafauna survived these changes. When humans were introduced into the environment, however, these same megafauna populations died out not long afterwards. It is possible that the addition of a powerful predator, like humanity, may have added an extra factor that was just too much for the megafauna to handle while also adapting to climate change, leading to their extinction.
The Human Age: Life after the Pleistocene
As humans become more technologically advanced and more adept at manipulating their environment, they continue to influence it more and more. How much longer human civilization will last is uncertain, but one thing that is known is that humans are likely to leave a mark on this planet which will last for ages to come and it all started in the Pleistocene.
Stay tuned. All of the subjects mentioned in the title has already been covered within the messy slush-file of MM articles. All intentionally buried within a safe coverage of delicious food, cats, music, and stories of the human condition. Impossible for computer algorithms and troll agents to root out and locate. It’s the MM way, don’t you know. What subjects?
Nordstream pipeline detonations
The Pentagon using the Musk satellites to ram the Chinese space station, and then China taking down all of them with an electromagnetic cannon
The UK launching a micro-nuke in Ukraine and caught red-handed by Russia
Bio-Weapons NATO general captured at a weaponized development facility (Ukraine) performing “gain of function” studies. Also known as “weaponizing the virus”.
China stopping the bio-weapon attempts to induce famine
China capturing and killing off all of the CIA and NED assets
North Korea missile attacks
Disabling an American nuclear sub that was “this close” to being captured outright.
Sinking another one that had to be recovered (F-35 splash into the South China Sea anyone?)
The Trump mega-flotilla that turned around and sailed back home
Covid-19, the tick-virus and the humanized swine-flu virus bio-weapons and the Taiwan “surprise” virus.
And that’s all right off the top of my head. But I’m not trying to keep score. In this “game” of world war III, it’s impossible to keep score and absolutely meaningless. You have to keep in mind the objectives of all parties (as best as we can ascertain) and then observe the elements play out. And as they play out, we migrate to areas that will not be affected by the fallout (both figuratively and literally). Remember, the reason why everyone is so confused as to what is going on is simply because no one can see the full picture. There’s a plan. There’s always a plan. Keep in mind why things appear to be a world run by crazy people…
They might actually be crazy.
The Western “news” is a propaganda arm of the US government.
Actual “news” and events are not being reported on.
Trivial events are blown all out of proportion.
Real secrets are kept secret.
Counter intelligence operations are at full-speed.
So just sit tight. The latest information from the Domain Commander is…
No change to the previous predictions; small to medium bads lie ahead.
Events are playing out within predictable patterns well known and understood by Domain (Historians).
Some humans will experience discomfort, but any areas of conflict and turmoil will be isolated and geographically segmented.
Take care. Be prudent.
Important note
WordPress has “updated” it’s software, and messed up everything MM side. Do not be frustrated, but much of the grammar corrections, formatting, and pictures were deleted or screwed up in this post, and I am too exhausted to repair what amounts to 10,000 words of text.
Self-format if you must.
Apollo 13 | “Houston, We Have a Problem”
Singapore and China sign 19 agreements to boost cooperation
Singapore and China sign 19 agreements to boost cooperation at annual apex meeting
The agreements were signed at the 18th Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation meeting, co-chaired by DPM Heng Swee Keat and Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng
China is where the world future lies :
Small businesses in various states are struggling to pay their rent, a new report shows, with rent delinquency at nearly 40 percent this month.
The findings, published Tuesday by Boston-based business tracker Alignable, are raising more than eyebrows, as they illustrate the stark effect inflation is having on everyday Americans.
The survey of 4,789 randomly selected small business owners saw more than half of respondents say their rent is at least 10 percent higher than six months ago.
If you go back seven months, the majority said their rents had increased by at least 20 percent.
Moreover, the study found that roughly 37 percent of small businesses - almost half of all Americans working in the private sector - were left unable to pay rent in October.
Compounding concerns is the fact that several states, including New York and California, are well over the already-high national average.
Offering an explanation for the phenomenon, study author Chuck Casto wrote that small business owners are steadfast, but that their incomes are 'basically being eaten away by inflationary pressures' as grim figures continue to rock financial markets.
Alignable discerned that one-third of businesses are at risk of closing if revenue does not 'ramp up' significantly in the coming months, as consumers shy away from spending amid fears of an impending recession. As to the reasons for the short funds, poll-takers blamed higher rents, the impact of more than a year of high inflation, steeper-than-usual gas prices, increases in supply chain costs, rising labor expenses and shortages, and reduced consumer spending.
Worse, about 49 percent of restaurants were unable to pay their rent this month, up from 36, in September, while an identical 49 percent of car dealership and repair shop owners defaulted on their October rent.
Chips Act Won’t Work
It doesn’t make sense for the US to invest billions of dollars to support the manufacturing of semiconductors if they have to be shipped to Asia to be completed.
Down Time Recently the provider of this Website, Typepad, moved their systems to a new datacenter. It then announced an additional maintenance period to update the system’s architecture. That ended up in a mighty screw-up. For the last days Moon of Alabama was a casualty of it. After a while the Typepad engineers recognized the problems and decided, correctly, to roll everything back to the old version. It took a while, but finally most stuff is working again. There are two maxims in Information Technology. I. Never change a running system. Unfortunately there are circumstances, like growth pain etc, where one HAS to change things. That usually ends up in trouble. Another IT maxim is: II. Never change multiple things at a time. This is where the recent Typepad screw-up happened. Multiple components of the system were changed at the same time and did not interact properly with each other. Been there, done that. Back around 1995, I was working for a large international access provider who’s systems always had growth pains. Everything was well prepared for a down time and a major update of the architecture. A short maintenance period was announced and we proceeded with it. Every element had been tested before. But unbeknown to the software engineers the network providers, those with the physical access lines, had decided to use our announced down time for a change in their systems too. The two changes collided with each other and it took more than 24 hours to even find out what had happened. The roll back, not well planned, created more of a mess. We were down for 72+ hours. We had several million customers at that time. They weren’t happy. Typepad is now back and with it all the blogs that are running on it. I am pretty sure that there are still some bugs that will have to be cleaned up over the next days. But the service has, in general, been good over the many years Moon of Alabama existed and ran on it. It is relatively cheap and relieves me of setting up and administrating my own servers. That’s why I will stick to it. For now.
The European Union (EU) got hit with a double dose of nasty reality today. When the European Union “Sanctioned” Russian natural gas, they stopped buying it and had to look elsewhere, which sent the price skyrocketing for everyone.
Then The EU decided it would impose a Price Cap on . . . RUSSIAN . . . natural gas, telling all other countries they must not pay over the price cap! Imagine the nerve of the EU trying to tell the entire world what price they MUST pay for someone ELSE’s natural gas?!?!?!
Today, Qatar told Europe it will stop sending natural gas to Europe of they try to impose a price cap on RUSSIAN fuels!
Europe is already in a massive mess over natural gas; it’s not only costing them triple or quadruple what it used to, there are actual shortages.
If Europe alienates Qatar by imposing a price cap on RUSSIAN gas, and thereby gets cut off from Qatar gas – people in Europe might freeze to death this winter for lack of natural gas. Power plants in Europe would have no fuel to generate electric. Europe would be plunged into the dark ages.
Speaking of shortages, GAZPROM announced today that, by their measurements, Ukraine has presently stored 14.6 Billion cubic meters (m3) of natural gas.
But the country needs 19 Billion m3 to get through the winter. Ukraine doesn’t have that much . . . and cannot get it, either.
So it seems at first glance, people in Ukraine, will actually end up freezing to death this winter. So much for Ukraine “winning” it’s war with Russia.
Maybe, if Ukraine surrenders now, they can settle things fast enough so that their people don’t freeze to death?
Or is noble surrender too much to ask from the Zelensky tyrants in Kiev?
.
This Is Serious! We’re Gonna Crash BIG TIME” – Robert Kiyosaki’s Last WARNING
Interesting, though he’s got a problem with communism. I suppose it’s legacy fear. But check it out.
.
https://youtu.be/E4ZDEaqYQDs
Russians Hack U.S. “DELTA Command & Control System” – Complete Ukraine Battle Plans Exposed
. The United States “DELTA” Command and Control System is the computer network that the US uses for battle operations. It is constantly updated by military planners and intelligence sources with troop deployment info, weapons stock info, and complete attack plans. Russia has HACKED it; Ukraine’s battle plans totally compromised. Equally important, the DELTA system is also constantly updated with information about the OPPOSING forces, in this case, Russia. Here is what a Russian computer Hacker got access to, with videos proving he got access, and how it is likely to be dispositive of the entire Ukraine war, in Russia’s favor.
Herman And The Bank Robbers
Enjoy. https://youtu.be/f_DDvG-yv4c
Iran Raises “Red Banner of Retaliation” Over Mosque; Saudis on High Alert
Iran has raised the Red Banner of Retaliation over the dome of Jamkaran Mosque in Qom city, which amounts to a declaration of war. What caused the raising of the Red Banner is yet to be said. The last time the Red Banner was raised was when Qassem Suleimani was assassinated in 2020. After that banner was raised, Iran fired missiles which hit a US Base in the region, injuring many US military personnel. Whatever the present issue may be, Saudi Arabia notified its US Military contacts they expect what they call an “imminent” attack against Saudi Arabia by Iran. They are not certain if the attack will be by missiles, or by Iranian Drones. US and Saudi air defenses are now on high alert.
Men in Black: A Series of Tests
Fun. https://youtu.be/qHR8IdyTO1M
New Fudan Report: US-China Chip War
From HERESecuritisation of the US’s Semiconductor Industry Policy”. Its authors are Shen Yi (沈逸) and Mo Fei (莫非). The former is a controversial professor of international politics and the director of the Centre for International Cyberspace Governance at Fudan University. With a following of almost two million on Weibo as well as regular videos and opinion pieces discussing international relations, he has become a well-known public intellectual in China. Shen has previously written about his experience of being interrogated by the FBI and having his US visa revoked back in 2018. The second author, Mo Fei, is a PhD candidate at Fudan University’s School of International Relations and Public Affairs and a research assistant at the aforementioned Centre for International Cyberspace Governance. This report appears to have been written, or at least completed, in September, in other words, prior to the US’s most recent high-tech export controls. The authors, however, were aware that “the Biden administration plans to further strengthen export controls on China in the areas of artificial intelligence and chip manufacturing, and that it was considering establishing a system within the US government that would give it the power to directly block US entities from investing in China and require information disclosure.” The following summary and excerpts should therefore be read keeping this background in mind. On a side note, I may occasionally post special editions such as this one in addition to Sinification’s weekly format if and when I feel that a particular study is noteworthy, topical and too long to share as a thread on Twitter.
Key arguments from this report:
The US is making a strategic mistake in channelling most of its energy into outdoing China in the tech sector. Semiconductors only constitute a small part of the US-China rivalry.
The US’s chip manufacturing capacity lags far behind that of East Asia. The CHIPS Act is unlikely to provide enough funding and incentives to change this.
US allies will not be willing to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of America’s.
China has the financial firepower, unrivalled capacity for government-industry coordination and absolute determination to accelerate the development of its chip industry, come what may.
On the drivers and dynamics of the US-China chip war:
“China's fundamental national strategy is to strengthen its national power, improve the standard of living of its citizens and enhance its international status through peaceful economic development. The US’s strategy towards China is to 'lock up' China's rise, curtail its international influence and increase its dependence on the US in the international system. Therefore,the essence of the strategic competition between the US and China is a struggle between economic development and domestic governance rather than a traditional hegemonic or military-security struggle.”“The US, however, has rather simplistically focused on the nature of the strategic competition between the US and China as being a 'technological battle', and then even more simplistically determined that a series of [tech-related] policies will be able to successfully block the strategic challenge posed by China in a relatively short period of time and at a relatively low cost.”“The US has [now] put anti-China national security concerns ahead of such economic interests as ‘cost’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘market’.”“Advanced semiconductors have become an outlet for the US to release its security-related anxieties about China and have been turned into a symbol … demonstrating the US’s superior strength and its gradually winning in the context of US-China rivalry. At the same time, in the absence of one single effective ‘tool’ to contain China's technological rise and as one of the very few holds the US [still] has in the economic sphere that can effectively handicap China, any action that can widen the gap between China and the US in advanced semiconductor technology will have the psychological effect of ‘easing the anxiety’ and ‘increasing the smugness’ of US policymakers. Each [US] crackdown on China's advanced semiconductor technology will release the US’s security-related anxiety about China in stages. [But] when new security-related anxieties reach a certain level, it will once again drive the US to take further restrictive measures against [the development of] China’s advanced semiconductor technology.”“At the [current] stage of the strategic stalemate between the US and China, the US can only add to the semiconductor technology embargo compulsively and frequently to demonstrate that it still has considerable coercive power and strategic advantages over China.”“But the fact is thatadvanced semiconductors only constitute a small part of the strategic competition between the US and China.”
On the difficulty for the US to rebuild a chip manufacturing base at home, gain the backing of its allies and shut out China:
“Global economic integration, the formation and consolidation of global supply chains, and China’s deep roots in the global economic system make it almost impossible for the US to replicate its Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union in its strategic competition with China.”“History repeats itself but never in exactly the same way. The United States today does not have the same strategic capabilities as it did thirty years ago, and China is now already highly integrated into both the new international division of labour and the world’s science and innovation cycle. Even in the area of semiconductors, where the US is in a position of power and China is at a disadvantage, the US is no longer in a position to [simply] remove China from the supply chain of advanced semiconductors. The inherent vulnerability of the Biden administration's chip strategy leaves room for China's semiconductor industry to break out of the US’s siege. More specifically:”
“The Biden administration's semiconductor strategy runs counter to the global semiconductor industry’s development pattern and lacks an adequate domestic semiconductor manufacturing base to support it.”
“US semiconductor manufacturing capabilities lag far behind those of East Asian countries. [This is explained by] the wave of de-industrialisation that began in the late 20th century in the US, coupled with the fact that most American IC companies have opted for a 'Fabless' operating model, focusing on design and outsourcing manufacturing.”
“The US’s heavy reliance on East Asian semiconductor production capacity exacerbates the risk of disruption to the US chip supply chain, while also increasing the US's vulnerability in the context of its strategic competition with China.”
“Now, for national security and geostrategic reasons, the US is planning to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to its shores … However, such a systemic change will be very difficult to achieve with just a single ‘chip bill’.”
“The US’s current approach has seen it use mainly federal funding to invest domestically in high-tech R&D … to train new talent and to attract foreign firms to set up factories in the US. However, … if the US wants to restructure the [current] layout of the global semiconductor industry, US$50+ billion from the federal government will clearly not be enough to solve this issue.”
“In September 2022, the Center for a New American Security released [a report] … which stated that the US CHIPS Act is designed to close the cost gap between producing chips in the US versus in East Asia, but that current financial support and related incentives were still far from sufficient to close the cost gap across the industry.”“The actual effectiveness of the CHIPS Act may differ quite significantly from the optimistic estimates (in favour of the US) that are now being made in a large number of studies; one cannot exclude a scenario in which the buzz is followed by business as usual.
“Frankly speaking, although we still need to wait for [these measures] to be put into practice … it is arguably the ‘pull’ by the end customer that will prove more important than the ‘push’ by the US government’s industrial policies. If the end-consumer market proves unwilling to pay a premium [for these high-tech products] … the Biden government's semiconductor strategy … will not be able to [fully] restructure the [current] layout of the global semiconductor industry.”
“The US’s influence within its chip alliances is not sufficient to convince its allies to follow the Biden administration's semiconductor strategy on the premise of ‘America First’ and ‘each country has to pay its own way [i.e. with no help from the US]’.”
“[In reality,] the core of the US’s semiconductor strategy, is, on the one hand, to siphon off resources from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and other relevant semiconductor companies to make up for the technological shortcomings in its own semiconductor manufacturing sector. On the other, to convince its allies and partners, using its position of power in the high-tech world, to stop semiconductor technology deals and manufacturing cooperation with China.”
“The Biden administration is [effectively] strengthening itself at the expense of others … thus increasing the vulnerability of the Biden administration's semiconductor strategy. In other words, US allies and partners have their own semiconductor strategies and are not willing to sacrifice their own interests in order to serve the US’s semiconductor strategy.”
“[For example,] South Korea cannot [simply] decouple from China, just for the sake of cooperating with Washington in building up the US’s [new] supply chain, without taking into account the fact that China is South Korea’s largest semiconductor market … South Korea is ambivalent about the ‘CHIP 4’ alliance currently being assembled by the US.”
“Taiwan, on the other hand, still has illusions about [the effectiveness of] its ‘Silicon Shield’ and does not want the US semiconductor industry to develop in the direction of self-sufficiency for national security reasons.”
“There are deep-rooted conflicting currents in the underlying logic of Taiwan's semiconductor strategy with the US. Politically, Taiwan is investing in US factories to curry favour with the US on geopolitical issues. Economically [however], Taiwan's semiconductor industry … does not view the US ‘chip strategy’ favourably.”“In addition to [the Netherland’s] ASML, the Biden administration has also tried to pressure Nikon, a Japanese DUV equipment manufacturer, to stop exporting such equipment to China, but the Japanese have also refused. This shows that, when it comes to the technological embargo imposed on China, although the ‘public-private’ alliance formed by the US will cooperate with the US’s strategy, there is a limit to such cooperation. This can be explained by two factors: the pull of the Chinese market and a concern for US technological hegemony [among its allies].”
On the US’s tech crackdown on China and the the medium-to-long term prospects for both the US and China:
“The specific technical details involved in the semiconductor industry are complex enough to ensure that [only] a small group of elite politicians in Washington can monopolise the content and future direction of these discussions, thereby making it easier to gain indulgence and support for their contrarian actions both at home and abroad.”“Take the latest US chip sanctions against China on 1 September as an example … The ban presents a remarkable internal paradox. It was initially intended to create additional barriers to the development of China's high-tech industry. However, it may well end up having the opposite effect. Ironically, in the medium to long term, US pressure is set to ‘force’ China's high-tech industry to develop a more solid industrial base as well as [its own] core technologies. Objectively speaking and from the US’s perspective, this will lead to [the emergence of] a more challenging, comprehensive, and thus more-difficult-to-contain, powerful adversary.”“In the short term, US tech-related policies targeting China will indeed create a window of opportunity. That is to say, a window during which China will be seeking to fix the adverse consequences caused by the US’s technology crackdown. For the US, this window will mean that the US is given more time to develop itself in a number of key and emerging technologies, including advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence, so as to gain the upper hand over China … But such a turn of events is far from being a given. In other words, in addition to restricting technology exports to China, the US government will also need to implement effective domestic policies to support and guide its efforts in these areas. However, if we look at the US’s performance on related issues since the 1980s, the picture is not particularly promising. Of course, the recently passed CHIPS Act provides some room for imagination. However, … in terms of the type of governance capacity required to steer and organise such large-scale strategic industries, the US government is not currently in a position to provide a convincing answer to observers.”“In the short term, the most immediate and tangible effects of the Biden administration's tech-crackdown on China will be: (i) to create real obstacles for the development of related industries in China; (ii) to generate a public opinion wave of pro-US and anti-China rhetoric; and (iii) to use ‘hurting the US’s strategic rival’ as political leverage during the upcoming US mid-term elections and the presidential elections two years later.”“In terms of [economic] weight, the US economy is still the largest in the world, but its lead over the second-placed has narrowed to the point where it is within sight and able to be overtaken. The US still has an overall advantage in terms of cutting-edge technology, but this advantage does not ensure that its use will simply lead to the continued development of its strengths and consolidation of its superiority. It will [probably] not be possible for the US to maintain its overwhelming technological dominance over the rest of the world. In other words, there is a lack of certainty surrounding the US’s ability to make further technological breakthroughs. Its traditional strengths are shrinking or even [already] lost, and its toolbox lacks an obvious ‘magic bullet’ like the US’s containment strategy during the Cold War, which could simply ‘solve the problem once and for all’ vis-à-vis the US’s main strategic rival. In fact, the anxiety that is spreading in Washington's policy-making circles is constantly forcing the US government to look for, and subsequently try out, any type of tool that can produce short-term results. Thus, for policy makers at least, it is a way of justifying domestically that ‘something has already been done’ and avoiding simply looking on [helplessly] at the gradual erosion of the US’s hegemonic powers.”“The specific condition [to the US’s success] is that the target of such a weapon [export controls] must have a sufficiently weak political will to abandon its intention to develop the industry in question immediately after the US’s strike … [However,] China has both the will and an unmatched capacity for industrial policymaking to drive and guide the development of its own alternative technologies [替代性能力]. Chinese companies and industries have long since begun the production of related products but are [currently] in the uncomfortable position of being constrained by the superior and more mature products of US companies. The subtlety of US bans is that it is the US government, rather than the Chinese government, that has helped these companies to achieve the effective exclusion of their competitors from the [Chinese] market [i.e. this will, according to the authors, allow Chinese companies, in the medium-to-long term, to grow even faster and invest even more in R&D].”“In terms of China's [overall] development, the development of its technologies, the development of its industries as well as a number of other dimensions, this [i.e. pressures from the US/West] does not really constitute a [catastrophic] threat akin to ‘the sky is falling’. Objectively speaking, the discomfort caused by the bans will be the best possible impetus to stimulate and push forward the upgrading of alternative industries and technological capabilities [in China]. China's [past] experience shows that once this short-term discomfort has been overcome and alternative capabilities and industries have been developed, what will follow is a complete rewriting of the rules of the game by China by virtue of the country’s superior production capacity. The potential outcomes of such a scenario are truly exciting.”“For [Chinese] policy analysts [政策观察者], it is important to maintain a greater degree of composure, resilience and patience when dealing with US policy decisions, and to analyse more systematically the [potential] discrepancies between policy intentions, policy content and, ultimately, policy effectiveness. For the Chinese government, the more pressing issue is to build [more] effective and refined countermeasures against US [policies], while maintaining the trend of opening up to the outside world and encouraging globalisation, so that the Chinese market and the benefits gained by US companies in China can be used more fully as leverage and, when necessary, a strategic weapon in China's competition with the US. This is a crucial and necessary part of expanding and improving [our] capabilities in the context of China’s rise.”
Zhu hao (祝好), Thomas
he Hangover (2009) – Stun Gun Demonstration Scene
Comeback kid Lula in the eye of a volcano
18439 ViewsOctober 31, 2022
by Pepe Escobar, first posted at the Asia Times, and reposted with the author’s permission
Lula wins but his room for maneuver will be limited by powerful forces aligned against his Global South agenda
Luis Ignacio “Lula” da Silva may be the ultimate 21st century political comeback kid. At 77, fit and sharp, leading an alliance of 10 political parties, he has just been elected as Brazilian president for what will be a de facto third term after his first two from 2003 to 2010. Lula even staged a comeback-inside-a-comeback, during the extremely fast and tight electronic vote counting, reaching 50.9% against 49.1% to the incumbent, extreme right President Jair Bolsonaro, representing a difference of only two million votes in a country of 215 million people. Lula’s back in office on January 1, 2023. Lula’s first speech was somewhat anti-Lula; noted for his Garcia Marquez-style improvisations and folksy stream of consciousness, he read from a measured, carefully-prepared script.
Lula emphasized the defense of democracy; the fight against hunger; the drive for sustainable development with social inclusion; a “relentless fight against racism, prejudice and discrimination.” He invited international cooperation to preserve the Amazon rainforest and will fight for fair global trade, instead of trade “that condemns our country to be an eternal exporter of raw materials.” Lula, always an exceptional negotiator, managed to win against the formidable state machine apparatus unleashed by Bolsonaro, which saw the distribution of billions of dollars in vote-buying; an avalanche of fake news; outright intimidation and attempts of voter suppression against the poor by rabid Bolsonarists; and countless episodes of political violence. Lula inherits a devastated nation that, much like the US, is completely polarized. From 2003 to 2010 – he rose to power, incidentally, only two months before America’s “shock and awe” against Iraq – it was quite a different story. Lula managed to bring to the table economic prosperity, massive poverty alleviation and an array of social policies. In eight years, he created at least 15 million jobs.
Vicious political persecution ended up canceling him out of the 2018 presidential elections, paving the way for Bolsonaro – a project entertained by the hard-right Brazilian military since 2014. Collusion between Brazil’s Public Ministry and dodgy “justice” stalwarts to persecute and condemn Lula on spurious charges forced him to spend 580 days in jail as a political prisoner as notorious as Julian Assange. Lula ended up being declared not guilty in no less than 26 motions against him by a lawfare machine at the heart of the – deeply corrupt – Car Wash operation. Lula’s Sisyphean task starts now. At least 33 million Brazilians are mired in hunger. Another 115 million are fighting “food insecurity.” No less than 79% of families are hostages to high levels of personal debt. In contrast to the new “pink tide” rolling across Latin America – of which he is now the superstar – internally there’s no pink tide.
On the contrary, he will face a deeply hostile Congress and Senate and even Bolsonarist governors, including in the most powerful state of the federation, Sao Paulo, which concentrates more industrial firepower than many latitudes in the Global North.
Round up the usual suspects
The absolutely key vector is that the international financial system and the “Washington Consensus”, already controlling Bolsonaro’s agenda, have captured Lula’s administration even before it begins. Lula’s vice-president is center-right Geraldo Alckmin, who can be catapulted to power the minute that deeply hostile Congress decides to fabricate some Lula impeachment scheme. It’s not an accident that the neo-liberal The Economist magazine has already “warned” Lula to shift to the center: that is, his government must be run, in practice, by the usual financial suspects. Much will depend on who Lula appoints as his finance minister. The top candidate is Henrique Meirelles, former CEO of FleetBoston, Brazil’s second largest external creditor after CitiGroup. Meirelles has expressed unrestricted support for Lula, for whom he previously worked as central bank chief.
Meirelles is likely to prescribe the exact same economic policies as Bolsonaro’s top economic enforcer, investment banker Paulo Guedes. That happens to be exactly what Meirelles himself created during the rapacious Temer administration, which came to power after the institutional coup against President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. And now we get to the real juice. None other than US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland visited Brazil “unofficially” last April. She refused to meet Bolsonaro and praised the Brazilian electoral system (“You have one of the best in the hemisphere, in terms of reliability, in terms of transparency.” ) Afterward, Lula promised the EU a sort of “governance” of the Amazon and had to publicly condemn the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine. All that after he had already praised Biden, in 2021, as “a breath for democracy in the world.” The “reward” for the accumulated performance was a Time magazine cover. All of the above may suggest an incoming, shady pseudo-Left government by the Workers Party – neoliberalism with a human face – infiltrated by all sorts of right-wing vectors, essentially serving the interests of Wall Street and the Democrat-controlled State Department. Key planks: acquisition of key economic assets by the usual globalist suspects, and thus no room for Brazil to exercise real sovereignty. Lula, of course, is too smart to be reduced to the role of mere hostage but his room for maneuver – internally – is extremely slim. Toxic Bolsonarism, now in the opposition, will continue to institutionally prosper dressed up as – fake – “anti-system”, especially in the Senate. Bolsonaro is a self-described “myth” created and packaged by the military, coming out in the open about a month after Dilma’s election victory that propelled her to a second term in late 2014. Bolsonaro himself and countless fanatic supporters flirted with Nazism; unabashedly praised known torturers during the Brazilian military dictatorship; and milked serious fascist leanings lurking in Brazilian society. Bolsonarism is even more insidious because this is a military-concocted movement subservient to hardcore neoliberal globalist elites and comprised of evangelicals and agribusiness tycoons while posing as “anti-globalist.” No wonder the virus contaminated literally half of a dazed and confused nation.
Old China hand
Externally, Lula will play a whole different ball game. Lula is one of the founders of the BRICS in 2006, which evolved out of the Russia-China dialogue. He’s immensely respected by the leaders of the Russia-China strategic partnership, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. He has promised to serve only one term, or up to the end of 2026. But that’s exactly the key stretch in the eye of the volcano, straddling the decade Putin described in his Valdai speech as the most dangerous and important since World War II. The drive towards a multipolar world, institutionally represented by a congregation of bodies from BRICS+ to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to the Eurasia Economic Union, will profit immensely to have Lula on board as arguably the natural leader of the Global South – with a track record to match. Of course, his immediate foreign policy focus will be South America: he already announced that will be the destination of his first presidential visit, most probably Argentina, which is bound to join BRICS+. Then he will visit Washington. He has to. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Informed opinion across the Global South is very much aware that it’s under Obama-Biden that the whole, complex operation to topple Dilma and expel Lula from politics was orchestrated. Brazil will be a lame duck at the upcoming G20 in Bali in mid-November but in 2023 Lula will be back in business side-by-side with Putin and Xi. And that also applies to the next BRICS summit in South Africa, which will consolidate BRICS+, as an array of nations are itching to join, from Argentina and Saudi Arabia to Iran and Turkey. And then there’s the Brazil-China nexus. Brasilia has been Beijing’s key trade partner in Latin America since 2009, absorbing roughly half of China’s investment in the region (and the most of any Latin American investment destination in 2021) and firmly placed as the fifth largest exporter of crude for the Chinese market, second for iron and first for soybeans. The precedents tell the story. Right from the start, in 2003, Lula bet on a strategic partnership with China. He considered his first trip to Beijing in 2004 as his top foreign policy priority. The goodwill in Beijing is unshakeable: Lula is considered an old friend by China – and that political capital will open virtually every red door. In practice, that will mean Lula investing his considerable global clout in strengthening BRICS+ (he already stated BRICS will be at the center of his foreign policy) and the inner workings of South-South geopolitical and geo-economic cooperation. That may even include Lula formally signing up Brazil as a partner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in a way that won’t antagonize the US. Lula, after all, is a master of this craft. Finding a path in the eye of the volcano, internally and externally, will be the definitive political challenge for the comeback kid. Lula has been written off countless times, so underestimating him is a bad bet. Even before starting his third term, he has already performed a major feat: to emancipate a majority of Brazilians from mental slavery. All eyes will be on what the Brazilian military – and its foreign handlers – really want. They have embarked on a very long-term project, control most levers in the power structure, and simply won’t give up. And so the odds may be stacked against an aging neo-Ulysses from northeast Brazil reaching his Ithaca ideal of a fair and sovereign land.
YOU HAVE 6 DAYS LEFT!! ARE YOU READY? | Patrick Humphrey
Really? In six days, eh? It is pretty weird that a Walmart Distribution Center in South Carolina, US. Is usually really busy this time of year. They have not hired anyone in months now. With it being seasonal time also, that is so strange to me!! Also the ones that are working there, are getting NO hours. This has been going on for months, since February. No departments are working full shifts. Check out the video and then monitor the prices at your local grocery store. Let’s watch the clown-show together. https://youtu.be/SXCtROaU-AE
Brandon’s “Usable Nukes” Are the Fast-Track to Jopocalypse
“The Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is, at heart, a terrifying document. It not only keeps the world on a path of increasing nuclear risk, in many ways it increases that risk.
Citing rising threats from Russia and China, it argues that the only viable U.S. response is to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, maintain an array of dangerous Cold War-era nuclear policies, and threaten the first use of nuclear weapons in a variety of scenarios.” Stephen Young, Union of Concerned Scientists
Maybe you’re one of the millions of people who think the US would never use its nuclear weapons unless the threat of a nuclear attack was imminent.
Well, you’d be wrong, because according to the recently-released Nuclear Posture Review, the bar for using nukes has been significantly lowered. The new standard reads like this: (nukes can be used) “in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.”“
Defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies”??
That’s a pretty broad net, isn’t it? That could include anything from a serious threat to national security to an ordinary economic competitor. And that loosy-goosy definition appears to be just what the authors were looking for. The hardliners wanted to fundamentally change US nuclear doctrine so the conditions under which nukes could be used was greatly expanded.
The obvious objective of this dramatic policy-shift is to eliminate any obstacle to the free and unfettered use of nuclear weapons. Which is precisely what the neocons have always wanted; a green light to Armageddon.
Now they got what they wanted. Here are a few of the changes in policy that suggest that a full-blown nuclear war is no longer a remote possibility, but an increasingly likely prospect.
1– First-Strike Use: Biden refuses to rule out first-strike use of US nuclear weapons …in reversal of his campaign promise. This is from The Daily Mail:
“… on the campaign trail, Biden had vowed to switch to a ‘sole purpose’ doctrine, which maintains that the US would only use nuclear weapons to respond to another nation’s nuclear attack….
President Joe Biden is abandoning a campaign vow to alter longstanding US nuclear doctrine, and will instead embrace existing policy that reserves America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario, according to multiple reports.” (Daily Mail)
2– Nuclear Escalation: The Biden team has accelerated the deployment of modernized U.S. B61 tactical nuclear weapons to NATO bases in Europe. (The B61-12 carries a lower yield nuclear warhead than earlier versions but is more accurate and can penetrate below ground.) This is from Reuters:
Russia said on Saturday that the accelerated deployment of modernised U.S. B61 tactical nuclear weapons at NATO bases in Europe would lower the “nuclear threshold” and that Russia would take the move into account in its military planning.
Amid the Ukraine crisis, Politico reported on Oct. 26 that the United States told a closed NATO meeting this month that it would accelerate the deployment of a modernised version of the B61, the B61-12, with the new weapons arriving at European bases in December, several months earlier than planned.
“We cannot ignore the plans to modernize nuclear weapons, those free-fall bombs that are in Europe,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told state RIA news agency. (Reuters)
3– ‘Tactical’ means ‘Usable’: Biden’s new regime of low-yield nukes (which can still blow up a city the size of New York.) are called “tactical” weapons because they are designed for use on the battlefield, which is to say, Biden no longer limits the use of nukes for national defense but also supports their use in conventional wars. (like Ukraine?) This is from Aljazeera:
“Tactical nuclear warheads were created to give military commanders more flexibility on the battlefield. In the mid-1950s, as more powerful thermonuclear bombs were being built and tested, military planners thought smaller weapons with a shorter range would be more useful in ‘tactical’ situations,” according to Al Jazeera’s defence analyst Alex Gatopoulos. (Aljazeera)
4– Fasttrack to Nuclear War: Biden’s New Euro-Nukes have lowered the threshold for nuclear war. This is from MSN: Russia said on Saturday that the accelerated deployment of modernized US B61 tactical nuclear weapons at NATO bases in Europe would lower the “nuclear threshold” and that Russia would take the move into account in its military planning…
“The United States is modernizing them, increasing their accuracy and reducing the power of the nuclear charge, that is, they turn these weapons into ‘battlefield weapons’, thereby reducing the nuclear threshold,” Grushko said….
… Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said on Saturday on Telegram that the new B61 bombs had a “strategic significance” as Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons were in storage, yet these U.S. bombs would be just a short flight from Russia’s borders.
“We cannot ignore the plans to modernize nuclear weapons, those free-fall bombs that are in Europe,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told state RIA news agency. (MSM) 5– Increasing the Reasons for using Nukes: The Nuclear Posture Review abandons Biden’s promise to ensure that US nuclear weapons would be used for the “sole purpose” of deterring or responding to a nuclear attack. Instead, the NPR states that the US will consider the use of nuclear weapons “in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.”
Sole purpose could significantly reduce the risk of unintended escalation and increase the credibility of more flexible and realistic nonnuclear response options in a range of importance contingencies.” (Federation of American Scientists)
6– More Escalation: The US now reserves the right to use its nukes against non-nuclear weapon countries. This is from an article at Bloomberg News: The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy rejected limits on using nuclear weapons long championed by arms control advocates and in the past by President Joe Biden.
Citing burgeoning threats from China and Russia, the Defense Department said in the document released Thursday that “by the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.” In response, the US will “maintain a very high bar for nuclear employment” without ruling out using the weapons in retaliation to a non-nuclear strategic threat to the homeland, US forces abroad or allies.” (“Pentagon’s Strategy Won’t Rule Out Nuclear Use Against Non-Nuclear Threats”, Bloomberg) Here’s more from an article at the World Socialist Web Site:
In the Defense Department briefing, this point is elaborated. The NPR, a department official stated, “establishes a strategy that relies on nuclear weapons to deter all forms of strategic attack. This includes nuclear employment of any scale, and it includes high-consequence attacks of a strategic nature that use non-nuclear means.”
The publication of the document was rapidly condemned by arms control experts. “The Biden administration’s unclassified Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is, at heart, a terrifying document,” wrote the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
“It not only keeps the world on a path of increasing nuclear risk, in many ways it increases that risk,” the UCS argued, by claiming that “the only viable U.S. response is to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, maintain an array of dangerous Cold War-era nuclear policies, and threaten the first use of nuclear weapons in a variety of scenarios.”…
This marks a significant development from Trump’s 2018 National Defense Strategy, which largely referred to the use of military force to secure economic interests in the negative—asserting that it was China that was doing so. While this was the clear implication of the 2018 document, the definition of “national interests” advanced by the Pentagon’s 2022 document to include “economic prosperity” constitutes an even more open step toward advocating the doctrine that war is an acceptable means to secure economic aims.
A section of the 2022 National Defense Strategy:
These documents, which were not seriously discussed in the US media, make clear the fundamental falsehood that the massive US military buildup this year is a response to “Russian aggression.” In reality, in the thinking of the White House and Pentagon war planners, the massive increases in military spending and plans for war with China are created by “dramatic changes in geopolitics, technology, economics, and our environment.”
These documents make clear that the United States sees the economic rise of China as an existential threat, to be responded to with the threat of military force. The United States sees the subjugation of Russia as a critical stepping stone toward the conflict with China.” (“Pentagon national strategy document targets China”, Andre Damon, World Socialist Web Site) he White House, the Pentagon and the entire US foreign policy establishment now march in lockstep behind the most fanatically-lethal defense policy in the nation’s 246-year history. The National Defense Strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review and the National Security Strategy all embrace the same reckless warmongering policy that will inevitably lead to mass annihilation and civilizational collapse. The doves and critical thinkers have all been removed from the foreign policy apparatus while the madmen and warhawks drag the world inexorably towards catastrophe. God help us.
Prussian Major General Carl von Clausewitz famously drew on his own experience in the Napoleonic Wars to examine war as a political phenomenon. In his 1832 book “On War” he provided a frequently quoted pithy summary of war versus peace, writing in terms of politico-military strategy that “War is a mere continuation of politics by other means.” In other words, war-making is a tool provided to statesmen to achieve a nation’s political objectives when all else fails. One can reject the ultimate amorality of Clausewitz’s thinking about war while also recognizing that some nations have historically speaking exploited war-making as a tool for physical expansion and the appropriation of foreigners’ resources. As far back as the Roman Republic, the country’s elected leaders doubled as heads of its consular armies, which were expected to go out each spring to expand the imperium. More recently, Britain notably engaged in almost constant colonial wars over the course of centuries to establish what was to become history’s largest empire. America’s dominant neocons characteristically believe they have inherited the mantle of empire and of the war powers that go hand-in-hand with that attribute, but they have avoided other aspects of the transition in turning the United States into a nation made and empowered by war. First of all, what comes out the other end after one has initiated hostilities with another country is unpredictable. Starting with Korea and continuing with Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq as well as other minor operations in Latin America, Africa and Asia, American war-making has brought nothing but grief on those on the receiving end with little positive to show for the death, destruction and accumulated debt. Also forgotten in the rush to use force is the raison d’etre to have a federal national government at all, which is to bring tangible benefit to the American people. There has been none of that since 9/11 and even before, while Washington’s hard-line stance on what has become a proxy war against Russia over Ukraine promises more pain – perhaps disastrously so – and no real gain. If one has any doubt that going to war has become the principal function of both Democrats and Republicans in Washington, it is only necessary to consider several stories that have appeared in the past several weeks. The first comes from the Republican side, and it includes a possibly positive development. House Minority leader Republican Kevin McCarthy warned two weeks ago that the GOP will not necessarily continue to write a “blank check” for Ukraine if they obtain the House majority in next month’s election, reflecting his party’s growing skepticism about unlimited financial support for the corrupt regime in place in Kiev. McCarthy explained “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it. … It’s not a free blank check.” America’s uncritical support for Ukraine, which has been a contrivance by the White House and media since the fighting started, has led to a growing number of Republicans, particularly some of those aligned with Donald Trump’s “America First” approach, to challenge the need for massive federal spending abroad at a time of record-high inflation at home. Since Russia launched its invasion in February, Congress has approved tens of billions in emergency security and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, while the Biden administration has shipped billions more worth of weapons and equipment from military inventories, all done with only limited or even no oversight of where the money and weapons are winding up. But, unfortunately, the GOP is far from unified on its approach to Ukraine-Russia. Congressman Liz Cheney demonstrated that her apple did not fall far from her father’s tree, taking some time off from trying to hang Donald Trump to denounce what she refers to as the “Putin wing of the Republican Party.” She put it this way: “You know, the Republican Party is the party of Reagan, the party that essentially won the Cold War. And you look now at what I think is really a growing Putin wing of the Republican Party.” Cheney criticized Fox News for “running propaganda” on the issue and in particular called out Fox host Tucker Carlson as “the biggest propagandist for Putin on that network… You really have to ask yourself, whose side is Fox on in this battle? And how could it be that you have a wing of the Republican Party that thinks that America would be standing with Putin as he conducts that brutal invasion of Ukraine?” Cheney notably did not address the issue of how the war developed in the first place because the US and UK preferred saber rattling to diplomacy with Moscow. Or why the United States feels compelled to tip-toe to the brink of a possible nuclear war over a foreign policy issue that is of no real national interest to the American people. And where did she make her comments? At the McCain Institute in Arizona. Yes, that’s a legacy of Senator John McCain another Republican who never saw a war he couldn’t enthusiastically support. Both President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have confirmed that the US is in with Ukraine until “victory” is obtained, whatever that is supposed to mean, while other Administration officials have indicated that the actual purpose of the fighting is to weaken Russia and remove President Putin. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre glibly spouted the party line when asked about McCarthy’s comments. She thanked congressional leaders for bipartisan work to “support Ukraine to defend itself from Russia’s war crimes and atrocities,” adding that “We will continue to work with Congress and continue to monitor those conversations on these efforts and support Ukraine as long as it takes. We are going to keep that promise that we’re making to the brave Ukrainians who are fighting every day, to fight for their freedom and their democracy.” Perhaps more bizarre than Cheney’s comments is the tale of a letter that was prepared by thirty Democratic Party progressives urging US support for negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine. The letter was prepared in June but not released until last week before being quickly retracted under pressure on the following day. Pramila Jayapal, who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said it was retracted because it “was being conflated with [the] comments” made by McCarthy over his warning about budget cutting for Ukraine. Jayapal referred to the letter as a “distraction,” but what she really meant was that her group had no desire to make common cause with the Republicans over any issue, including war and peace in an escalating conflict that is manifestly pointless. A clueless Jayapal also took pains to contradict the message put out by her own group, emphasizing that there has been no opposition to the administration’s Ukraine policy from Democrats in Congress. She said Democrats “have strongly and unanimously supported and voted for every package of military, strategic, and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people.” She doubled down on the White House message, affirming that the war in Ukraine will only end with diplomacy after “a Ukrainian victory.” So basically, anyone talking sense about Ukraine in Washington is being shut down by forces within the political parties themselves working together with a compliant national media that is mis-representing everything that is taking place on the ground. It is a formula for tragedy as the Biden administration has shown no sign of seeking diplomacy with Russia to end the conflict despite the president’s recent surprising warning that the world is now facing the highest risk of nuclear “Armageddon,” which he, of course, blames on Putin. Given all of that, in my humble opinion a government that is unable or unwilling to take reasonable steps to protect its own citizens while also avoiding a possible nuclear catastrophe that could end up engulfing the entire world is fundamentally evil and has lost all legitimacy. It should recognize that fact before submitting its resignation.
The Twilight Zone – A Most Unusual Camera (clip)
Why does CCP tell their citizens they “will not be enslaved by foreigners” when no foreign nation is interested in doing that?
To the Chinese, it brings back very bad memories to see Western powers sending fleets to China’s coasts, forming alliances against China, working closely with a brutally Sinophobic Japan, speaking of the breakup of China into Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, etc., tolerating racist attacks on Chinese immigrants, trying to embargo China and cut off its access to markets and resources, speaking of the desire to overthrow China’s government (e.g. far-right scumbag Arkansas senator Tom Cotton and scumbag British diplomat Roger Garside, author of China Coup), vilifying and barbarizing China’s culture, political system, history, and even regional cuisines, and proclaiming the superiority of Western belief systems.
Anyone who doesn’t understand why should really just exit any discussion of China because they don’t know anything about China’s history over the past 200 years. All of this is extremely familiar to the Chinese. In fact, it makes up most of China’s historical experience with the West. Major Western (British) diplomats visited China for the first time in 1793. Most of the 200 years after that were quite a miserable time for all Chinese.
This is why the CPC has always refused to restore or reconstruct the Old Summer Palace (Yuanming Yuan) in Beijing, which was once world-famous, breathtakingly beautiful and something like China’s Pyramids or Hanging Gardens. It was looted and destroyed by the French and British in 1860, and today 47 Western museums exhibit and profit from its treasures. This is all that’s left of the Old Summer Palace, and it’s a depressing sight in the capital city of the world’s second-richest nation; but the dilapidated ruins are a reminder to new generations.
Can you imagine that these charred pillars and scattered stones mark the spot where the emperors of China once lived and governed for 125 years? Not in ancient times, but from 1735 to 1860.
I think the average patriotic Chinese is thinking, You did all of this before, and we were weak and you won. You really want to do this again? Well this time, we’re just as big as you are.
The story of the Old Summer Palace increases the kinship I feel with China as an Egyptian, because my country’s stolen treasures also fill Western museums from Boston to Berlin.
The West has always seen non-Western peoples more of less as barbarians, but I don’t think barbarians are people who practise polygamy, eat dog meat, worship idols, have no written language, or are ruled by an emperor instead of a parliament. Barbarians are people who have to brutalize and plunder every corner of the earth they ever go, simply because they can.
What kind of people make you ashamed to be a human being?
These absolute sacks of shit.
This is the Westboro Baptist Church. A Baptist church based in Topeka, Kansas. Every day, WBC pickets approximately six locations. They claim to have picketed in all 50 states. What kind of events do they picket? Any events that don’t align with their homophobic, transphobic, anti-Catholic, anti-Orthodox, anti-atheist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, antiziganist, and anti-American views. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have accused them of brainwashing, and the church is often heavily criticized for resembling a cult (which it completely is). Some notable events that they picketed are:
Hundreds, possibly even thousands, of military funerals.
The funeral of Michael Jackson.
The funeral of Ronnie James Dio.
The funeral of Christina Green, a 9 year old victim of the 2011 Tucson Shooting. Luckily, they were unsuccessful because the Arizona legislature passed an emergency bill banning protesters within 300 ft of the memorial.
On October 5, 2011, Margie Phelps (daughter of the church’s founder) tweeted from her iPhone that the church would be picketing Steve Jobs’ funeral. Read that again. She used an iPhone to tell the world that they were going to protest STEVE JOBS’ funeral.
They tried to picket Leonard Nimoy’s funeral, but they couldn’t find it.
They picketed the funerals of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.
They picketed the funerals of the Orlando nightclub shooting.
They protested the National Holocaust Museum, stating that the Jews are the real Nazis.
They also picketed the 9/11 memorials, with signs that said “Thank God for 9/11,” yet they also demanded that “teh gayz” be punished for causing 9/11.
These slippery little shits use every loophole in the book (or rather, the constitution) to ensure that they can continue their heinous activities.
These parasitic barrels of monkey nuts make me ashamed to not only be American, but a human being. I find some comfort in the parody of the church that was featured in Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Oh NO! This is BIGGER than the Snowden leaks, much bigger
This is pretty important. Really. Please watch this video. https://youtu.be/6lSLks0XaAY
They Won’t Be Able To Deny The Cold, Hard Reality Of What Is Happening To The U.S. Economy Much Longer
by Michael They are trying really hard to convince all of us that everything is just fine. But close to one-fifth of the U.S. population is skipping meals because food prices are too high. And nearly 40 percent of our small businesses couldn’t pay rent in October. Our leaders are trying to put a positive spin on things, but the truth is that we are witnessing a tremendous amount of economic suffering all over the United States right now. The core consumer price index just surged to “the highest level since 1982”, and this is putting an enormous amount of financial stress on American families and businesses. This week, I was stunned to learn that a survey that was just released found that 37 percent of all small businesses in the United States could not pay rent last month…
The survey of 4,789 randomly selected small business owners saw more than half of respondents say their rent is at least 10 percent higher than six months ago.If you go back seven months, the majority said their rents had increased by at least 20 percent.Moreover, the study found that roughly 37 percent of small businesses – almost half of all Americans working in the private sector – were left unable to pay rent in October.
Prior to getting this news, if someone had asked me to guess the percentage of small businesses that are currently unable to pay rent, I would have responded with a figure that was far lower. So often, things turn out to be even worse than I thought they were. If those small businesses continue to be unable to pay rent, they will eventually be forced to shut down. So what will our communities look like if millions of small businesses suddenly close up shop on a permanent basis? Meanwhile, a different survey has discovered that 18 percent of Americans are now skipping meals because food prices have become so crazy…
Over the last 12 months, nearly two in five American households (40%) received food or goods from a food bank (22% for Millennials), and the same amount (17%) stopped buying healthier foods (organic or high-priced healthy foods).Nearly one in five Americans (18%) say they skipped meals or didn’t buy groceries due to high inflation (including 28% of Gen Z and 23% of millennials).
Skipping meals can be a positive thing, because fasting is actually really good for your health. But most of these Americans are not skipping meals for the health benefits. In addition, the same survey found that many Americans are not taking medications or seeing their doctors because prices have gone up so much…
Many have cancelled or postponed plans in the past 12 months to see a specialist (14%), take a prescribed medication (10%) or get an annual physical (11%) due to high inflation.
If things are this bad already, what will those numbers look like next year at this time when economic conditions are significantly worse? The American people are going to become increasingly frustrated as our standard of living continues to plunge. All of us have to eat, and so many of the products that so many of us buy on a regular basis have gone up dramatically in price…
A year ago, a bag of potato chips at the grocery store cost an average of $5.05. These days, that bag costs $6.05. A dozen eggs that could have been picked up for $1.83 now average $2.90. A two-liter bottle of soda that cost $1.78 will now set you back $2.17.
Sadly, this is just the beginning. Even though the Federal Reserve has declared war on inflation, food prices are going to continue to rise for a variety of reasons. And as the cost of living keeps becoming more oppressive, more American families are going to struggle to make it from month to month. Even now, nearly two-thirds of the entire country is currently living paycheck to paycheck…
As rising prices continue to outpace wage gains, families are finding less cushion in their monthly budget.As of September, 63% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent LendingClub report — near the 64% historic high hit in March. A year ago, the number of adults who felt strained was closer to 57%.“Consumers are not able to keep up with the pace that inflation is increasing,” said Anuj Nayar, LendingClub’s financial health officer.
The worse things get, the more we will see people clamoring for the federal government to help them. In fact, one recent survey actually discovered that 63 percent of all U.S. voters are in favor of “inflation stimulus payments”…
A recent poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans are proponents of the federal government sending out inflation stimulus payments.About 63% of eligible U.S. voters expressed some degree of support for federal inflation relief checks being distributed, the Newsweek poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies showed. Of those who agreed the federal government should do so, 42% indicated they “strongly agree” while 21% said “agree,” according to the poll.
Sadly, most voters don’t seem to understand that sending out more stimulus checks would create even more inflation. There is always a cost when the government gives out “free money”. If our politicians would have exercised discipline over the past several years, we would not be in the mess that we are in today. But now years of very bad decisions are catching up with us in a major way, and economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating. At this point, the vast majority of the U.S. population can see this. According to one recent Gallup survey, a whopping two-thirds of all Americans believe that economic conditions in this nation are getting worse. So many people are talking about the possibility of a recession in 2023. If all we have is a recession next year, we would be extremely fortunate. Because right now the economy is starting to crack and crumble all around us, and the outlook for the months ahead is exceedingly bleak indeed. .
What are some unwritten social rules everyone should know?
1. 1+1 = 3 if you don’t use the condom.
2. Alcohol increase size of the “SEND” button by 89%.
3. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
4. Sometimes we create our own heartbreaks through expectations.
5. Life is too short to be with the wrong person.
6. Just because you love them, it doesn’t mean they’re right for you.
7. Feelings that come back are feelings that never left.
A complete separation from Western predatory economics, using the vast creativity and devotion to Mother Russia of the people there, and Russia will succeed beyond anyone's expectations. It will become a beacon for what is possible.-John
It is unmistakable. The United States has successfully brought about a global realignment in accordance with their obvious plans. And it looks, right now, that everything is going forward to plan. Much to our (most informed) observations.
Here, I just want to review some of these victories.
Why did Russia invade the Ukraine?
Contrary to American media, the invasion was not unprovoked. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, America has been pushing NATO, which is a US sepoy operation, ever closer to Russian borders in what, to anyone who took fifth-grade geography, is an obvious program of military encirclement. Of the five countries other than Russia littoral to the Black Sea, three, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, are now in NATO. America has been moving toward bringing in the Ukraine and Georgia. After Georgia would have come Azerbaijan, putting American forces on the Caspian with access to Iran and Kazakhstan. This is calculated aggression over the long term, obvious to the—what? Ten percent? Fifteen percent?—of Americans who know what the Caucasus is.
Putin has said, over and over, that Russia could not allow hostile military forces on its border any more than the US would allow Chinese military bases in Mexico and China or missile forces in Cuba. Washington kept pushing. Russia said, no more. In short, America brought on the war.
Among people who follow such things, there are two ways of looking at the invasion. First, that Washington thought Putin was bluffing, and he wasn’t. Second, that America intentionally forced Russia to choose between allowing NATO into the Ukraine, a major success for Washington’s world empire; or fighting, also a success for Washington as it would cause the results it has caused.
From the latter understanding, America pulled off, at least at first glance, an astonishing geopolitical victory over Russia. Nordstream II blocked, crippling sanctions placed on Russia, many of its banks kicked out of SWIFT, economic integration of Europe and Asia slowed or reversed, Germany to spend 113 billion on rearming (largely meaning buying American costume-jewelry weaponry), Europe forced to buy expensive American LNG, and Europe made dependent on America for energy. All this in a few days without loss of a single American soldier. This presumably at least in part engineered by Virginia Newland who, though she looks like a fireplug with leprosy, seems effectively Machiavellian.
So The United States got itself a war with Russia.
As a result, an already subservient NATO and EU is now gleefully submitted to American dominance. Russia, they believe, is globally isolated, and the first stage is set.
Russia is isolated and alone, and “tied up” in a “quagmire” in Ukraine that the United States controls. It’s NATO group is working that front.
Next up…
China.
The QUAD to start a war with China..
This means that a QUAD must be put in place and strengthened. The QUAD is an NATO of the Pacific to “counter” China. So while NATO will counter Russia, QUAD will counter China.
To “counter China” means “a war with China”.
Sorry, I just plow though all the bullshit and rhetoric. I call it as it is. It makes life a lot easier, don’t you know.
The closest to China that America can get to is Taiwan, but if it goes any further, YOU WILL SEE Washington DC, New York City, and San Francisco all reduced to radioactive rubble. So Washington DC, is trying to dance around and sing it’s songs.
The USA tried to gain “footholds” in Xinjiang (with the Uighur Muslims), in Hong Kong (with the “pro-democracy” color revolutions), in Tibet (with a color revolution there), and all failed. So, then it tried to launch “color revolutions” in the nations bordering China. This included Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). All have pretty much failed to one degree or the other.
So what is left? The QUAD.
Already American surrogates…
South Korea
Australia
Japan / India
Let’s take a look at these three “victories”.
Change in the levers- of-power in Korea.
Victory 2.
So right now, by less than a 1% margin, a USA-backed conservative took over the leadership of South Korea. He pledges [1] a harsher stance against North Korea aggression, [2] a relook at the Korean relations with China, and [3] much closer ties to the United States.
Honestly, we don’t know what will come of all this.
What we do know is that he has no political experience. Much like Trump has none, and Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukraine) had none. Previous recent events suggest easy manipulation by others. Namely, the United States deep-state.
But we really don’t know the true and real situation.
What I can tell you is that the American neocons in K-street in Washington, DC are joyful with glee.
For the last four years, they watched in horror as South Korea became friendlier with China, and less friendly with the United States. South Korea wanted to reunify with North Korea, and wanted the denuclearization of Korea. All of which horrified the American neocons.
But…
Their plans included a war in Korea. This friendliness was unacceptable.
This is what The Diplomat had to say about how unhappy the USA was with South Korea.
There are deep diplomatic differences between President Joe Biden of the United States and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.
Biden wants Moon to abandon his peace-oriented policy toward North Korea, but Moon insists on continuing to try, despite the underwhelming results so far achieved. Can the next president of South Korea make any better progress?
Another point of contention between Seoul and Washington is Biden’s desire for the South Korean military to take a more active role in the wider region, in particular by participating in various U.S.-led multilateral military exercises. The incoming South Korean president will need to finesse this issue carefully if relations with China are to remain cordial.
Can the next president of South Korea initiate any new policies toward the United States, China, and North Korea? The truth is that South Korea’s policies toward these countries are interdependent in many different ways. If there are any solutions to be found for this Gordian Knot, then the ROK-U.S. alliance is the best hope we have. So how should we envisage the future of the long-standing alliance between the ROK and the United States?
Moon’s Promises to China: The Three Noes
When the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system was deployed on South Korean soil, China objected vigorously and used its commercial leverage to punish South Korea. As a consequence, Moon was obliged to placate China by making three promises. Will these “three noes” cause difficulties for the next president?
The first promise was that the United States will not deploy additional THAAD systems in South Korea. The U.S. budget for fiscal year 2021 has no funding for additional THAAD systems, but there are some funds allocated for upgrading the existing one to integrate it into a remote networked command and control system, together with Patriot and other systems deployed near the Korean Peninsula. This is a third and final phase based on the U.S. adoption of the Joint All Domain Command and Control system which U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) plans to adopt shortly.
The second promise is that trilateral security cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea will not develop into a military alliance. Given the dire state of relations with Japan, this promise is easy to keep for any South Korean president.
The third promise is that South Korea will not participate in the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) regional missile defense system. In practice the THAAD system deployed at Seongju has already been integrated into the MDA’s regional architecture. Staff at the South Korean Ministry of National Defense (MND) have implicitly acknowledged the fact. As for any further cooperation with the MDA, the MND has made clear that it prefers to develop its own missile defense system.
It seems, then, that Moon’s “three noes” will not seriously constrain the next president.
Hypersonic Weapons on South Korean Soil?
At the recent Biden-Moon summit, South Korea agreed to become more actively involved with the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Following the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in August 2021, it is appropriate to discuss the future of the ROK-U.S. military alliance.
China is continuing its military buildup, and seeking to extend and strengthen its diplomatic influence across the region. Against this background, it is time for the United States to increase its military resources to counter Chinese adventurism.
Several nations are developing hypersonic ballistic and cruise missiles, either medium-range (following Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) or long-range. Chinese and Russian weapons systems are well advanced, and the United States has initiated or reactivated several hypersonic missile development projects under various names: the U.S. Navy’s Prompt Global Strike (PGS); U.S. Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon; U.S. Air Force’s AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon and Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile; and DARPA’s Tactical Boost Glide and Operational Fires and Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept.
As commentators have noted, though, the U.S. would have to find a place to deploy its missiles.
Indeed, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper explicitly suggested that U.S. allies, including Australia, Japan, and South Korea, should allow the United States to deploy hypersonic weapons to assist in the strategic deterrence of Chinese threats.
Any deployment of such U.S.-developed hypersonic missiles on South Korea soil would inevitably be strenuously resisted by China, much like THAAD in 2017, and could seriously unbalance South Korean foreign policy. Recently, however, Australia has categorically rejected any such deployment, and with none of the other regional allies happy to accept them, it seems that South Korea is off the hook.
There is no particular reason why the United States needs to deploy hypersonic weapons on South Korean territory. There are no specific high-value targets in China’s northeastern provinces, and other U.S. allies seem better placed for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to manage Chinese threats, such as Japan and the Philippines, not the mention the U.S. territory of Guam.
Nuclear ballistic missiles can be identified, tracked, and classified as incoming threats by missile defense systems, for example those established by the MDA, but PGS and medium-range hypersonic missiles equipped with conventional warheads cannot be intercepted by any missile defense system. It is unclear whether the U.S. prefers hypersonic-capable and conventional PGS weapons to the existing medium-range ballistic missiles with nuclear capability. This uncertainty opens an opportunity for South Korea, now that limitations on its indigenous missile development have been lifted. New South Korean medium-range ballistic missiles would supplement U.S. capability in countering Chinese military threats to Northeast Asian security, as well as deterring the North Korean military threat.
Other Issues Affecting the Future of the ROK-U.S. Alliance
Some of the frontrunners to be the next president of South Korea have spoken about making changes to the ROK military and to the command-and-control structure of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), but they have said very little about the future of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Some military commentators argue that South Korea should pay more attention to operational and tactical matters than to political and strategic issues. In that regard, there are a variety of topics to be considered.
An Expanding AllianceFirst, from the U.S. perspective, rebuilding the alliance is a priority. During the Trump era, his transactional and populist approach opened up some deep divisions between South Korea and the United States. Biden is now working to repair the damage. More than that, however, he also wants to extend the scope of the alliance beyond its historic focus on threats to the Korean Peninsula by involving Seoul in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, a thinly-veiled project to contain China.
A related initiative targets common domain awareness, with the ROK military trying to up its game by taking new responsibility for space, electronic, information, and cyberwarfare. To this end, the first meeting of a newly established ROK-U.S. ICT cooperation committee was held on August 5. Also, the ROK Air Force has reorganized its combat development group into an air and space combat research group, so that it can share a Common Operational Picture with the U.S. Space Force. The ROK Army and the ROK Navy are also getting more involved with space; for example the Cheonro-an satellite now monitors the surrounding seas of the Korean Peninsula, including the East China Sea.
In addition, now that South Korea is explicitly committed to more involvement in regional security, including potentially acting with the USFK to contingencies in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, the scope of the ROK-U.S. alliance has broadened. Future roles and missions for the ROK-U.S. CFC will be hampered by disparities between the two militaries unless a combined combat development group is established. The Japan-U.S. alliance has benefitted from bilateral joint research and development projects, and something similar is needed for the ROK-U.S. alliance.
Changing DoctrinesSecond, there is widespread agreement that attempts to strengthen the capacity of the ROK-U.S. alliance should focus on doctrinal standardization. The United States is currently undergoing a great transformation of its expeditionary forces. Thus, the U.S. Army is establishing three Multi-Domain Task Forces, for the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Arctic. The U.S. Marine Corps also has a new mobile, agile, and flexible force, the Marine Littoral Regiment, designed to fight in a contested maritime environment. Likewise, the U.S. Navy has its Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept, for which it wants to build light amphibious ships, rather than large LHDs or LHAs.
These changes to U.S. forces mean that South Korea’s military will also need to change to ensure the future success of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Specifically, South Korean forces must pursue both technological and doctrinal interoperability, so that they can effectively interface with the new operational concepts of the United States. An integrated ROK Army, Navy Air Force, and Marine Corps force has been suggested, which could then operate in combined units between the ROK and U.S. militaries at the squadron and battalion level. And perhaps the United States should be invited to serve as an advisor in developing the concepts and frameworks of Defense Reform 2050, currently under development by the MND.
New Platforms, New Cooperation Third, now that South Korea is building an aircraft carrier, close liaison with the U.S. Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) is needed. With the navies of South Korea and Japan both building or refitting light aircraft carriers, close cooperation is essential to ensure maximum interoperability. The U.S.-U.K. agreement on cooperative CV operation is the obvious model to follow. A considerable degree of interoperability has already been established, due to the F-35B take-off and landing system, which is the same on the U.S. Navy’s CVs, but much more is possible. The U.S. Navy has built up a vast repertoire of skills and know-how, which should be shared with South Korea and Japan for mutual benefit in the operation of CVs.
Fourth, some operational and tactical improvements are necessary. For example, South Korea and the United States need to better coordinate their strategic assets with the JMSDF, specifically: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets such as Global Hawk UAVs; airborne early warning and control assets; air refueling tankers and heavy lift aircraft; aircraft carriers; and amphibious assets. Also, the U.S. Navy needs a permanent presence in the form of destroyers at South Korean naval bases; the current arrangements with a one-star admiral are inadequate to deter potential threats from North Korea and China. And the South Korean Agency for Defense Development should be working on more research and development projects together with the U.S. DARPA, such as how to operate Manned-Unmanned Teaming between the two fleets. NATO has a variety of cooperative arrangements between multiple countries, and some of these could be usefully emulated by the ROK-U.S. alliance.
In short, the ROK-U.S. alliance is at a time of transition, and a lot of changes will be required to maintain the strength and effectiveness of the alliance into the future. The next South Korean president will have plenty of work to do.
Conclusion
Most of South Korea’s presidential candidates are proposing policies toward the United States, China, and North Korea that simply rehash previous ideas from the left or right, and in any case are based on outdated and obsolete scenarios.
The world has moved on, and the ROK-U.S. alliance needs to acknowledge the fact.
When the next president of South Korea is inaugurated in May 2022, he or she will have a very full inbox: the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, ever worsening climate change, the regional impact of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, growing doubts about the dependability of Pax Americana, and uncertainty over the future of the global economy.
Some candidates have flirted with populism during the campaign, but South Korea’s foreign and security policy needs someone grounded in reality. Thus, it is greatly to be hoped that the next president of South Korea will have the necessary experience and qualifications in these areas, and that they will choose the very best people for the relevant cabinet appointments. It would also be helpful if he or she has clearly articulated their approach to the United States, China, and North Korea so that there is a mandate for change – because change is coming to the ROK-U.S. alliance, like it or not.
This article was written one year ago.
Since that time, the United States government lavishly funded the USA-friendly candidate who now won the election. Whether or not he will pay-back the billions of dollars that he owes the United States is up in the air.
My assumptive guess is that he will.
Though, to what extent is unknown.
My other guess is that some very contentious events will take place on the Korean pennsula in the next two years. Perhaps diplomatic. Perhaps economic. Perhaps trade. Perhaps posturing. Perhaps social. Perhaps military. But there will be some changing of various alignments on the Geo-Political sphere.
It all depends on the power of the personality of the new leadership.
If he is weak, it will be like Morrison in Australia, or like Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy of the Ukraine. He will end up becoming fantastically wealthy (Zelenskkyy became a multi-billionaire in a few years), but at the cost of the economic strength of his nation. As what has happened to Australia.
If he is strong, he might be like Ou Ratana of Cambodia. He would forge new alliances, strengthen existing ones, and bridge the various differences in opinion that seem to be at everyones’ throat.
Weak nations paint huge “bullseyes” on their country. Whether Korea is one such nation, we have yet to see.
A major USA military presence in Australia.
Victory 3
The Morrison administartion is solidly pro-neocon. Yes. You read that correct. Not pro-America. He’s pro-neocon.
Any moment now, Australians are going to line up for their spicy “Kool-Aide”. And start wearing shiny new sneakers to reach Heaven via Comet Nirvana.
Neocons believe in the Rapture. I mean, they really, REALLY believe.
In other words, destroy the world to make it better. God will protect the worthy and “smite” the evil.
Its sort of like burning your house to the ground to protect it from fire.
Morrison allowed his trade with China to collapse, and the economy of Australia to take a complete nose-dive all for the betterment of the United States. He broke long-term trade deals with France and other nations in favor of having American nuclear sub basing, and American nuclear weapon basing inside of Australia.
It’s America-first.
As long as he gets his reserved ticket to Heaven, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about Australians. In his mind, he has them “covered”.
Covered in shit, that is.
It’s Australians last; back of the bus. Last in line. With their own water drinking fountains, and their own isolated schools.
He’s such a crazed fanatic, that Mike Pompeo looks like a moderate.
He [1] openly calls China an enemy, and [2] is busy setting up Australia on a war-footing for a major war in the Pacific. This includes [3] servicing and supplying American and British nuclear vessels, and [4] placing nuclear weapons and support structures on Australian soil. All the time, [5] breaking trade with China, [6] and engaging in racist actions against Chinese.
It’s hard to imagine a more bellicose and dangerous posture. But that’s the way it is. Australia and it’s people will all now gladly die for Washington DC, and America.
Of course, Morrison will fondle his jewels, and swim with his champaigne and caviar in his plush mansions. Now well funded by the United States printing presses.
Japan forming a status quo fence.
Victory 4
The greatest fear that the United States has is a two-front war; where the United States must fight both Russia and China simultaneously. The overall plan seems to be clear enough. Attack Russia, and then China, one by one. Not simultaneously.
So the plan is to prevent a two front assault. Dealing with Russia alone is already taxing the United States in many ways. Tack on the fiasco that China would crate, and it must be avoided at all costs.
One week after the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, the QUAD held a video meeting and discussed what to do to “contain China”. For after all, that is the purpose of the QUAD after all.
Now Japan wants to host American nuclear missiles and bombs.
Leaders from Japan, the United States, Australia and India agreed [1]during their virtual meeting Thursday that they oppose any unilateral use of force to change the status quo in their region.
This was reported by the Japanese government.
This meeting took place, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brings renewed concerns over China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
The four major Indo-Pacific democracies (the QUAD) also agreed [2]to launch a new humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mechanism. This mechanism will “provide a channel for communication” as they each address and respond to the crisis in Ukraine.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he agreed [3]with his counterparts (QUAD members; Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden) to hold an in-person summit in the Japanese capital “in a few months.”
"We agreed that we should not allow any unilateral change to the status quo by force in the Indo-Pacific region like the latest case (in Ukraine) and we need to step up efforts to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific in times like this,"
-he told reporters at his office.
The four countries of the Quad group have been deepening their ties and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, where China is boosting its military and economic clout. Japan is planning to host a Quad summit in the first half of this year.
Among the Quad members, India’s lack of response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has been in focus, given its traditionally close ties with Moscow. India abstained from voting on a nonbinding resolution at the U.N. General Assembly condemning the invasion by Russia and demanding its troops withdraw immediately from Ukraine.
The joint statement did not explicitly criticize Russia for the invasion, over which Moscow has faced sharp condemnation and economic sanctions from countries including the United States, Japan and Australia.
"The Quad leaders discussed the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and assessed its broader implications,"
But in their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” they emphasized it means that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states is respected” and “countries are free from military, economic, and political coercion.”
Before the Quad meeting, Kishida said the Indo-Pacific region, especially East Asia, should not allow any unilateral attempt to alter the status quo by force.
Chinese ships have been repeatedly spotted in waters near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, a group of uninhabited islets controlled by Japan and claimed by China. China-Taiwan tensions remain high as Beijing considers the island as a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland by force if necessary.
Keep in mind that Taiwan is not a nation. It is a territory of China. So, the “out” in this posture is whether or not the QUAD wants to get involved in a Chiense civil war.
Because if they do, China will nuke the living shit out of them.
Complete control of the narrative.
Victory 5
It’s not even bothering commenting on. It’s all hate-Russia-24-7. It’s everywhere, and there are ZERO alternative voices. If you try to say anything positive about Russia, you are unplugged.
The United States has authored this situation and it is in place
And it appears that yet again, the United States will emerge victorious. It certainly is victorious right now. Everything is falling into place.
Europe is now economically dependent upon the USA.
The BRI connecting China to Europe has been interrupted.
Russia is economically isolated from the West.
A strong QUAD “fence” is in place and will be used to “contain” China.
Some side effects
Now, there are some side-effects of all of this.
Whether or not these elements are part of a grander scheme or plan is unknown. What is known is that these elements will influence the United States, and it’s allies in both Europe and in the QUAD.
These elements are…
Rampaging inflation for all nations that trade using the USD.
Resulting in massive price increases in all things imported.
A villianized Russia.
Seizure of all Russan assets; money, accounts, boats, and businesses.
A partitioning / slicing up of the globe to one side or the other.
Now; a view from the other side
But what we do know, for those of us paying attention, that both Russia and China view these turn of events as expected. None of the events that are transpiring are a surprise.
As such I suppose …
Inflation of the USD is welcomed.
This inflation will further weaken the USD and the US economy.
SWIFT is being displaced by CIPS.
CIPS is backed by gold, resources, and manufacturing capability.
SWIFT is backed by American debt. Now at $30 trillion dollars.
The key for a united Asia is to allow the USA (and it’s serrogates) to collapse internally without nuclear war.
To do this, they are holding a (figurative) nuclear shotgun to the head of the United States and telling it to “mind it’s manners”. One twitch, one wrong move, and it’s “adios muchachos“.
To this end, they have maintained a very lethal stance against the West, threatening complete and absolute destruction.
It used to be that just having a few nuclear weaons was enough. But no. The American “leadership” are so stupid and ignorant that they had to be told directly; We have nuclear weapons and we WILL use them. Stop violating our “red lines”.
This in turn, is forcing the West to resort to [1] bioweapons and other systems, namely [2] economic, to wage war. Things that are not so obvious to a horrifically dumbed down nation.
Bioweapon warfare
In the grand scheme this methodology is (apparently) failing.
The 8 bioweapons against Chinese livestock did not create famine.
The three bioweapons against China did very little damage to China. Instead it made it very resilient against bioweapons.
Now the R&D; Biolabs and biowarfare are both in the open. Russia and China are making an issue of it.
The need for mRNA injections is collapsing. Which leaves America and the West particuliarly open to a bioweapon attack.
The population will simply ignore the warnings from the US government for isolation and masking. Thinking it’s more of the same nonsense.
The public will ignore all bioweapons protection measures.
So what’s left?
Economic Warfare
Economic warfare. But, contrary to the “news” reports…
Russia is not collapsing.
China is not collapsing.
But the USA and the West are starting to.
At this stage, anything can happen.
Anything can happen
The USA might still have some “tricks up its sleeve”, but from my point of view, it’s truly a dying empire; rotten to the core, and weakly and meakly thrashing about dangerously, while young, fresh and talented Kungfu masters watch on in alert readiness.
But all that is only my speculation.
American neocons see the world differently than I do…
The score card, that we visibly see, is 5-0 with the United States taking the lead in all victories and in all arenas.
But you know. I don’t count battles on a score card. I don’t say “yay! My guys sunk this ship. Boo! They did this!”. I look at the big picture.
And you should too.
I look at the basic strengths of society. A strong society, one that has a unified and intelligent population that is making things, and performing meaningful industry is going to overtake a weaker one who counts beads, argues with each other over trivalities, and who points blame at others instead of rolling up its sleeve and making changes to things that are not working.
In the table above, I greatly simplified a number of points. Now, before you howl in anger, consider what I am trying to convey.
Yes. The USA does export. It exports expensive military equipment, and some wheat. It says it exports a lot of grains, but when you look at the actual numbers you find the exports are not comparatively large. The vast bulk of the monetary value of exports is military and aviation. These are trivial. Without a war, and with trade embargoes, there are no markets. While Asia exports everything.
Yes. The USA has farms. However, they are mostly corporate, big business entities that dependent upon imported fertilizer, and a working power grid to operate. Remove those two things, and you end up with a dust bowl. Not so in Russia and China. They have thousands of small, versitle, and adaptable farms.
Yes. The USA has industry. But it’s industry, not manufacturing. An office building staffed with accountants, logistics and warehouses, marketing people, diversity officers, HR, and lawyers do not make things. You need manufacturing facilities. Not just warehouses.
Yes. The USA has a military. It has over 800+ bases all over the world and very advanced high-tech equipment. But sitting in a office building pushing buttons on drones, and using a military that are unable to do more than five push ups is not a military force to be afraid of. It is something that looks good on paper, but not what you want to defend your life with.
So over all, in a big picture, Asia (in a one-to-one) head-to-head conflict will overtake the collective West.
As in this quote from my e-mail…
All we need to do is to rid our head of the USD-based capitalist miasma, USD-based dividends included.
Why does anyone need the USD showing a fake USD-based GDP to demonstrate that they have a good economy?
Why would Russia collapse with the closing of McDonalds, Starbucks, and the casino-stock market?
Russia has the world's largest land mass.
It has abundant clean water and agricultural land.
It has only one-tenth of China's population. No one will ever starve or lack water in Russia.
But even better is that they have huge stores of energy and minerals in the ground. They will never lack anything that is necessary for the advancement of their society.
More importantly, they also have the brains to develop technology and they have a strong army to defend themselves against anyone, including worthy foes such as Napoleon and Hitler, who were almost invincible before they attacked Russia.
Should Putin be afraid of sleepy Biden, dopey Bojo, dogfaced Stoltenberg, maleficent Ursula, and funny Zelensky?
I rest my case.
In geopolitics, you do not own anything that you cannot defend. The rest is bullshit and balderdash. Even cavemen knew that. In economics, Russia and China have a perfect fit.
China has too many people for not enough agricultural land and clean water. It does not have enough energy or minerals in the ground.
Russia gives China what it needs, and China will make whatever Russia needs. Everyone will live happy fruitful lives in peace and harmony without the need to ever see a single dollar.
America wants to whip the G7 to sanction China, what a delusional dying empire!
The destruction comes in many forms…
“In two weeks, China, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan will reveal an independent international monetary and financial system. It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices”
-Sputnik News, Mar. 14, 2022.
Along with the new currency, Russia and China will also reveal their Unfriendly Nation Lists.
So I stand by my belief that theres more things down the pipe. Never forget about who you are all dealing with…
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
"I didn't graduate from the 7th grade to put up with this shit!"
-Chef, "Apocalypse Now"
When I was growing up, my parents raised me on a steady diet of television. Back then in the early 1960’s my favorite shows were “Diver Dan”, “The Jetsons”, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”, “Get Smart” and “I dream of Genie”. These shows influenced me as I grew up. It was all about adventure, space and fighting those dastardly communists. Yikes!
I used to love Saturday mornings.
it would be a morning full of cartoons. I would go get a bowl of sugary cereal, add milk and even more sugar, and sit there in front of the television screen absorbing all the great child entertainment. My favorite cereals from those years were “Froot Loops”, “Coco puffs”, and “Rice Krispies”. I was, I tell youse guys, just a normal kid.
In those days, mind control via electronic media was unheard of. It had to be introduced and perfected, which it was indeed, over the next two to three decades.
Now we have very advanced systems to control the minds of people, and they do work. But every now and then, the absurdity of it all becomes so glaringly obvious. And it’s laughable. Really.
If it wasn’t so absolutely sad.
From MoA. Classic.
There seem to be general meme directives for ‘western’ outlets with regards to official enemies.
Russia is said to weaponize everything. The position of China is not (yet) seen as in military terms. The emphasis is on economic competition. Any undeniable Chinese achievement must be declared to have been a bad investment. The directive thus reads:
"When writing about China's achievements - question their costs."
China’s Experimental Cure for Cancer China’s curing cancer faster and cheaper than anywhere else. But some worry they may be going too fast.
– Bloomberg, Dec 12th 2019
I read a few articles on China’s high speed train system, and in the most recent the cost versus revenue was a worry/criticism, even though it would be easy to argue or at least discuss about positive externalities worthy of subsidies.
Similar cost related criticism was laid on the huge program to develop new gas fields in Eastern Siberia and connect them with pipelines to China. It seems to be true that the long term contracts signed with China when the natural gas prices were very depressed were not best possible, but since those projects have to be considered in 20-50 year time frame, it was silly even then. Now the concerns about profitability of delivering natural gas to China in the future look hilarious.
There is an objective aspect in some “cost/global” articles. China is dominating so many commodity markets that decisions impacting import and export of China have tremendous impact on importers and exporters alike.
Most glaring is the lack of “at what cost” questions concerning the West. EU delays approval of North Stream II, but at what cost? Technocrats decreased investments in fossil fuels in EU and reliance on so-called clean fuels, but at what cost?
Both are phenomenal.
Madam Baerbock speaks her mind, but at what cost? This girl sends markets to panic which is not a part of her job description.
Ukraine “decreases reliance on Russia”, but at what cost?
Some estimate that the resulting losses are many times larger than gains from “western orientation”, western commentators do not attempt any such calculations. Freedom is worth every price if someone else pays for it (USA likes when the cost is born by EU, and EU likes when Ukrainians hold the short end of the stick).
Some thoughts…
Now I know to read any title that contains ‘China’ and ‘at what cost’ because it threatens the cult of U.S. hegemony.
1. Articles about environment: After skimming these articles, I agree, the ‘at what cost’ was so inappropriate for the content, it does look like it was planted, ‘will they succeed’ would have been more natural for these articles. Air quality has previously been notoriously bad in China, ongoing efforts to improve it was a very good thing.
2. articles about AI: ‘threatened by U.S.’ would be most accurate or some suitable alternative. This group of headlines says that China is vulnerable in the chip area. There is a condescending tone because it says, ML (Machine Learning) is data sets and processing power, and not so much about innovation, this is true. But I would not discount China’s ability to innovate. In using AI to implement a police state, ‘at what cost’, is appropriate here, as it conjures up everyone’s worst fears, even for our own govt. Pointing out how ML can be abused by a govt is a good thing. But even better is pointing out how it has eliminated rapes, kidnapping, child abductions, and fraud by leaderships inside of China is a great thing.
3. I can see how ‘at what cost’ can be used for the other categories but agree that the repetitious use wreaks of information war.
Infographic
Global Times provides this excellent infographic aimed directly at BigLie media’s propaganda meme as it’s titled, “China’s commitment to the world in 2021.”
Number two…
Number three…
Number four…
I am “chomping at the bit” in anticipation to see the United States versions of these meme’s.
Here’s an article out of Laos…
‘The country that bombed you is your friend. The one that built your new railway is your enemy’
Tom Fowdy / RT
This is the Western media’s bizarre messaging to the people of Laos, a nation that was carpet bombed by America, and which is now being vilified for accepting a new $6 billion railway line paid for by China.
Thursday was National Day in Laos, a celebration marking 46 years since the landlocked Southeast Asian nation deposed its monarchy and became a revolutionary communist state, an effort which was supported by Vietnam.
This year, the anniversary had added significance, as it saw the opening of a major new project, an electrified high-speed and freight railway system connecting the capital city, Vientiane with its northern neighbour, China.
The $6 billion project is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, and has been hailed as one of its flagship achievements. It is the first commercial and industrial railway in Laos, which, given its geography and the fact it is surrounded by mountainous terrain, has not previously had many options to expand its exports and generate economic growth.
Now, though, it has a direct rapid link into the world’s second largest economy and the world’s largest consumer market by population, and a connection to the booming ports of Guangdong. In terms of what it will bring to Laos, it is a game changer. So, what’s not to like about it?
To nobody’s surprise, the mainstream media have responded to the railway with the usual anti-China negativity. A plethora of articles sought to paint the project as a ‘debt trap’, promoting the accusation that Beijing loans countries money for projects they cannot afford and then exerts political leverage over it.
The Financial Times, for one, ran with a cynical article headlined ‘Laos to open Chinese-built railway amid fears of Beijing’s influence’. It implied that somehow Laos feels threatened or fears the construction of this very pioneering railway project (which the country’s own leader made sure he was the first to travel on). This suggestion of ‘fears of Chinese influence’ has become a common feature on such stories, which seek to cast doubt over anything positive China may be achieving or doing.
A common Twitter meme among pro-China users which has followed from stories like this asks: “but at what cost?” highlighting the frequency of such negative coverage.
And if you Google “China, but at what cost?” you can find a great many examples of articles published in major outlets. In producing such pieces, the broader intention is to depict Beijing’s actions as unwanted, threatening and constantly facing opposition. In the case of the Laos railway project, the ‘problem’ is it was financed by debt, and therefore it is not a positive step.
Yet this argument is as insulting as it is outright insensitive to Laos’ contemporary history. Anyone who knows anything about Laos’ relatively recent past will be well aware that China is not the country to fear, but the United States – the nation that dropped over 260 million cluster bombs on Laos and completely devastated the country as an extension of the Vietnam War, making it the most single bombed nation in history and claiming over 50,000 lives.
Many of these bombs remain unexploded and litter the countryside of Laos, continuing to kill civilians. In constructing the new railway, workers first had to clear the unexploded ordnance. How is it that the world and the mainstream media remain indifferent to this atrocity? And how, by any stretch of the imagination, can they claim that China is the true threat to Laos, and that the US and its allies act in the true interests of the country?
Herein lies the problem. Such a mindset symbolizes the elitism, chauvinism and self-righteousness of the countries of the West, which are ideologically inclined to believe that they stand for the ‘true interests’ of the ordinary people in the countries they profess to liberate.
Western politics peddles the assumption that through countries’ adherence to liberal democracy, they exclusively hold a single, universal, impartial and moralistic truth, derived from the ontological legacy of Christianity, and they have an obligation to introduce it to others. The West always acts truthfully and in good faith, while its enemies do not. And therefore, so the logic goes, any policy the US or its allies direct towards Laos is motivated by sincere intent and goodwill for its interests, and in turn, anything that China does is bad-faith, expansionist and power-hungry behaviour motivated by a desire to influence or control the country.
This creates the bizarre scenario whereby Beijing is depicted as evil and sinister for building a railway to connect to its neighbour – but we should forget America dropping millions of bombs on the country because it was done in the name of ‘freedom’. I’m sure you can imagine how the media would react if China did the latter.
Those who push this narrative predictably omit any insight into how Laos itself thinks about the situation. Another piece which took a similar stance, published in The Diplomat, was titled ‘Laos-China Railway inaugurated amid mounting debt concerns’.
But like the ‘fears of Beijing influence’ expressed in the FT, who are these ‘concerns’ from? The report cites the “Washington-based Center for Global Development” and what it merely describes as a “US based analyst” as sources who push the ‘debt trap’ narrative. But nowhere in any of these articles is there an actual voice direct from Laos who raises any fear of China, or objects to the railway’s existence.
Instead, they simply talk on the country’s behalf, obscuring the reality that a communist state which suffered from extreme levels of aggression from the US probably does not see its northern neighbour – and its most important economic partner – as a threat to its regime. With many more articles running variations of the same theme, there is minimal effort given to the consideration that the railway will help the country rapidly expand its exports, sustain greater growth and help Laos pay for the project.
The Laos-China railway has provided a textbook example of how the media can distort a story in order to fortify an incriminating narrative, while brushing aside brutal realities. We are shown a lopsided world, where the travesty of a country being bombed into oblivion with consequences lasting decades is ignored, and the preference is to try to convince us how that same country’s first commercial railway line is, in fact, what it should really be scared of.
It is a demonstration of how the power of the English-language, pro-US media distorts reality itself and how they can blow up an issue, yet hide the truth, by professing to care dearly about the wellbeing and interests of a country which the West poured death, destruction and carnage upon in the name of freedom.
Here’s an article out of Cambodia…
Cambodia-US Relations: Cambodia is not the enemy of the US
America believes that Cambodia is China’s vassal state. And it does everything to solidify that belief. At the end, they justify their sanctions against Cambodia for being too friendly with China whom the US considers as the “malign actor” and “revisionist state” to the hegemonic order with the US at the top.
But then how much is called overdependent? How much sanction is considered enough against the alleged malign actor?
Americans warn Cambodians to beware of lucrative interactions with China. But Cambodia’s trade and investment with China is less than 10% of the whole of Southeast Asia. Statistically speaking, countries that are close with the US such as Singapore and Vietnam are in fact the highest beneficiaries from trade and investments with China.
Media that are anti-China can lie about Cambodia’s overdependence on China but numbers don’t lie. Impartial academics should look into those number by themselves and make comparison to the whole region to verify and question their established prejudice. The so-called independent minds should not become the trash collectors of all bad press about Cambodia with many hyperlinks to the anti-Cambodia puppet media and organizations.
Cambodia is currently the most sanctioned country in Southeast Asia, even more than the military junta in Myanmar, and the fact is that there is no sanction at all against communist Vietnam, who has no freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of expression. What does anyone say to these? None at all.
What does democracy mean to America when Cambodia is being treated this way by the American government and congress on the aspect of democracy and human rights?
Cambodia is among the few countries in Southeast Asia that has regular multi-parties election.
Cambodia is among the few countries where press, both domestic and foreign, operate freely, and some of the US’ affiliates like the Voice of America, the Voice of Democracy, and Radio Free Asia, bombards daily with verbal diarrhea against Cambodia as if Cambodian people are living in hell. Nothing can be seen positive from the point of view. And they still say that Cambodia has no freedom of expression.
Facebook operates freely in Cambodia. Internet freedom is among the fullest compared to countries in the region. Cambodian people are addicted to Facebook freedom. They really enjoy it. So long as they don’t defame, libel, slander, promote uprising, treason and the toppling of government, they are free to say anything.
Cambodia is hosting more than 5,000 civil society organisations but human right groups in Cambodia, funded by foreign governments, still has liberty to say that Cambodia lacks freedom of association as compared to Viet Nam which has only one state union. In the US, these organisations would have been banned or classified as “foreign agents”. According to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), passed in 1938, it is required that agents representing the interests of foreign powers in a “political or quasi-political capacity” disclose their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances.
But such kind of civil society organisations in Cambodia are hiding behind protection of their foreign embassies crying foul that Cambodia’s Law on NGO (LANGO) is too restrictive because they simply cannot disclose their finance and activities that are fundamentally foreign-owned, foreign-initiated and foreign-led.
What does America want from Cambodia? Does it want Cambodia to become the enemy of China and to fight China on America’s behalf? Where does Cambodia’s national interest stand in supporting the US and in making China its enemy? Where is the right to self-determination of Cambodia that the US often says that it respects fully? Does the US want Cambodia to commit suicide to express its sincerity in wanting friendship with the US?
Cambodia is considered as “gold-standard” in terms of cooperation with the US in area such as POW/MIA. Cambodia even accepted 300 Afghan refugees when only a few countries in the region are willing to do so.
But what does Cambodia receive in return? The US cut off scholarship for military students who are already in the US. The US imposed visa sanctions against high-ranking officials in the whole Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
They are sanctioning the very individuals that act as the main bridge of friendship and relations between Cambodia and the US.
This is too cruel a treatment from a friend. The US is treating Cambodia like an enemy.
While the US says that it stands with Cambodian people for its independence and march towards stable and peaceful democracy, Cambodia is in fact one of the most sanctioned countries in Southeast Asia, even worst than the so-called US enemies.
People might probably say sometimes, frankness is needed among sincere friends. But a friend should not express solidarity through piles of sanctions like what the US is doing towards Cambodia right now.
How could a friend be so cruel to treat another friend that way? What does friendship mean for the American government and congressmen?
Is this the best treatment that the American government can afford to Cambodia, which is the last beacon of hope of democracy in the Mekong region? Which country in the Mekong region that fares better than Cambodia in terms of democracy and human rights?
Cambodian people like America; they like American democracy; they aspire to have American democracy.
It is totally unfair for Cambodia that it needs to sacrifice its national interest to befriend with the US. Why is it so hard to befriend with the US?
The US should reconsider its relations with Cambodia from the heart, not from the brain of geopolitical strategy. The brightest brain like Henry Kissinger that was behind the dropping of millions of bombs on Cambodian people is not a friend of Cambodia. He is nothing but a war criminal. He should not be the one to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What does peace prize mean for an individual that was behind the killings of hundreds of thousands of Cambodian people?
Which US congressman and policy-maker want to become the next Henry Kissinger, the war criminal that won a Nobel Peace Prize?
An American B-52 aircraft is not smart to distinguish between the Viet Cong and Cambodian civilians. The fact is that they killed more civilians than the Viet Cong that the US considered as US’ enemies.
There is no better definition than “war crime” and “crime against humanity” considering the US’ acts against Cambodia during the 1970s. America should never forget that. American government, American people, American policy-makers, American congressmen should never forget that. America should remember their atrocity against Cambodian people during the 1970s. Cambodian civilians and government are not US’ enemy.
And another article…
China’s Belt and Road rail services booming despite Covid-19
A train carrying 33 refrigerated containers departs from the Tengjun International Land Port in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province, for Laos. Xinhua
Beijing has inked more than 200 cooperation documents for the joint construction of the Belt and Road with 145 countries and 32 international organizations
Xinhua – Though the world remains haunted by the still ravaging COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2021, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has seen a boom in promoting world connectivity.
Under the BRI framework, railway construction is expanding across the global landscape. The iconic China-Europe Railway Express, the China-Laos railway and the railway line in Tanzania have all recorded milestone achievements over the past year.
These important railway projects provide important pillars for the BRI, and also contribute their due share to improving the global supply chain and the COVID-19 fight.
LINE OF HEALTH AND GIFTS
During days just before Christmas, when people in Western countries are worrying that they may not be able to receive their Christmas gifts on time due to clogged shipping lanes, China-Europe trains from different regions were sending products to Europe without delay.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of China-Europe freight trains. By the end of October, the China-Europe freight trains plying along 73 routes have reached 175 cities in 23 European countries with more than 50,000 kinds of goods.
Amid the pandemic, the number of China-Europe express trains as well as the volume of freight have continued to break new records.
Data from China’s National Development and Reform Commission shows that during the January-November period, the railway service linking the two sides operated 13,817 trains, carrying 1.332 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), an increase of 23 percent and 30 percent respectively compared with the year 2020.
At the end of November, the cumulative number of anti-epidemic equipment transported by the China-Europe freight trains reached 13.43 million pieces and 103,000 tons.
“China is very important for the global supply chain. And in most cases it’s faster (than the ocean shipping). Therefore, it’s a useful alternative to use the train, and it’s reliable,” said Axel Mattern, joint chief executive officer of Port of Hamburg Marketing.
According to global logistics company MEDILINK, the initial freight rate of the China-Europe rail network is often two-thirds higher than that of sea freight, but the current price is very competitive.
The current freight rates of the China-Europe freight trains are basically the same as those of sea freight, but it only takes nearly half the time, said Logistics industry insiders.
KEY FOR TRANS-ASIAN CONNECTIVITY
On Dec. 3, the China-Laos Railway officially started operation. It marks a crucial step for the trans-Asian railway network, which has been brewing for more than half a century. Since then, the journey from Vientiane to the border with China has been reduced from 2 days to 3 hours, and the journey to Kunming, capital of China’s Yunnan Province, can be made in a day.
“The China-Laos railway is conducive to promoting the development of areas that are located along the line. Countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion, including Thailand, Laos and China, will benefit from trade, agricultural products, consumer products, investment and tourism,” said Pichet Kunadhamraks, deputy director-general of the Department of Rail Transport under the Thai Ministry of Transport, in an interview with Xinhua.
The railway is expected to reduce transport costs between Vientiane and Kunming by 40 to 50 percent, said a World Bank report, noting transport costs from Thailand’s Laem Chabang port to Kunming are expected to fall by at least 32 percent.
It is estimated that by 2030, the annual volume of commercial goods in transit through the Laos section of the China-Laos Railway will reach 3.9 million tons, it added.
This year coincides with the 30th anniversary of the establishment of China-ASEAN dialogue relations, and the two sides are advancing the BRI and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025.
On Jan. 1, 2022, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will officially enter into force. Experts believe that the BRI will lead to the construction of the trans-Asian rail network and promote regional connectivity.
ROAD OF DEVELOPMENT
In mid-June this year, a ceremony was held to launch the Ithaca-Mwanza section of the Standard Gauge Railway of Tanzania’s Central Line, the construction of which is undertaken by a Chinese company.
After the completion of this project, it will become an important route connecting Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and other countries, providing a pathway to the Indian Ocean. It is of great importance for promoting the economic development of the countries in the region and improving the living conditions of the people.
From the Tanzania-Zambia railway built in the 1970s, to the Djibouti-Ethiopia and Mombasa-Nairobi railways, and the Standard Gauge Railway of Tanzania’s Central Line, the joint efforts of China and Africa have created jobs, trade opportunities and a better investment environment, thereby contributing to local prosperity as well as to the improvement of the living conditions of the local residents.
As of Dec. 16, China has signed more than 200 cooperation documents for the joint construction of the Belt and Road with 145 countries and 32 international organizations, and financial institutions such as China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Silk Road Fund have expanded financing channels for infrastructure construction.
According to Bambang Suryono, chairman of Indonesian think tank Asia Innovation Study Center, for many countries, a major obstacle to escape poverty is the weakness of transport infrastructure, and in this regard, China’s success can set an example.
Conclusion
When you measure everything against the cost structure imposed by western capitalism, everything China does inevitably looks costly.
Totally absent from the analysis is the question of benefits.
The west thinks only of profits. China thinks of the benefits not only to China and the Chinese people, but to the countries and peoples with whom they do business.
The West = Personal Profit
China = Benefits for Groups of People
The long term superiority of such a strategy is blindingly obvious to any open minded observer. It’s the reason why China and Russia will eventually pass through this contentious period of change, and prevail in a new better world.
Many other nations see this, and they do remember how the United States treated / treats them. When the shit hits the fan, and it will, the United States will be broke, penniless, scorned and friendless.
No matter how you spin it, it will not a good situation to be in.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
In the race (and millions of dollars in funding) to convince the world how evil China is they neglect one important point. Which is that everywhere outside of the USA looks like paradise now. Not only China. Everywhere.
It’s cheaper, cleaner, politer, calmer, nicer, with better infrastructure, and all the rest. The only people that don’t see this are the hypnotized American zombies glued to FOX “news”, CNN, Alex Jones and Hal Turner.
Here we talk about what it is like outside the prison walls, and at the other end of the computer screen.
Consider these examples. Obtained from "These 7 expats left the U.S. to start over—here’s how they earn an income overseas: ‘We spend less on all expenses’" which was Janet Blaser, Contributor@WhyWeLeftAmerica
All rights and credit to her, and all the standard disclaimers apply.
Catalina Viviel
Catalina Viviel
Catalina Viviel interviewed for jobs at several South American countries before finally getting an offer in Colombia.
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More and more people are discovering that not only can they live abroad and be happy, safe and comfortable, but that they can successfully earn an income.
That’s exactly what I did when I left the U.S. for Mazatlán, Mexico in 2006. I lived off a steady income from freelance editing jobs and running M!, a local arts and entertainment magazine I started.
Colin Bucell, 47
Colin Bucell
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Currently in Morocco, Colin Bucell lives on his sailboat, which doubles as an income source via private tours and excursions.
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Hometown: Los Angeles, California Currently an expat in: Morocco Occupation: Sailboat excursions Annual income: $12,000
In 2011, Colin Bucell had a dream to sail around the world. He took early retirement at age 37 and went first to Mexico. Since then, he’s lived in more than 60 countries.
“Every day is an exciting new adventure!” Bucell tells CNBC Make It from his sailboat in Morocco. “And all for a fraction of what my California expenses were.”
Bucell lives on his sailboat, which doubles as an income source via private tours and excursions — advertised through word of mouth — wherever he is. He’s found health care and food to be much cheaper everywhere he goes.
Spain, Thailand and Mexico are countries where he could happily settle down if he wanted to; he says it’s great that he’s been able to thoroughly test the livability of all of them.
Shawn Supra, 45
Shawn Supra
Shawn Supra, a musician and furniture restorer, currently lives in Australia with his wife Diana.
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Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Currently an expat in: Sydney, Australia Occupation: Musician and furniture restorer Annual income: $32,500
Love was the motivating factor behind musician Shawn Supra’s move to Australia in 2020, where he met his future wife Diana while on tour. They first settled in the U.S., but as things began to change politically and socially, they decided it was time to move to Australia.
“Living in the U.S., there’s such a sense of fear. It’s almost drilled into you that there’s danger around every corner. I don’t feel that here. Everyone is more relaxed,” Supra says.
He also likes the free health care in Australia, and that the income from his furniture restoration business entitles him to superannuation from the government — similar to U.S. Social Security benefits.
Kema Ward-Hopper, 39
Kema Ward-Hopper
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“We love our lives here. We’re treated as humans first,” says Kema Ward-Hopper, who now lives in Costa Rica with her family.
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Hometown: Houston, Texas Currently an expat in: Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica Occupation: English teacher and yoga instructor Annual income: $24,000 to $33,000
In 2017, after Kema Ward-Hopper was diagnosed with breast cancer and when Hurricane Harvey destroyed her Houston home, a family trip to Costa Rica turned into a permanent move.
“We love our lives here,” she says. “We’re treated as humans first. We didn’t always have the luxury of been seen as people in the U.S.”
Although the pandemic shut down Ward-Hopper and husband Willie’s income streams for months, they’re disciplined savers and their expenses in Costa Rica are low.
An added bonus was the birth of her son last year, even after doctors said chemotherapy had rendered her unable to conceive. “Health-wise, I did a complete 180 after moving here,” says Ward-Hopper. “I healed both physically and emotionally.”
Chasity Diggs, 37
Chasity Diggs
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“We’ve been able to exceed our goals without having to make sacrifices in our daily lives,” says Chasity Diggs, who now lives in Singapore with her family.
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Hometown: Greensboro, North Carolina Currently an expat in: Singapore Occupation: Behavior intervention specialist Annual income: $170,000
Chasity Diggs is no stranger to living outside the U.S. Before moving to Singapore about six months ago, she and her family lived in China.
The primary reason was so their oldest daughter could attend an international school. The family also wanted a better work-life balance and to be in a more diverse country.
“However, the best part of living overseas are the financial benefits. We’ve been able to exceed our goals without having to make sacrifices in our daily lives. Housing costs are covered by my employer, so we’re able to save a considerable amount of money each month,” says Diggs.
Carol Markino, 52
Carol Markino
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Carol Markino lives in Rome and works as an English teacher.
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Hometown: Dover, Ohio Currently an expat in: Rome, Italy Occupation: English teacher and language consultant Annual income: $13,500
Having visited Italy many times when she was in college, Carol Markino always knew that someday she wanted to stay there long-term. It’s now been 30 years since she moved to Rome.
“As an Italian-American, I’ve always been attracted to my roots,” says Markino. “I love that I live in a city that’s full of beauty — not just museums, but wonderful buildings, architecture and style.”
She also appreciates the culture: “Italians work hard, but they understand there’s more to life than just work.”
Tim Leffel, 57
Originally from: Tampa, Florida Currently an expat in: Guanajuato, Mexico Occupation: Travel writer Annual income: $60,000
Tim Leffel
Many factors drew Tim Leffel to Mexico, particularly the “perfect weather all year” and low cost of living.
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“It was one of those love-at-first-sight visits,” says Tim Leffel. “I was in a few central Mexico cities on assignment, and Guanajuato really struck a chord.”
Many factors drew him to Mexico, particularly the “perfect weather all year” and low cost of living. “We spend less on all expenses — including private school for our daughter — than we did just on rent and utilities in Tampa,” he says.
Well-traveled family and friends admire their lifestyle. Some were even inspired to move abroad themselves, while others “seem afraid of the scary world beyond the borders.”
“It’s the message that has been pounded into their heads. They’ve probably expected us to be kidnapped or robbed by now. I hope that by seeing a steady stream of happy photos as we live and travel around, they’re getting a bit of balance.”
Catalina Viviel, 48
Catalina Viviel
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Originally from New York, Catalina Viviel now lives in Bogota, Colombia.
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Hometown: Long Island, New York Currently an expat in: Bogota, Colombia Occupation: Teacher and resource room coordinator Annual income: $75,000
“I’d only been to Colombia once, when I met my dad’s entire side of the family for the first time,” says Catalina Viviel. “I never forgot that trip and the warmth of the people.”
Working in education, Viviel began her expat life with a two-year contract in Marrakech, Morocco. Then she went back to the U.S., where she found herself “itching to go abroad again.” She interviewed for jobs at several South American countries before finally getting an offer in Colombia.
“People thought I was crazy to change countries and become a single mom, all the while navigating a new language during a pandemic,” says Viviel. “Were there days I cried? Absolutely.”
Now halfway into her two-year commitment, Viviel says she’s not ready to leave and has requested to extend her contract.
“It’s amazing being able to reconnect with my Colombian roots, especially watching my daughter thrive in the country of our heritage,” she says.
Metallicman comments
Zhuhai City
The general comments from American expats that reside around the world are similar. It does not matter if you live in China (like MM here) or elsewhere. All of us share similar experiences.
[1] It’s a calmer; easier place to live.
The news” is not barking at as filling us with fear. The commercials are not screaming at us to buy things. We are not hearing about shootings, accidents, murders, rapes, government corruption, and all the rest. There are no advertisements for mind altering drugs, lawyers for legal settlements, bail bonding, or pawn shops.
People pretty much live their lives in peace.
[2] It’s a cheaper place to live.
You can live cheaper, and buy basic foods, local meals, and rent or own a house at a fraction of what it costs in the USA. Not only that, there aren’t the crazy taxes, regulations and fees tacked on to everything. You can get buy and live a simpler life either on retirement or working a simple part-time job.
Drawer slide
For instance, a drawer slide made in China is $3 a pair. It sells in the United States for $106 per pair. Unfriggin’ believable.
[3] The Government is concerned about domestic issues.
You don’t ever hear about the need to go to war!
You don’t hear about government troops in this nation or that country. You never hear about how “we must do something now about XXXXX!”. The government is focused on the lives of the people that in in the country. That’s it.
All in all, Americans have been corralled. They are in a pen within the geographic confines of the United States, and filled with fear of what lies outside of it. They are constantly bombarded with the idea that they are “special” and that the government is “exceptional” and “superior”.
It’s all a big lie.
And it is obvious to everyone who is paying attention. In the world today, it is common knowledge that the USA is undergoing a spectacular collapse.
What will happen is anyone’s guess, but the future for America does NOT look bright.
You know, all that you get out of the American “news” is manipulation, and fear mongering. Meanwhile the rest of the world continues to live, exist and prosper. One of those nations is Cambodia. It is a pretty poor nation, but it is growing.
Americans (and Europeans) might have noticed a “blip” on the media last year when Cambodia refuted all efforts by Mike Pompeo to absorb it into the American proxy military sphere. They wanted no part of that. Not only did they say so, but they bulldozed all the structures that the United States built for the nation as a symbol of “good will”. As well as capturing and ejecting the NGO “regime change” forces that were mobilizing to cause strife and discord.
Cambodia wants no part of that.
And it was a top-down decision.
Cambodia is next door to China, and China wants to help them develop. In the eyes of China, it is in their advantage to be surrounded by prosperity and happiness. When nations and people are happy and prosperous, there isn’t strife or conflict. Which is the exact opposite of what the United States has been doing over the last 75 years.
What an idea!
Surround yourself with good healthy societies, and then you interact and trade with them. Let them live their lives as they see fit.
Imagine that!
Here’s some short movie clips taken by a Chinese man (and his family) living in Cambodia. It is part of a private security force that attends important Cambodian officials. You will see scenes from city life, rural life, social life, and work life in the clips. You will also notice that Cambodia uses American currency, and that the country is very, very poor.
You will also note that these clips are banned in the United States for some unknown reason. The American version of Tictok has banned this and some other sites from Cambodia.
I have no clue as to why.
I hope that watching these clips helps give you, the reader, an appreciation of other nations, other cultures and other ways of life. And no, it’s not at all like America. And perhaps that’s a good thing, don’t you know.
Start with the first video and then go down the list one by one. Most are very short, and easy to download and view.
This was a little excursion out of the main stream media echo chamber and narrative. Never paid too much attention to Cambodia, eh? Well, that’s the way it is. There are all sorts of places all over the globe living life. These places live outside of the narrative of fear and manipulation.
So, in this instance, turn off the “news” about Afghanistan and how the world is collapsing in that section of the world. It isn’t. The American military presence left and they are sorting out the vacuum left behind. And I’ll tell you this, they want to be recognized as a stable and productive nation. Not an outlier.
So don’t believe the “news”. Look around you. Look at what is going on elsewhere. Pay attention to things the media is not reporting on.